Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • The Luncheon Party

    by Jane Shortall

    Our dear friend John invited us to lunch, to celebrate his birthday. He is a tall, healthy looking, still reasonably fit mid-eighties ex Navy man. A torpedo just missed his ship during the war and he tells the story with gusto. He is brave, and it’s just as well …

    “I don’t want to have the lunch on my actual birthday,” he explained. “It’s the 13th and unfortunately falls on Friday, you see. Some people may be superstitious about something bad happening … I’m not at all, but I know some folks take this seriously.”

    We switched to Saturday and were all dressed up and ready to go at mid-day, as we waited for Maggie, the doyenne of the dinner party circle, who had kindly offered to drive us to the restaurant, having offered to first pick up John.

    We were to meet up with the other guests at the wonderful La Petite Maison, John’s splendid choice for a lunch party.

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  • 2010 Xtreme Eating Awards Given by the Nutrition Action Healthletter

    We subscribe to the Nutrition Action Healthletter produced by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, as do other members of our family. Their Food Porn section alone is gaspworthy. We use the newsletter to determine which foods and products we look for in the supermarket and which to avoid. The way we eat have been shaped by their research and revelations. What follows are paragraphs from their release of their article, “And the Envelope, Please: The 2010 Xtreme Eating Award Goes To…” by Jayne Hurley and Bonnie Liebman:

    Would you top a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizza with six Taco Bell Crunchy beef Tacos? And then eat the whole thing? Well, pass the Pepto-Bismol, please: The nutrition and food safety watchdogs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest today conferred its Xtreme Eating awards on nine items from seven American restaurant chains.

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  • Testifying About Rape Kit Backlogs

    Women’s Policy Inc reported on testimony given to the  House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, “Rape Kit Backlogs: Failing the Test of Providing Justice to Sexual Assault Survivors.” Here is some of that testimony available at the WPI site:

    Testifying during the first panel, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), discussed another bill she currently is working on to help eliminate the DNA backlog, the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act, H.R. 4114. Rep. Maloney, who sponsored the Debbie Smith Act (P.L. 110-360), said,  “Despite the availability of funds, it appears that some jurisdictions are unable to account for or process their backlogs — whether or not in evidence storage facilities or in crime labs. One of the real problems is that the demand for more DNA testing has outpaced the available capacity for analysis. My new bill, H.R. 4114, aims to help build that capacity, tackling only rape kits, and importantly, requiring jurisdictions to report rape kit backlog numbers — because we currently just don’t have the data. By creating incentives for jurisdictions to eliminate their rape kit backlogs, process their incoming rape kits in a timely manner, and publicly report their backlog numbers, this legislation would go a long way to ensuring that the purpose and intent of the Debbie Smith Act is fully realized.”

    “I’m sorry to say Los Angeles knows all too well about the rape kit backlog,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He continued,  “In 2008, a full accounting of rape kits sitting in storage for more than 30 days revealed that the backlog stood at over 13,000 kits between the city and county labs. A breakdown of the backlog revealed that over 200 kits in the county alone were older than ten years, and therefore beyond the statute of limitations for a rape case, even if a positive hit was discovered. Los Angeles is far from alone. Many other cities have these backlogs, whether their citizens know it or not … There is a simple step that we could take immediately to speed the processing of sexual assault evidence and to improve the efficiency of public labs. The National DNA Index System rule governs what can be uploaded into the national database. The rule requires that any crime scene evidence outsourced by a private lab must undergo a technical review by the public lab, which is a manual rechecking of the private lab’s work. The technical review of each kit is a time intensive process … For several years now, I have been calling on the FBI to evaluate this rule in light of the evidence that it is unnecessary and burdensome on overstretched public labs.”

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  • Desert Jewels – North African Jewelry, Flamboyant and Conspicuous Works of Art

    Striking jewelry and accompanying photographs of the treasures worn by the women of North Africa were assembled by Xavier Guerrand-Hermès into the exhibit, Desert Jewels.  We may never see get a chance to see the actual exhibit organized by the Museum for African Art but at least we can go to the online presentation and other museum websites for repeated ‘trips.’

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  • Scareware Revisited, Sophisticated And Fraudulent

    This informative file from the Federal Trade Commission is about a year old but well worth your time to review and follow:

    “Free Security Scan” Could Cost Time and Money
    Messages telling you to install and update security software for your computer seem to be everywhere. So you might be tempted by an offer of a “free security scan,” especially when faced with a pop-up, an email, or an ad that claims “malicious software” has already been found on your machine. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the scary message is a come-on for a rip-off.

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  • Ferida’s Wolff’s Backyard: Ahh, Autumn, Nature’s Palette

     

     Ferida's Backyard

    Ahh, Autumn

    It’s officially Autumn. The weather traditionally would be cooling down on its way to greet Winter. But this has been a strange season, weatherwise.

