I don’t know about you, but the election campaigns have me exhausted. Back in 2012 Illinois really wasn’t in play in the presidential election, and there weren’t particularly hot, high-profile races, so we got off easy. Not so this time. The governor’s race is a dead heat, and there are some house races in play.

I don’t even watch that much TV but I’m numb to the campaign ads. The foreboding music straight from a serial killer movie, the concerned voiceovers warning you that candidate A will dissect and eat your children if elected. And then the same thing, immediately after, about candidate B.

Politics are a mess, we’re more polarized than I can remember in my lifetime. And that has at least something to do with campaign money. As in too much of it. The Supreme Court tells us we can’t put limits on campaign spending because it’s a free speech issue. I tend to think of advertising as commerce, not speech, but apart from that, while I can understand the logic to the argument against limiting spending, there’s also an argument that money backed by big money is crowding out other speech. That can’t be healthy, as the marketplace of ideas can’t work if big money can monopolize that market.

It’s a real problem, and even many of the people who argue against any spending limits acknowledge it, but are hard pressed to find solutions. There are ideas out there, and I’ve had a few of my own.

One of them that makes sense to me in terms of direct campaign contributions, I’m not sure why we can’t limit that to individual citizens. No other organizations—corporations, lobbyists, unions, PACs—none, can contribute directly to any candidate’s campaign fund. Only individual citizens. And they have to be reported, as they are now. Limits? I don’t know…maybe, maybe not.

Another related idea is to allow individual citizens to only contribute to campaigns for offices that affect them. That is, I could only contribute to my state and local races, my own state’s senate races, and the presidential elections. I could not send money to other races. This seems like common sense to me, I could well be missing something.

Now, those organizations that still want to support candidates or issues—they still can buy ads arguing their case, but full disclosure of what organizations are funding those adds has to be part of them. If it’s an amalgamation of funders—a trade group spending the money of multiple donors, every one of those orgs has to be named. If we can ask drug companies to list dozens of possible side effects during every Viagra commercial, I think it’s fair to ask for full disclosure.

While we’re at it, corporations incorporate for good reason—they get many of the rights of an individual. So, if a corporation moves its headquarters to another country, well, they can’t contribute anything.

Smarter people than I have more ideas that are smarter than mine. Just not sure how to get them implemented. Of course, money will always find a way, but I don’t think that’s an excuse for how perverted things have become, or for not trying to manage the influence of campaign money.

Meantime, can’t wait to vote tomorrow morning, even if I’ll have to hold my nose for some of the choices.

One of the many, many reasons I decided to buy an iPhone two years ago was to support the idea of universal design: the iPhone 3GS was the first touch-screen device that blind people like me could take out of the box and use right away.  It comes with speech software called VoiceOver — built-in screen access for people who are blind. Miraculously, it allows blind people to interact using the touch-screen.

The iPhone 4 came on the market in 2010, just before I left town to train with Yellow Lab Harper. During training at the Seeing Eye I could hear phones murmuring text messages to the younger students in class while we were waiting in the lounge. Carlos regularly updated his Facebook status from his iPhone while we commuted in the Seeing Eye van together. He and Marcus would point their phones at their dogs from time to time to take photos, then manipulate their phones to send the photos home to loved ones.

My classmate snapped this photo of Harper on his iPhone and sent it to Mike.

Apple drastically reduced the price of the iPhone 3GS to $49 the very month I came home with Harper. I bought one, and after learning how to use it to make a phone call (in case of an emergency) I put off learning how to do anything else with it.

My two-year contract ends next month. I finally devoted time over the holiday break to climb the very steep VoiceOver learning curve so I can decide whether or not to renew.

The simplest way for you sighted iPhone users to understand how VoiceOver works is to give it a try yourself. Here’s how you turn VoiceOver on :

• go to Settings
• choose General
• choose Accessibility
• choose VoiceOver
• turn it on.

Still with me? Okay. Now press the home key. Slide your finger around the screen, and Voice Over will call out the icon you’ve touched. Don’t worry, it won’t select that icon, it will just call it out so you’ll know where you are on the screen. Hold the iPhone so that the earpiece is facing up, toward the ceiling. If you touch the left edge of the screen about an inch below the earpiece, you’re likely to land on the top left icon. VoiceOver will call out what that is. Flick one finger right to select the next one. If you flick your finger four times to the right , you’ll get to the first app on the second row of apps. If you come across an app you want to open, tap the screen twice, and…voila! Note: If you open an app BY MISTAKE, just press the Home button and you’ll return to the home screen.

