'Meet Helen Keller'
Helen Keller was a wild child. She threw temper tantrums, kicking and screaming until she was exhausted. She grabbed food from everyone's plate at the dinner table and ate with her hands. Once she locked her mother in the kitchen for three hours.
Helen was not a "bad" girl. Her problems began when she was only 19 months old. After an illness called "brain fever," which may have been scarlet fever or meningitis, Helen lost her eyesight and hearing and couldn't speak. She was angry. She was frustrated. She had difficulty making herself understood. Helen's parents felt sorry for her and didn't know how to handle her. Yet despite her early difficulties, Helen became well educated and a respected leader who fought for the rights of the deaf and blind.
Helen, born on June 27, 1880, in the small farming town of Tuscumbia, Ala., was the oldest of three children of Arthur and Kate Keller. Helen also had two older half-brothers, born to her father before his first wife died. Her father was the editor of the town newspaper. They lived on a farm where they raised pigs, turkeys, chickens and sheep.
Through touching, tasting and smelling, Helen learned a great deal about the world she could no longer see or hear. She could recognize people and their ages just by the vibrations from their footsteps on a bare floor. When she walked around, she knew where she was by the different smells from the shops in town or from the flowers on the farm.
As she grew a little older, she tried to communicate. She shook her head to mean "no." A pull meant "come," and a push, "go." When people spoke, she touched their lips but couldn't understand their words. She tried moving her lips, but no one could understand her.
For years, Helen's parents took her to see many doctors and tried many treatments, but nothing would bring back her sight or hearing. It seemed she would forever live in a dark and silent world. Tuscumbia was a long way from any schools for the blind or deaf. A friend of Helen's mother suggested that they send Helen to an institution, wondering if she were even capable of learning.
But Helen's mother had read a book by Charles Dickens describing a deaf-blind girl he had met while visiting the United States. Dickens reported that this girl had been taught to communicate by finger spelling. Each letter of the alphabet was formed by moving fingers in different positions. Hoping Helen could be taught finger spelling too, the Kellers began looking for a teacher.
By Sherrill Kushner, LA Times; June 17, 2005.
Merkel has spent decades being underestimated. There are still plenty of observers of the German political scene who regard her myriad achievements as flukes. "Merkel has never given a speech that stayed in the memory," wrote her most recent biographer. She can indeed seem reserved and self-effacing at times, but there should be little doubt that she has confidence and ambition aplenty. "You could certainly say that I've never underestimated myself," she says with a smile that in another context could only be described as kittenish. "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious."
The daughter of a Protestant pastor who settled in the East German state of Brandenburg, Merkel excelled at math and science and originally pursued a career as a physicist. But growing up where she did, she discovered early on that there were limits to what she would be permitted to do. "In East Germany," she says, "we always ran into boundaries before we were able to discover our own personal boundaries."
Paradoxically, Merkel's life under communism may have helped when it came to starting a political career as the Iron Curtain began to crumble. She knew how to navigate around blockages and when to keep a low profile. Her rise to prominence went all but unnoticed, except by the rivals she deftly derailed along the way. Elected to the first parliament of the reunited Germany, she was appointed a Cabinet minister by Chancellor Helmut Kohl just one year later. He called her das Mädchen, "the girl." She was used to sexism. "There was no real equality in the German Democratic Republic," she says. "There were no female industrialists or members of the politburo." So she smiled her feline smile and made no protest but quickly distanced herself from her patronizing patron once he became entangled in a party finance scandal.
Childless and twice married, Merkel was cast as an indulgent mother to the electorate during the 2009 campaign. Though she claims to bake the occasional plum cake, she doesn't exactly match the ideal of a German hausfrau. Her second husband, an eminent chemist, often ducks out of official events. "He needs the working day for his science," says Merkel. Such attitudes may have annoyed traditionalists, but her quiet determination has helped her gain broad support well beyond the Christian Democrats' core voters. Even among those who identify themselves as Social Democrats, Merkel's unstuffy pragmatism, social liberalism and commitment to fighting climate change — a key issue in Germany — have made her surprisingly popular. A December poll by Germany's Infratest Dimap Institute showed Merkel was Germany's favorite politician, with 70% of Germans proclaiming themselves satisfied with her work.
Miranda Kerr
'Miranda Kerr secures coveted modelling deal with Prada and Jil Sander'
VICTORIA'S Secret angel Miranda Kerr has secured two of the most coveted advertising campaigns in the modelling world.
Kerr will feature in the high-end fashion advertising campaigns for Prada's and Jil Sander's autumn/winter 2010/11 collections.
It places her on equal footing with fellow Aussie supermodel Abbey Lee Kershaw, who has landed the advertising campaign for Chanel's autumn/winter 2010 collection.
Kerr has had a rapid ascent from lingerie model to celebrity supermodel and is now among the fashion world's elite.
Barely a year ago, Kerr got her first major assignment when she posed for influential photographer Terry Richardson alongside fellow Aussie beauties Kershaw and Catherine McNeil for the 2010 Pirelli calendar.
Then in February, she rejoined McNeil on Prada's runway for the autumn/winter 2010/11 show before appearing for a second time at Balenciaga's Paris Week show, this time modelling in its autumn/winter 2010/11 show.
The latest advertising coups for the luxury brands cement Kerr's new fashion status. She is only the second Australian model to have been shot for Prada, following in the footsteps of Gemma Ward.
"I think she's a very good little businesswoman," said Edwina McCann, Australian Harper's Bazaar editor.
"That in itself is incredible because she was the classic kind of Victoria's Secret girl, more into the lingerie/swimwear category than the high-end runway category."
Kerr, 27, found international celebrity through her relationship with Hollywood hunk Orlando Bloom, her multi-million-dollar contract as a Victoria's Secret angel, and as a regular GQ cover girl.
"I think people like Miranda are very good for fashion overall and I like the fact that models can become brands, because in a lot of ways it's more appropriate I think than celebrities," Ms McCann said.
June 3, 2010
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