Pluses and Minuses of Apple's Leopard

Copyright © 2007 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Every Thursday, including Thanksgiving Thursday, we read from your e-mail. And a number of listeners were struck by my colleague, Michele Norris' interview about including children with disabilities in school and other everyday activities. She spoke with Dan Habib, the father of a 7-year-old boy with cerebral palsy.

Habib is trying to trying to include his son in all aspects of life and his documented the process in a film called "Including Samuel."

Mr. DAN HABIB (Creator, "Including Samuel"): It can be hard to do inclusion well. But I think as a matter of human rights and civil rights and for the benefit of our society, it's the right choice.

BLOCK: There's a lot of talk about inclusions' impact on schools, and that's what many of the comments we've received are about.

Peter Graber(ph) of Elkhart, Indiana writes: When kids with disabilities are not included, everyone loses. Teachers don't learn important skills that can be applied to the whole classroom. Other kids don't benefit from learning another perspective on the world, and a unique personality is lost to everyone if the kid with the disability is segregated from people who live, learn or communicate differently.

Jerry Eldemeier(ph) of Lawrence, Kansas has a different view. He sent this comment: Your story talked about Samuel's parents making the choice for their boy to be included. And while the film features a teacher who gives a different view, important stakeholders with no choice in the decision are left out - the other classmates and their parents.

Mr. Eldemeier goes on, my daughter, a good student, had five children with learning disabilities in her sixth-grade class who needed constant attention. The class size was over 30 and was taught by a first-year teacher. Class was chaos and the year was a waste.

He concludes, I feel the attention and resources spent on the special needs children who were included shortchanged my daughter.

Many of the Apple computer fans in our audience wrote in this week, unhappy with what they heard in a chat with technology writer Omar Gallaga of the Austin American Statesman.

Michele was talking with him about Apple's update to the Mac Operating System called Leopard. And together, they wonder what the next OS system would be called.

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

Okay, Omar, what's the deal with the names for these systems? The big cats -the Tiger and now the Leopard. What's next? The Panther?

Mr. GALLAGA: I think Steve Jobs just really digs cats. I don't know. I'm guessing Puma, maybe, the next operating system.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BLOCK: No. No. No, writes Dan Buchan(ph) of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The next version of OSX won't be called Panther - that was 2003. Or Puma - that was 2001. Here's a handy list of other cat names Apple has already used: Cheetah was used in 2001, Jaguar in 2002, Tiger in 2005 and, of course, Leopard 2007. For my money, Mr. Buchan writes, the next Apple operating system will be Lion.

Finally, I'm proud to say that I was part of a vegetable conversion yesterday. Listener Michael Short(ph) of Lawrenceville, Georgia, heard my interview with cookbook author Mollie Katzen in which she described a recipe for roasting Brussels sprouts.

He writes: I have hated Brussels sprouts since childhood, but was intrigued by Mollie's description. I called my wife, who loves Brussels sprouts, and told her if she would go to the store on her way home and get some, I would fix them. She did, I did, and I'm now a convert.

Michael Short continues, I will now endeavor to educate others of my previous mindset to be open to new ideas on old hatreds. Mr. Short concludes, hmm, I wonder if that would work on world politics.

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