In 1981, when I was representing criminal defendants on appeal, Vicky, a girl I’d known since childhood, was murdered. Vicky was the youngest daughter in the family that my family was closest to when we lived in Sheffield, England, between 1964
Morality and justice
The Ophthalmologist
I’ve come to dislike articles by blind people that expose the insensitivity that sighted people can display. They tend to be one-sided, with the sighted offender looking stupid while the blind character is all innocence. But once in a while such a
Early Spring
It’s still February, but on Saturday we were given a glimpse of spring here in the improbably rural ambiance of a ninth floor terrace in Brooklyn Heights, across the East River from Wall Street. Already for a few days, a mourning dove had been cooing
How Can We Talk About Race? Thoughts Based on How We Talk About Disability
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is quoted in the December 10 edition of the New York Times as saying: “I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.” He went on to say
Compliments
It can be hard to take a compliment gracefully. Sometimes we feel undeserving. Other times we wonder if we are being manipulated. There are times we feel a compliment is discordant with our actual achievement, such as when veterans of recent wars
The Samurai, ISIS and Glory
Reading Yukio Mishima’s novel, Runaway Horses, about failed Samurai rebellions in nineteenth and twentieth century Japan, has caused me to look at ISIS from a safe distance. In both cases, the ideology is violent and the premature deaths of its