Tag: Politics

“LEE GOODIN, SAN FRANCISCO” Dad’s Letters to the Editor, 2007

On the first anniversary of my father’s death, I’m grateful to my stepmother for sending me three of his letters to the editor, clipped from the San Francisco Chronicle. One of them—from August 19 , was published eleven years to the day before his death. It’s humor apparently hit the mark, as the editors used his words “erector set” to… Read more

1984: Late to the Party Again, Essay 6 of #52essays2017

In the year 1984, I was in sixth grade, a scholarship child in a private girl school. The eighth graders were reading George Orwell’s 1984 and had plastered the walls with images of our headmistress that read, “Big Sister is Watching YOU.” We didn’t know what it meant, but we understood that it was witty and smart and that that… Read more

Helen Keller Tries To Tell You Her Story (Despite Your Helen Keller Jokes)

On to the black stage she steps. You believe you hear her cane tap tapping, then stop. Papers rustle. Suddenly you are blinded by a brilliant light. The light, emanating from a lamp on her head like that of a miner, creates dark smudges of her facial features. Under the brilliant light and shadow face, you see what appears to… Read more

THE HAND OF THE WORLD: Helen Keller on Social Blindness

[From Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913). This text has been lightly edited for apparent scanning errors and hyperlinked by me] As I write this, I am sitting in a pleasant house, in a sunny, wide-windowed study filled with plants and flowers. Here I sit, warmly clad, secure against want, sure that… Read more

Helen & Friends @ Zuccotti Park: Occupy Wall Street 5-year anniversary

“ASK ME WHAT I THINK OF CAPITALISM” That was the sign I made and carried with me to Occupy Wall Street Sunday. We finally made it to Zuccotti Park, after the fact from the standpoint of many who think the movement of the physical place is dead. But it was exhilarating for me and my companions nonetheless. Besides me and… Read more