Is your head spinning? Then you can imagine what a dither I was in the past two weeks learning how to listen to voice mail, Google, send and receive email using my iPhone. I can get into all that in a future blog post if you are really interested, but I’m guessing that all you sighted folks want to do right now is learn how to turn the #(@%! VoiceOver off. If you follow the bulleted directions above, below the heading at the top of the VoiceOver screen you’ll hear a button labeled “VoiceOver on.” Notice that VoiceOver gives you a hint out loud by saying, “Double-tap to toggle setting.” When you hear that, go ahead and Double-tap to turn VoiceOver off.

I reached a big goal over the weekend when, ta-da, I exchanged a series of text messages withmy sister Marilee. I’m OMW. TTYL!

Harper didn't know what to make of the Jacuzzi.

While Harper and I were giving an evening presentation at Door County Community Center in Wisconsin last Tuesday night, it started snowing. The next morning, there was 15 inches of snow on the ground.

I tuned in to the local AM radio station and learned Door County has an army of 35 snow plows. Only one of them was assigned to Sturgeon Bay, where Harper and I were staying. “We’ll pass through all the major streets once today,” an official said during an interview with the radio host. “But if anyone especially needs a street plowed, call me at home.”

School was cancelled on Wednesday, and so were the three presentations we were scheduled to give that day. Harper and I were stuck in our hotel room. Ever seen the movie The Shining? Maybe if Jack Nicholson had brought a dog with him he wouldn’t have had such a rough time. Harper and I played endless rounds of fetch with his squeak toy, tinkered with the Voiceover feature on my new talking iPhone, listened to audio books, enjoyed warm baths in the Jacuzzi (well, I did, not Harper–though he was interested) and wandered outside now and then so Harper could pee – and play – in the snow.

A voice from behind the front desk called out a friendly hello during one of our lonely walks through the lobby. It was the hotel bookkeeper. “I live just down the street, so I could walk here,” she said. A cook had made it in, too, so the hotel restaurant would be open for lunch.

My friend Jenny is director of Women and Children’s Services at Ministry Door County Medical Center, and she’s the one who got the ball rolling for Harper and me to come “up north” to make all these presentations. Her husband Dennis owns a truck, so later that evening they plowed through the snow to rescue Harper and me and drive us to the only tavern open in the storm. Neighborhood Pub boasts a wall full of TV screens and was offering a Lenten Special Fish Fry that night. Leinenkugel makes a draft Pub Ale especially for Neighborhood Pub, and it paired well with the perch. By the time we left the pub, it was packed.

Jenny’s cell phone rang on the ride back to my hotel. A man named Ralph Bronner had come from Milwaukee to hear me speak that night. He’d booked a room at my hotel, and he was disappointed my event had been cancelled. Was I willing to meet him personally? I turned to Jenny’s husband Dennis. “As long as you guys come along,” I said. They agreed.

Ralph’s caretaker, a woman from Poland, had muscled their car through drifting snow to get to Door County. We joined Ralph and some of his friends in his room, and over a bottle of wine he regaled me with stories of his father.

If you came of age in the 60s and 70s, you must remember bathing with Dr. Bronner’s all-natural peppermint soap. Shampooing with it. Brushing your teeth with it, too. Even more fun than the soap’s peppermint tingle was reading all the quirky philosophical all-one-God beliefs Ralph Bronner’s father wrote on the label. That’s right: Ralph’s father was the Dr. Bronner who invented the formula for the famous soap.

From what I could gather, Dr. Bronner was more interested in his soap than his kids. Ralph grew up in 15 different orphanages and foster homes. Dr. Bronner was committed to an insane asylum in Milwaukee but escaped in 1947 and fled to California to start his soap company. “They didn’t think he was crazy there,” Ralph told me. Ralph and his brother eventually joined the soap company, and now it is run by Dr. Bronner’s grandsons. Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap is still available in health food stores all over America, and the Bronner family is scrupulous about being an environmentally-friendly business. It gives employees generous bonuses and donates 70% of profits to charity. Over the years the Bronners have donated to arts programs in Door County. That’s how Ralph heard about my presentation, and that’s why he made the trip from Milwaukee to hear me speak.

