As Ideal Vision marketing manager Joy Go expounded, “We didn’t purposely try and publicize this but this year, we decided to formally give the program a name, and we came up with The Gift of Sight: Shared Vision for a Clear Future. Providing free eye testing and eyeglasses to indigent communities, Ideal has partnered with civic organizations such as the Rotary, corporate entities like ABS and dzMM by joining their nationwide Bantay Bata caravans, and NGO’s. As a result, among those millions afflicted, there are many who can’t afford to have their eyes properly tested and get hold of prescription glasses.įor a decade now, Ideal Vision Center has been doing its own version of Corporate Social Responsibility, of “paying it forward.” Quietly and unheralded, it has yearly done its bit, giving something back for the success it has enjoyed in the marketplace. It afflicts millions and yet, in the scheme of things, we know only too well that there is a cost to having this problem properly addressed. Naturally, impaired vision is not something we purposely strive for.

Or how simple things like driving down the road and reading street signs become tempting fate when done without my glasses. Having been very nearsighted for much of my life (until I had my laser operation), I know only too well how embarrassing it can be having to read a newspaper smelling the newsprint because the broadsheet is practically at the tip of my nose. Louis Public Library.We always seem to take vision for granted, that we’ll wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed, yes, but still able to make out what time it is, or that we can read the papers, watch TV or see our face in the mirror. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments are provided.įor more information or to reserve a spot please email: on-street parking is available, as well as paid lots adjacent to Kingside Diner and at the Schlafly branch of the St. We’ll discuss this narrative, filled with period details and brimming with lust and deception, and share some of the questions and ideas that were generated by our readings. Lohr’s brilliant storytelling explores issues of illusion and reality, the mind and machines, and the roles of God and man. When a beautiful and seductive countess dies in the presence of the automaton, the Mechanical Turk falls under a cloud of suspicion, and the machine and his inventor become the target of espionage, persecution, and aristocratic intrigue.

But what the Hapsburg court hails as the greatest innovation of the century is really nothing more than a brilliant illusion. Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen unveils an amazing invention, the Mechanical Turk, an unbeatable chess-playing automaton. Join us for the latest WCHOF Book Group, The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr-an engaging narrative set in 18th Century Vienna at the height of the Enlightenment.

The Chess Machine by Robert Löhr