Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • Splitting the MMS Into Two, Call for Investigation of Oil Drilling Safety and Shutting Down the Atlantis Platform

    Today the Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources released the following statement after Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar announced a proposal to split the Minerals Management Service (MMS) into two distinct agencies – one to inspect oil rigs and enforce safety regulations and one to oversee leasing and royalty collections:

    “The recent Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion raises renewed questions about the organization and management of MMS. It has long been evident, and I have repeatedly argued – as illustrated by clear ethical conflicts between its duties to both leasing and royalty collections – that too many responsibilities and too much power reside under one roof.

    “Given this disaster in the Gulf, one has to ask whether leasing and safety policing are like oil and water and simply do not mix.  I look forward to discussing Secretary Salazar’s proposal to separate these functions in greater detail when he testifies before the Committee as part of a two-day oversight hearing on the BP oil rig explosion on May 26 and May 27.”

    The Associated Press reports,  “A federal judge was asked Monday to shut down a BP oil and gas platform that operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents in the same part of the Gulf as the company’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill.”

    The Wall Street Journal reported that “The top federal official who led regulation of offshore oil drilling at the Minerals Management Service will retire at the end of the month, according to people familiar with the situation.”

    In March, a letter sent by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D) of Arizona on March 2, 2010 called for a different  investigation, as evidenced by the following release:

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  • Who Manages Oil Resources in the Gulf of Mexico? Investigating the MMS Culture

    What follows are some sections from a Mineral Management Service report about an investigation into the agency that manages the nation’s natural mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and on some federal and Indian lands. Although the report was filed in September, 2008, it does offer a view of the Service’s culture:

    RESULTS IN BRIEF

    We initiated this investigation in July of 2006 after receiving allegations from a confidential source (CS) that improprieties were occurring within the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) Royalty in Kind Program (RIK).

    The CS specifically alleged that RIK marketers had developed inappropriate relationships with representatives of oil companies doing business with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). The CS asserted that the inappropriate relationships included RIK employees frequently attending oil and gas industry social functions and accepting gifts from company representatives.

    Our investigation confirmed that between January 1, 2002, and July 2006, 19 RIK marketers and other RIK employees – approximately 1/3 of the entire RIK staff – had socialized with, and had received a wide array of gifts from, oil and gas companies with whom the employees were conducting official business. With respect to eight specific RIK employees, these gifts exceeded the allowable limits.

    We also discovered that two of the RIK employees who accepted gifts also held unauthorized outside employment. Both of these employees had failed to seek MMS approval for their outside work and similarly failed to report the income they received from this work on their financial disclosure forms. In addition, we learned that one MMS employee, not affiliated with the RIK Program, had received approval for outside work but had failed to report the income received from it.

    Finally, our investigation revealed an organizational culture lacking acceptance of government ethical standards, inappropriate personal behaviors, and a program without the necessary internal controls in place to prevent future unethical or unlawful behavior.

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  • Economic Snapshot: Unmarried Women Continue to See High Unemployment

    The Center for American Progress released an economic snapshot by  Heather Boushey and  Liz Weiss that reflects a serious economic reality for unmarried women:

    New data released last week by the Labor Department shows the continuing consequences of the Great Recession for unmarried women. This group continues to experience high and extended unemployment as well as underemployment, and this underscores the urgent need for Congress and the administration to continue to focus on job creation and policies to spur demand and assist the unemployed.

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  • Another Woman on the Supreme Court May Position More Women to Enter Politics and Government

    Nichola Gutgold writes: It is unusual for male power figures to refer to their role model status, because men and boys do not need proof that powerful positions are open to them. The reality is that politics and the Supreme Court remain overwhelmingly male enterprises.

  • Walk This Way Exhibit; Shoes include a Manolo, a pair of slap-sole shoes and a pair worn by Marilyn Monroe

    In 2007, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts held an exhibit in which “visitors might find a pair of Venetian chopines next to a painting of the city by Canaletto, a woman’s shoe from the late 1790s embroidered with neoclassical scrolling grape vines exhibited with an ancient statue of the Greek god Dionysus, or a pair of contemporary wedges with rococo carved heels from MIU MIU’s most recent collection alongside eighteenth-century carved and gilt furniture.”

    “Famously difficult to find, Manolo Blahnik’s Mary Janes were declared an ‘urban shoe myth’ by Carrie Bradshaw in an episode of Sex and the City. (She found a pair hiding in a closet at Vogue magazine.) The episode captured perfectly how shoes are powerful objects of desire. Shoes’ relative affordability compared to fine clothing, as well as their luxurious materials and evocative shapes, have made owning the right pair not only an obsession, but a sensual pleasure.”

    Man’s shoe possibly Italian, 1650–60, Italy (possibly); Overall: 15 x 8.5 x 22 cm (5 7/8 x 3 3/8 x 8 11/16 in.), Other (heel): 8cm (3 1/8in.), Leather, silk cord and tassels.  Classification: Costumes,  The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection

    “Men and women wore the same shoe styles for much of the seventeenth century. The square-toed shoes that peek out from the bottom of Margaret Gibbs’ apron, as seen in a portrait in the MFA’s collection, were probably close in style to the man’s shoe shown here. Made of leather that was treated with alum to produce a white surface, this shoe features fashionable red heels and soles, and elongated, forked toes. The overhang of the toes can be seen in the Gibbs portrait as well. The latchets would typically have been tied with a silk ribbon or fancy rosettes. This shoe is slightly earlier than the one in the portrait, for, despite Margaret’s visible affluence, fashions in the Colonies lagged behind those in Europe.”

