“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” – Helen Keller

The Life of Helen Keller

The name of Helen Keller is known around the world as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds, yet she was much more than a symbol. She was a woman of luminous intelligence, high ambition and great accomplishment who devoted her life to helping others. During her lifetime, Helen Keller was consistently ranked near the top of "most admired" lists. She died in 1968, leaving a legacy that Helen Keller International is proud to carry on in her name and memory.




“The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.” − Helen Keller


The Legacy of Helen Keller

Founded by Helen Keller in 1915, Helen Keller International is one of the world’s premier international not-for-profit organizations dedicated to preventing blindness and reducing malnutrition. Working worldwide, we combat the root causes and extended consequences of blindness and malnutrition by establishing affordable and sustainable programs that are based on scientific evidence, original research and an unwavering determination to succeed against challenges that can too often be seen as insurmountable.



"The world is full of trouble, but as long as we have people undoing trouble, we have a pretty good world." − Helen Keller



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The Spirit of Helen Keller Gala

HKI will host its eighth annual Spirit of Helen Keller Gala on May 22, 2013 at Christie's in New York. The event will raise awareness and funds for HKI's sight- and life-saving programs in 22 countries around the world. We are thrilled to announce that Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will accept the Helen Keller Humanitarian Award in recognition of her tireless dedication to improving food and nutrition security, enhancing the health of tens of millions of women and children around the world. This year, we will also present longtime Trustee and devoted HKI advocate Kate Ganz with the Spirit of Helen Keller Award and generous HKI supporter Lions Clubs International with the Helen Keller Visionary Award. Christopher Burge, Honorary Chair of Christie’s, will serve as our Gala Honorary Chair.

http://www.hki.org/about-helen-keller/



Overview
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The Story of my Life is her autobiography written about how teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, as she learned to communicate. The movie "The Miracle Worker" was made about this story.

Helen Keller wrote "The Story of My Life" in 1903, and it was published when she was 22. This volume is supplemented with With Her Letters (1887-1901) And Accounts of Her Education, Including Passages from the Reports and Letters of her Teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, By John Albert Macy

From the first chapter: "It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but "the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important."

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-story-of-my-life-by-helen-keller-with-her-letters-helen-keller/1114371994

Helen Keller
As Mystic

By Norman D. Livergood



“...Try to imagine, if you can, the anguish and horror you would experience bowed down by the twofold weight of blindness and deafness, with no hope of emerging from an utter isolation! Still throbbing with natural emotions and desires, you would feel through the sense of touch the existence of a living world, and desperately but vainly you would seek an escape into its healing light. All of your pleasures would vanish in a dreadful monotony of silent days. Even work, man’s Divine Heritage—work that can bind up broken hearts— would be lost to you. Family and friends might surround you with love, but consolation alone cannot restore usefulness, or bring release from that hardest prison— a tomb of the mind and a dungeon of the body...”

Helen Keller, September 4, 1948

http://www.hermes-press.com/keller.htm

On Veterans Day I posted a picture of my dad on his way to the Veterans Day parade. A social worker took several of the veterans. I had an appointment that day and was unable to be there. My sister snapped the first picture at the nursing home. I linked it below.

My dad is 91 years old and suffers from Alzheimer. He was the youngest of four captains on a mine sweeper in WWII.

The picture was taken by a Boston Globe photographer during the parade. A young Vet honored my dad that day. The social worker is the one that is standing behind with her hand over her mouth. Tears~



This is my Dad at Veterans Day parade, huddled in his wheel chair.... Vet took off his coat and put it around his shoulders..It was cold and he stood there with short sleeves....Just an random act of kindness...



http://mickeymac.smugmug.com/DisneyDestinations/Veterans-Day-2013/i-TjXRhxT

Earlier picture and post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024017236

President Barack Obama has written and talked often about the pain of having his own dad absent from his life growing up, and why he has tried so hard to be a good father himself.

Even his fiercest critics seem to agree he’s done a good job. He spends as much time with his girls as a leader of the free world could, and he never seems to mind looking a little goofy for his girls....



















More

http://thegrio.com/2013/06/16/the-best-photos-of-barack-obama-being-a-dad/

Two more of my favorites~





And the book he wrote for them...



