If the author L. P. Hartley lives on, it is for the opening sentence of his 1953 novel The Go-Between: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” A parallel line for disabled people might be: Disability is an alien land: the
Disability
Compassion
1. Introduction You cannot legislate compassion. It’s an aphorism wryly acknowledged in political and legal circles. You can pass laws telling people what to do, but you cannot tell them how to feel. In broad terms, it’s a good thing: We don’t
10 Things Blind People Do That Annoy Sighted People
Let me confess at the outset that this title is totally deceptive. I don’t plan to list ten such grievances. The title was inspired by “10 Things Sighted People Do That Annoy Me,” a video posted by Molly Burke, a 32-year-old blind motivational
Birthday Cake, Petulance and Harvard
Three seemingly disparate events came together for me the other morning. One was the time my Harvard Law School classmates celebrated my birthday during Contracts class. The second was an unintended slight that became the subject of a Zoom meeting.
An Artist Wife and a Husband Who Can’t See
I used to speculate what people thought of my wife Laura, an artist, being married to me, a husband who can’t see. Did some feel bad that I couldn’t appreciate her work and that she had a husband who couldn’t? How about when I attended an exhibit of
The Library of Congress and the State of Publishing Today
1 For most subscribers to this website, this post might seem like a tempest in someone else’s teapot. It is a complaint about recent changes in the Library of Congress’s talking book program designed primarily to benefit visually impaired people.