    A pair of women’s “slap-sole” shoes: “White leather upper, toe and instep covered with salmon silk embroidered with silver yarns, wires and spangles in conventional motif; narrow lappets with white and salmon silk ties with tassels cross behind and tie through pointed tongue; silver bobbin lace across instep, at top, lappets; butted side, back seams; salmon silk stitching on quarters, heel. Square toe. White leather covered wood Louis heel. Brown leather sole. Attached clog with brown leather top, white leather sides; felt at front, heel. Brown leather insole, white leather lining.” 44.521a-b, Provenance/Ownership History: Former Coll. Simonetti (Rome)

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  • Woman of Note: Elena Kagan on the Status of Women in the Law

    Elena Kagan, the nominee proposed to fill an expected US Supreme Court vacancy, delivered the Leslie H. Arps Memorial Lecture at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on Nov. 17, 2005. What follows is a section from that talk, given when Ms. Kagan was Dean of the Harvard Law School:

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  • Two Family Memoirs Celebrating Mothers and Fathers

    Jill Norgren reviews two family memoirs: In Center of the Universe, Nancy Bachrach offers a mordantly funny and deeply affecting recollection of her mom Lola, urban, middle-class, Jewish, and not infrequently mentally ill. Charlie Bundrum, the hero of Ava’s Man, Rick Bragg’s lyrical remembrance of his grandfather, has deep roots in a Depression-era Old South. These are perfect books to pick up in this season of celebrating parents.

  • A Bouquet of Monets

    New York City’s Gagosian Gallery is presenting 27 of Monet’s paintings, one of several presentations of the artists’s works on view in recent years:

    Oscar Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840. As a teenager, he developed a reputation as a caricaturist, and studied with the landscape artist Eugéne Boudin. Over the course of his prolific career, he produced more than 2,000 paintings. By end of the 1890s he was well established and hailed as France’s leading landscape painter. In the remaining years of his life, he staged only four exhibitions, all in Paris — recent works and views of Le pont japonais in 1900, a selection of London paintings in 1904, the Nymphéas in 1909, and views of Venice in 1912 — each to great critical acclaim. On November 12, 1918, the day after the Armistice, Monet offered to donate two paintings to France in honor of the victory. This offer became the basis for his eventual gift of twenty-two decorative panels depicting his water lily garden, which were installed permanently in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris in 1927. Recent exhibitions of his work include “Monet in the 20th Century,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1998, traveled to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1999); “Monet, le cycle des Nymphéas,” Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris (1999); “Claude Monet … Up to Digital Impressionism,” Fondation Beyeler (2002); “Monet’s Garden” and “Monet’s Water Lilies,” Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010). Oscar Claude Monet died at Giverny in 1926 at the age of 86.

    Take a virtual trip through the first 34 pages of the  book, Monet’s House; an Impressionist Interior, online. There’s also a country by country list of museums’ holdings of original Monets.

    If you’re interested in painting techniques, in 2006  NPR launched “a mini-series on how art is affected by available technology” and began with “the link between collapsible tin tubes and some of the world’s best-loved paintings”. The following excerpt including quotes from Monet’s well known biographer, Prof. Paul Tucker, who imparts some details of the process as well as an amusing bit or two:

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  • On Friendship

    Julia Sneden writes: She remains my touchstone, my chum, the one who remembers the big trees (now gone) that surrounded our houses, and the names of the neighbors, and the way our “come home” bells sounded at dinner time. I can envision the inside of her house, and she can remember the inside of mine, including the crawl space underneath it, and the roof where we daringly sunbathed topless.

  • The Increased Importance Of The Violence Against Women Act In A Time Of Economic Crisis

    Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chairman, Senate Committee On The Judiciary, May 5, 2010 

    The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was a watershed piece of legislation that is as crucial now as it has ever been. Since its enactment 15 years ago, VAWA has provided critical, sometimes life-saving, assistance to countless survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. This legislation shed light on the national problem of violence against women, and marked a bipartisan commitment to confront and end domestic and sexual violence. 

    Since that time, we have responded with better laws, social support, and coordinated community responses. I was proud to work on the original VAWA bill, and am pleased with all it has accomplished. Our communities and families are safer today because of this law. As we begin to consider the reauthorization of this vital law, it is important to note that, for all we have accomplished, there is more work to be done. The problem of domestic and sexual violence persists, and in a time of economic crisis, the victims of this violence are even more vulnerable. 

    The Violence Against Women Act has transformed our criminal justice system, improving the legal and law enforcement response to the complex issues of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has evolved to better address the needs of underserved populations and includes critical new programs focusing on prevention and on the needs of young people. 

    The importance of VAWA could not be clearer than it is today as our country copes with a troubled economy. The safety net VAWA has provided survivors over the years is now a lifeline for many. The economic pressures of a lost job, home, or car can add stress to an already abusive relationship. The loss of these resources can make it harder for victims to escape a violent situation. And just as victims’ needs are growing, state budget cuts are resulting in fewer available services, including emergency shelters, transitional housing, counseling, and childcare. 

    These services can mean the difference between life and death for some victims. I advocated for increased funding of VAWA programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I was pleased that the Recovery Act included $50 million for the Transitional Housing Assistance Grants program, which has helped people across the country find a safe place to live. 

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