The cover features an illustration of Mr. Obama’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, as they stroll across a grassy lawn with the family dog, Bo, leading the way.

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The publisher said 500,000 copies will be printed, and that proceeds from sales will go to a scholarship fund for children of soldiers who are killed or injured. A digital edition of the book will be released simultaneously with the print edition.

BOG

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My favorite quote from Harper Lee's book, To Kill A Mockingbird. I think that is speaks volumes coupled with the image of President Barack Obama.

FB

The Trailer to Girl Rising

UTUBE



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About:

Girl Rising is distributed by CNN Films and Gathr, an innovative demand-based theatrical distributor. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Selena Gomez and other A-list actresses contribute voice performances to the film, which features original music from Academy Award winner Rachel Portman, in collaboration with Hans Zimmer.

The film spotlights unforgettable girls like Sokha, an orphan who rises from the dumps of Cambodia to become a star student and an accomplished dancer; Suma, who composes music to help her endure forced servitude in Nepal and today crusades to free others; and Ruksana, an Indian "pavement-dweller" whose father sacrifices his own basic needs for his daughter's dreams. Each girl is paired with a renowned writer from her native country. Edwidge Danticat, Sooni Taraporevala Aminatta Forna and others tell the girls' stories, each in it's style, and all with profound resonance.

These girls are each unique, but the obstacles they faced are ubiquitous. Like the 66 million girls around the world who dream of going to school, what Sokha, Suma, Ruksana and the rest want most is to be students: to learn. And now, And now, by sharing their personal journeys, they have become teachers. Watch Girl Rising, and you will see: One girl with courage is a revolution.

DIGNITY. They have insulted him, reviled him, disrespected him and pushed him and he has maintained his dignity. He has taken more garbage from them than any other man could and yet he maintains his grace and dignity. He maintains his concern for the American people, for our health and our economy even though they have fought him at every turn. He still stands up for what is right. Never has a President faced such disrespect and opposition. And yet, he maintains his dignity.
~ — with Donna Lewis Connelly.

FB

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=569934119735215&set=pb.472422969486331.-2207520000.1383869655.&type=3&theater

Dear GOP,

Yes, and you, the Tea Party terrorists.

Kudos, you all have done an amazing job of pissing of a huge block of voters. You have alienated, abused and demeaned us. You want our votes, yet you throw our rights in our faces. You have made it your job to take away our rights and liberties. I guess in a way we should be honored with all the attention that you bestow on us, sadly for you we are not. You wish us to dance at the cotillion with you, yet we see it as the dance of the macarbe.

You guessed it, this is about the women's vote.

You are such a sad party, you don't know us and you never will. We have suffered far more than you ever will in your lifetime, yet we are strong. You take from us, our rights over our own bodies. You are anti-woman to the core. You condemn not condone , VAWA, equal pay for women,preventative care for women and so much more. You condone forced trans-vaginal ultrasound, rape, and abuse.

You think of us a weak and stupid, we need the big bad congress to tell us how to run our lives. The good old party of shriveled old white men, and some promising neanderthal new comers, need to steer our course, since we are to stupid to know not what to do. Excuse me this is 2013 is it not?

We are fired up and ready to go! You all missed that didn't you. Did you watch Wendy Davis, she stood up! Damn she was on fire as were her supporters. They are going to rock Texas! They are going blue. You all try, I know you do. You all proved that when you stopped the women that went to watch the decision on Wendy Davis's speech. You confiscated their tampons at the door, wow, those could have been lethal weapons! Guns, as was reported were okay, yet tampons were not. You once again tried to debase and humiliate us. You are a sick bunch.

So a word to the repukes, you have your heads so far up your collective asses that you can no longer see the forest for the trees. You see s**t, your world is brown and it reeks of the vile hate that you spew.

So, for everyone of you that have a woman in your life, mother, aunt, sister or daughter, I say get out there and vote. Let's not get thrown under the bus.

Our voices as one. They are strong!

GOTV 2014 and beyond~

:patriot

edit to add

I posted this a while ago, it fits here.

Women Rising~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018422390

The Great Georgia

"I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe







The Great Isabelle

"I trust my instinct, I trust myself. Finally." ~ Isabelle Adjani