I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart.

In Vision, a memoir of blindness and justice,

Federal Judge David Tatel writes,

hindsight is 2020, but memory isn't.

I think the truth is that I was deeply in denial and just trying

my best to get through each day as it came. Judge Tatel retired earlier this year after serving

30 years on the powerful and prestigious DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

In his memoir he writes about his career on the bench, but more importantly, he goes deeper into the loss of his eyesight in his 30s

due to retinitis bigmentosa. In this conversation first recorded for Washington

Post live on July 10th we talk about Judge Tatel's book, his views of the Supreme Court.

I try to get him to talk about justices on the court, emphasis on try, and how Vixen, his guide dog, changed his life.

I got Vixen pretty much at about the same time I started this memoir and the two of them together thinking deeply about my life and my

adapt adapting to declining vision and then ultimately to life without sight.

And Vixen gave me the freedom to talk about it in ways I never could.

Before we get started, I would like to give a to talk about it in ways I never could.

Before we get started, I would like to give a verbal description

of myself for our audience.

I am a devilishly handsome and newly minted 57-year- man with close cropped hair a little salt and pepper

stubble on my face and I'm wearing brown chunky frames a navy blue blazer and a blue gingham open-colored shirt.

Judge Tatel, please give a verbal description of yourself before we begin.

I too am a devilishly handsome but slightly older white man in my early 80s.

I'm wearing a jacket and a blue tie and most important sitting behind me to the left is my beautiful German

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