    Fewer jackets are being worn than expected and it’s not unusual to see kids still in shorts. Temperatures have been way warmer than average. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane trap the sun’s heat and have been warming Earth’s atmosphere.

    It seems like a warmer Fall would alter the timing of when leaves change their color but trees seem to know better. The leaves are glowing with brilliant reds and yellows and starting to fall in huge numbers.

    I used to like to crunch them when I walked down the street. I still do.

    Ahh, Autumn. It remains its beautiful self. Now it’s time to get out the rake and gather the fallen leaves.

    Crunch, crunch, crunch.

    Copyright Ferida Woolf, 2023

          

    Science of Fall Colors

    For years, scientists have worked to understand the changes that occur in trees and shrubs during autumn. Although we don’t know all the details, we do know enough to explain the basics to help you enjoy nature’s multicolored display. Three factors influence autumn leaf color:

    • leaf pigments
    • length of night
    • weather

    The timing of color changes and the onset of falling leaves is primarily regulated by the calendar as nights become longer. None of the other environmental influences – such as temperature, rainfall, food supply – are as unvarying as the steadily increasing length of night during autumn. As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with Nature’s autumn palette.
     

  • Not So Sexy – The Health Risks of Secret Chemicals in Fragrance

    The Environmental Working Group and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics have released a report about fragrances containing chemicals that can trigger allergic reactions or disrupt hormones. What follows are excerpts from the releases associated with the report:

    In 1973 Congress passed the federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The law, which requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on the product labels, specifically exempts fragrances. Since then, the vague word “fragrance” is all you’ll find on the label. If there’s anything to be grateful for in this, “fragrance” is a recognizable word that is easily avoided by label readers.

    The FDA has not assessed the vast majority of these secret fragrance chemicals for safety when used in spray-on personal care products such as fragrances. Most have not even been evaluated by the safety review panel of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) or any other publicly accountable institution.

    A rose may be a rose. But that rose-like fragrance in your perfume may be something else entirely, concocted from any number of the fragrance industry’s 3,100 stock chemical ingredients, the blend of which is almost always kept hidden from the consumer.

    Makers of popular perfumes, colognes and body sprays market their scents with terms like “floral,” “exotic,” or “musky,” but they don’t disclose that many scents are actually a complex cocktail of natural essences and synthetic chemicals — often petrochemicals. Laboratory tests commissioned by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and analyzed by Environmental Working Group revealed 38 secret chemicals in 17 name brand fragrance products, topped by American Eagle Seventy Seven with 24, Chanel Coco with 18, and Britney Spears Curious and Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio with 17.

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  • Sovereign Debt Crisis: A Governor Explains the Fed’s Important but Limited Role

    Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo testified on the European sovereign debt problems and related international stabilization effort in front of the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade and the House Committee on Financial Services. What follows are an excerpt from that testimony after Governor Tarullo presented the evolution of the financial turmoil in Europe:

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  • Lifelong Pursuits: Musing on the Triple Crown

    Joan L. Cannon writes: Our lovely little mare rested her muzzle on my husband’s shoulder every night when he went out before bed to make sure the water buckets were full. I think of our handsome big gelding who was so intrigued by the tree we planted in the middle of the pasture that he pulled it up and trotted triumphantly around the field with it between his teeth, brandishing it like a flag.

  • “Gardens Are Works of Art Rather Than Nature”

    We picked up our copy of Humphry Repton; Landscape Gardening and the Geography of Georgian England by Stephen Daniels in order to reintroduce ourselves to his vast number (400 during a thirty-year career) of landscape commissions.  New York’s  Morgan Library and  Museum is presenting Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art and Landscape Design, an exhibition that demonstrates how the Romantic Movement in literature influenced the style of landscape design in England, France, Germany, and the United States.

    The Morgan site notes that: The Romantics looked to nature as a liberating force, a source of sensual pleasure, moral instruction, religious insight, and artistic inspiration. Eloquent exponents of these ideals, they extolled the mystical powers of nature and argued for more sympathetic styles of garden design in books, manuscripts, and drawings, now regarded as core documents of the Romantic Movement. Their cult of inner beauty and their view of the outside world dominated European thought during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

    The exhibition features approximately ninety highly influential texts and outstanding works of art, providing a compelling overview of ideas championed by the Romantics and also implemented by them in private estates and public parks in Europe and the United States, notably New York’s Central Park.

    Also on view are two manuscript ‘Red Books‘ by Humphry Repton (1752–1818), the leading landscape architect of his time and author of theoretical treatises greatly admired by Pückler and other European connoisseurs. In these publications and the Red Books (known for their characteristic red bindings), Repton developed a technique of showing before-and-after views of picturesque scenery so that his readers and clients could see at a glance what he expected to accomplish.

    Repton’s biographer Daniels also was the author of a Gothic Gallantry: Humphry Repton, Lord Byron and the Sexual Politics of Landscape Gardening, from which we’re quoting:

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