Obama biography

Greetings. Those interested in learning about the new president in a descriptive format, be it on TV or on the web, will find this information helpful. The following announcement was taken from an email message, so please pardon any weird formatting. Enjoy.

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NAD Announces Accessible Obama Biography Online

The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) of the National
Association
of the Deaf (NAD) is pleased to announce that it has teamed with Arts &
Entertainment Television Networks (AETN) to provide captions and
description
(narration added to visual program elements during natural programming
pauses) to the A&E Biography of Barack Obama in celebration of his
Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. For the first
time,
this episode from the popular Emmy award-winning Biography series is
accessible on the Internet to the more than 50 million Americans with
hearing or vision loss - including millions of students who are blind,
visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind.

As part of the agreement between the DCMP and AETN, everyone can enjoy
the
streamed version of the A&E Biography of Barack Obama on DCMP's Web site www.dcmp.org/obama
for a two-week period beginning January 20, 2009,
the
date of the Inauguration. Viewers will be able to choose between a
captioned, described, or captioned AND described version of the program.
After February 2, 2009, access will be limited to registered DCMP
clients
(those who qualify for DCMP services include teachers, parents, and
others
involved with educating K - 12 students who are blind, visually
impaired,
deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind). Description of the Barack Obama
Biography was donated by Joel Snyder, director of the American Council
of
the Blind's (ACB) Audio Description Project. Captioning was provided by
CaptionMax.

About "Biography: Barack Obama"

This cable-television biography about the life of Illinois senator
Barack
Obama was made before he began campaigning to be the Democratic party's
candidate for the 2008 presidential race. Still, the program suggests
Obama
has one or another kind of profound, American destiny as a mixed-race
activist who never comfortably fit into one or another group, and had to
look deep into his own roots to understand his identity. The son of a
white
American mother and black Kenyan father, Obama was abandoned by the
latter
when he returned to his native country to work for its improvement.
Raised
by his mother-whom Obama credits with teaching him many of his
values-and
his grandmother, Obama lived in Hawaii as a child but moved to Indonesia
for
a few years when his mom remarried. There, Obama saw cyclical poverty
and
the underlying factors that perpetuate it before returning to Hawaii.
Interviews with childhood friends and his sister describe Obama's
restlessness before attending Harvard law school and propelling himself
into
a life of public service and community activism. Often accused of
lacking
enough political experience to qualify him for the White House, Obama
comes
across in this show as a visionary and experienced consensus-builder who
can
reach across opposing points of view. The program ends with details
about
Obama's entry into the U.S. Senate and his rise in the Democratic party,
but
a post-program coda catches us up with the history of his recent
campaign.
-Tom Keogh (excerpted from Amazon.com)