Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • Voices in American Fashion and Design USA: Contemporary Innovation

    The Cooper-Hewitt, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, held this event a number of months ago with well known designers as part of a larger exhibit. It is 1 hour, 2 minutes in length.

    Washington Post Style Editor Robin Givhan, leads a conversation with past National Design Award Winners Francisco Costa (Women’s Creative Director of Calvin Klein Collection), Yeohlee Teng, and Maria Cornejo about their work and the role of fashion in contemporary culture. Their designs are featured in Design USA: Contemporary Innovation.

    The craft section of Design USA features such sections as one on Yeohlee Tang (see above as one of the National Design winners in conversation and a favorite of ours as a designer for all ages), Aveda Corporation, Ralph Rucci and Nike:

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  • Toulouse-Lautrec and Paris

    Although the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition is presently at the San Diego Museum of Art, we could access few of the works on view. So, we went exploring and found  Clark University’s original presentation of the exhibit and its press release.

    The Clark showed (and now has lent)  nearly its entire extraordinary collection of works by the great French painter and printmaker Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901).

    Toulouse-Lautrec and Paris revels in Montmartre’s raucous streets, cabarets, theaters and circuses — venues frequented by modern artists seeking inspiration from the world of entertainment at the turn of the century. The exhibition  showcased Toulouse-Lautrec’s magnificent capacity for both quiet intimacy and theatrical flair in a variety of media.

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  • Vacation Travel: Tracking Oil Washing Ashore on Beaches

    The National Resources Defense Council is publishing updated reports on the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill by the use of mapping. The issue of dispersants and their effect on what can be seen is also discussed on their website:

    “The map tracks the history of closures, advisories, and notices by county for beaches that have been affected by the oil spill. The tar ball icon indicates counties with any historical or current beach actions related to the oil spill. The sand pail icon marks counties that have not had official closures, advisories, or notices due to the oil spill. Please click on each county or parish to view the history of beach oil spill closures, advisories, and notices within that county.”

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  • New Proposed Cosmetic Law and a Shopper’s Guide

    In our wallet is a list of the Environmental Working Group’s organic foods recommended for purchase in the supermarkets and smaller markets: The ‘Dirty Dozen’, those foods that should specifically be only purchased when organic. Foods that are as pesticide free as possible are also listed.

    Now there’s a shopper’s guide to cosmetics that may be cut out and carried in your wallet; cosmeticsdatabase.com should also be consulted. And read our excerpted paragraphs from the new proposed cosmetics law, HR 5786 below*

    SAFER SHOPPING TIPS

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  • Producer to Rely On: California’s Landmark Vineyards Consistently Produces Top-Rated Chardonnays

    by Sharon Kapnick

    There’s nothing like consistency — at least when something is consistently excellent, like the wines of Landmark Vineyards. They’ve repeatedly won high ratings from Robert M. Parker Jr.’s Wine Advocate, Steve Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar (although Tanzer is not nearly as well known as Parker,  he’s extremely well regarded by wine cognoscenti) and other influential wine publications.

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  • Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths and The Philosopher’s Walk

    Over 15 years ago, the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong and the Urban Council, organized an exhibition, Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths, One Thousand Years of ChineseTextiles, held at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 1995. We found it when searching for photographs available for viewing of the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

    For instance, the Kesi (slit tapestry) robe,  possibly made for the Empress Dowager in c.1900 reflects a combination of colors that today would be extremely desirable. The Empress Dowager preferred pastel shades of lavender and turquoise with designs of spider chrysanthemums interspersed with longevity characters.

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  • Stateline, Sales Tax Holidays: Easy to Sell But Hard to Justify

    Stateline, the Pew Center on the States works to advance state policies that serve the public interest. It has produced the following article by Joey Peters:

    “Starting late this week and  continuing through mid-August, some 16 states will kick off an event that has become a ritual of back-to-school season. They will temporarily suspend sales taxes on pens, pencils, binders and bookbags, as well as moderately-priced clothes, and in some cases, computers.”

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  • An 80-ish Birthday Party for My Aunt, the Pistol

    by Ferida Wolff

    My aunt is, and always has been, a pistol. She knows her mind and has no qualms about sharing her thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. Like at her 80-ish birthday party.

    Why 80-ish, you might ask. Well, it was supposed to be a party for her 80th birthday but stuff interfered. Her daughter broke a leg, for instance, and needed special care. And her brother-in-law died. Family has a way of taking precedence.

    It seemed like the party idea would fade but then this was my aunt, after all, and she really wanted that party. So around her next birthday, we received an invitation. It invited us to her 80th birthday party in her 81st year. And to emphasize that our presence was desired, there was a photo of my aunt facing a donkey with the words, “Get your donkey (substitute a synonym for donkey) over here.” It was classic.

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  • FAQs for Seniors on Health Care Reform

    The National Council on Aging (NCOA) has identified the top twelve facts that  seniors should be aware of concerning the health reform law. A Harris poll entitled “Straight Talk” reveals that only 17% of seniors knew the correct answers to more than half the factual questions posed about these key aspects of new law and only 9% knew the correct answers to at least two-thirds of the questions. None of the 636 older adults interviewed for the poll knew the correct answers to all twelve of the factual questions.

    Here are some examples of issues that were not clearly understood:

    1. Only 14% of seniors knew that the law does not cut Medicare payments to doctors; 45% answered incorrectly and 41% said they did not know.

    2. Only 24% of seniors knew that it is projected to extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund.

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  • FDA Panel Wants Tougher Restrictions on Opioids; Painkiller abuse matches illegal drug abuse

    “An FDA advisory committee voted 25-10 to reject the agency’s proposed plan to prevent inappropriate prescribing, misuse, and abuse of extended-release opioid painkillers, saying the plan lacks the teeth to stem the ‘public health crisis’ of opioid addiction, overdose, and death.”

    “The agency’s plan to put a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) in place would have required drug companies that make extended-release opioids to develop educational programs to guide physicians in patient selection, dosing, and patient monitoring. Prescribers were also to have been trained to counsel their patients on how to safely store and dispose of opioids.”

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