Ellen Goodman speaks and signs

by Carolyn Wyman

books

Ellen Goodman only recently has been able to think about Philadelphia without breaking into a cold sweat. That's because her most vivid memory of the city is of the day in the mid-1980s when she got on a plane to Albany to give the commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania.

Fortunately, she discovered her mistake before the plane had taken off and saved herself from becoming Penn's most infamous commencement speaker by having a most un-Ellen Goodman-like hissy fit and demanding a return to the loading gate.

A longtime nationally syndicated columnist currently featured in more than 400 newspapers (but locally only in the Doylestown Intelligencer), Goodman is known for a thoughtful, measured assessment of social and political issues that is almost out of style in these days of Bill O'Reilly, Michael Moore, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

In recent columns, she wonders aloud why female CEOs who give up their jobs to raise their kids are heroes and poor ones who want to do the same thing are bums; she suggests that the institution of marriage has more to fear from Britney Spears' recent visit to Vegas than it does from the legal union of longtime same-sex partners.

As for John Kerry, a fellow Boston liberal whom she knows quite well: "He sees things in gray," she said on the phone from her hotel room in Florida recently. "He has a very layered, complex understanding of an issue like, say, NAFTA. The question is, Can that be heard in a campaign that is covered by a media that more and more tends to see things in black and white?"

Complex understanding also describes the thinking Goodman displays in Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times (Simon & Schuster), a new collection of columns (including her very funny Penn "Commencement Confession") that she will share with Free Library audience members on Friday -- providing she gets on the right plane.

Ellen Goodman speaks and signs Fri., March 19, 8 p.m., $8-$12, Free Library Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-569-9700.

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