We didn’t stay long in Ralph’s room. They needed to head out for dinner at, where else? Neighborhood Pub! Harper led me back to my room then for one last soak in the Jacuzzi. My trip to Door County may not have turned out the way I’d expected, but it sure was interesting. And here’s some good news: Jenny is going to try to work it out so Harper and I can return in the Fall to make up for the presentations that were cancelled. If Ralph Bronner makes the trip again, I’ll see to it that he gets a front row seat.

When I first heard that iPhones came with VoiceOver for the blind, I figured Apple must have done this just to get some good PR. I mean, come on. How could a blind person possibly use a touchpad?

Then I went to the Seeing Eye to train with Harper. All the young people (well, all the people under age 35, I guess) there used, you guessed it: iPhones. Their phones murmured text messages to them while we were waiting in the lounge. Carlos regularly updated his Facebook status while he and I commuted in the Seeing Eye van together. He and Marcus would point their phones at their dogs from time to time to take photos, then manipulate their phones to send the photos home to loved ones.

My classmate snapped this photo of Harper on his iPhone and sent it to Mike.

I worked on my knitting while we gathered for Seeing Eye lectures in the evenings. These iPhone kids spent that down time discussing their favorite apps. “Do you guys use Color Identifier?” They showed each other how to point the iPhone’s camera at things to hear it call out colors. The iPhone being the iPhone, of course, the color names were fun – and specific. “Crimson lipstick,” the robot’s voice would say. “Jukebox yellow.” “Moon Mist.“ I was intrigued. I wasn’t sold, however, until one of the students put the phone in my dirty little hands.

Marcus Engel and I were in the student lounge, killing time before it was our turn to do a route with our trainer. “Wanna try my iPhone,” he asked, placing the little gadget in my palm. “I’ll show you how to dial a number. Do you ever use ‘Tell Me’?” I do.

“Tell Me” is a service that yet another blind friend, the wonderful George Abbott, told me about in 2005. The White Sox were gearing up for the World Series back then, and I was having trouble keeping up with all the other teams in the running. You call 800-555-TELL for free and an automatic voice gives you the time, the weather, news and sports updates. Marcus was wise to choose “Tell Me” as a way to start me on the talking iPhone. I am so familiar with “Tell Me” that I felt comfortable giving it a try, and I knew what it should sound like if it worked. It was also reassuring to know that if I made a mistake it wouldn’t cost Marcus any money.

“Tap the screen to see where you are on the number pad,” Marcus said.” Double tap it if it’s the number you want.” I was expecting this to be a frustrating and time-consuming ordeal. To my amazement, I picked it up immediately. All I had to do was run my finger across the screen, and the voice called out “three!'” I moved my finger down. “Nine!” To the left. “Eight!” Tapped twice, and I was on my way. Spatial information. Imagine.

After I enterred all the numbers, Marcus told me to go to the bottom of the screen to push a button. I didn’t have to memorize special key commands to get there. I could just drag my finger to the bottom, and the iPhone called out the button when I found it. Tap twice, and the button was pressed.

Within 30 seconds, I’d connected to “Tell Me” and knew what the weather was supposed to be in Chicago that day. Warmer than in New jersey! Marcus brought up a web site next, explaining how I could swipe three fingers to scroll, hold down one location and tap another. There’s a learning curve to VoiceOver, he said. “But it’s so worth it.”

“There’s this cool rotor you activate by turning your fingers like a dial. You can double triple-finger tap to toggle speech, and a triple triple-finger tap…” Just then our trainer returned. Time to go out with our dogs. I welcomed the interruption. I’d learned enough. I was already sold.

Mike was thrilled to hear I’d finally come around to the iPhone – he’s been trying to get me to “go Mac” for years. The Apple store on Michigan Avenue here in Chicago has a full-time associate (they don’t like to call them salespeople) who is blind, and they offer regular classes to teach VoiceOver applications. Harper and I returned to Chicago on December 15. Best to wait until after the holiday rush before tackling the Apple Store.

The rush is over, and once we find some free time we’ll head to Michigan Avenue to make the big purchase. Only question now is…do I go with Verizon, or AT&T?