Paul Harding writes: As a Yankee in North Shore horse country, he knew where the old money lay, dozing, dreaming of wool mills and slate quarries, ticker tape and foxhunts. He found that bankers paid well to keep their balky heirlooms telling time. He could replace the worn tooth on a strike wheel by hand.
Author: SeniorWomenWeb
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Shopping for Gifts and Yourself: Cartographic Art
Mother and Father’s Days are on the horizon; put aside ideas for an oversize, expensive bag or purse, laptop, messenger or briefcase. We’ve found a good looking, authentic alternative, a cartographic bag based on a favorite city.
WardMaps took their business name from what is often called real estate, plat or neighborhood block maps. They contain detailed information such as property owner names, building street numbers & heights, public infrastructure such as subways, street names & water mains, business names, institution names as well as information on public parks and water ways. Ward maps were published to paying subscribers in bound atlases.
But it’s the map gifts that intrigued us, including those bags we mentioned, journals, serving trays, silk pillows, mugs, placemats and decorative tiles. they also carry Cavallini & Co. products and porcelain city dinnerware.
Recent Acquisitions:
Cram’s Universal Atlas 1894
Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas … 1899
Guide of The United States 1909
Guide to Northern Italy 1899
Boston Elevated Railway 1899-1915
Atlas of Long Island 1870
Nantucket 1890
Charlestown 1892
Universal Atlas of The World 1900
Cambridge 1935
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Allergy triggers are worsening as a result of climate change
This year we’ve observed unusual amounts of pollen covering autos, roofs and other surfaces as well as experiencing the symptoms of illnesses and discomfort resulting from the triggers noted in the NWF report:
A National Wildlife Federation Report: 16 States Make “Allergen Hotspots” List for Expanding Habitat of Trees with Highly Allergenic Pollen
by Aileo Weinmann
A new report says many allergy triggers are worsening as a result of climate change unless action is taken to curb global warming pollution and prepare communities for the changes to come.
Tree pollen is the most common trigger for spring hay fever allergies. With spring arriving 10 to 14 days earlier than it did just 20 years ago, pollination is already starting sooner. New maps in the report show projected increases in habitat conducive to more allergenic trees. Nine states in the upper Midwest, lower Mississippi Valley, and Northeast are identified as hotspots for large increases in allergenic tree pollen if global warming pollution increases unabated. An additional seven states are at risk of moderate increases (see next page).
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Pew Researches: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has issued a survey providing a detailed picture of the public’s opinions about government.
By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.
Rather than an activist government to deal with the nation’s top problems, the public now wants government reformed and growing numbers want its power curtailed. With the exception of greater regulation of major financial institutions, there is less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation’s problems – including more government control over the economy – than there was when Barack Obama first took office.
The public’s hostility toward government seems likely to be an important election issue favoring the Republicans this fall. However, the Democrats can take some solace in the fact that neither party can be confident that they have the advantage among such a disillusioned electorate. Favorable ratings for both major parties, as well as for Congress, have reached record lows while opposition to congressional incumbents, already approaching an all-time high, continues to climb.
The Tea Party movement, which has a small but fervent anti-government constituency, could be a wild card in this election. On one hand, its sympathizers are highly energized and inclined to vote Republican this fall. On the other, many Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the Tea Party represents their point of view better than does the GOP.
These are the principal findings from a series of surveys that provide a detailed picture of the public’s opinions about government. The main survey, conducted March 11-21 among 2,505 adults, was informed by surveys in 1997 and 1998 that explored many of the same questions and issues. While a majority also distrusted the federal government in those surveys, criticism of government had declined from earlier in the decade. And the public’s desire for government services and activism was holding steady.
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Joanna Grossman, If Sandra Bullock Divorces Jesse James What Rights or Privileges Will She Have With Respect to His Young Daughter Sunny, Whom She Has Helped Raise?
While we rarely address ‘celebrity’ subjects on SeniorWomen.com, we did find Joanna Grossman’s article about the future role Sandra Bullock could play in her stepdaughter’s life interesting because of its complex legal relationship questions:
“By now, the troubles in the marriage of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James are well-known: At least five women have claimed affairs with James. Bullock has moved out, and is reportedly ready to file for divorce.”
“There are obvious parallels here to the Tiger Woods scandal: A claim of sex addiction by the cheating husband, a stint in sex rehab, and more and more women emerging, over time, to claim affairs. But there is an important difference, too.”
“Elin Nordegren will very likely get primary custody of her children in the event of divorce – for she is their legal mother, has been their primary caretaker, and would likely stack up better than Tiger in a prong-by-prong assessment of relative parental fitness.”
“In contrast, although Sandra Bullock has played a major caretaking role with respect to James’s children – especially his six-year-old daughter Sunny, from his second marriage – Bullock probably will not receive legal custody, for reasons I will explain, though she may be granted visitation.”
The Criteria for Legal Parenthood – and How They Apply in the Bullock/James Case
“A legal parent is someone who, by virtue of a particular tie to a child, is endowed with constitutionally-protected rights, and subject to potentially onerous obligations. A biological mother is a legal parent unless and until her parental rights are terminated. A biological father is a legal parent if he is married to the child’s mother at the time of conception or birth, or if some other criterion for fatherhood is met – such as an adjudication or acknowledgment of paternity, or his openly holding out the child as his own.”
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Presidential Memorandum – Hospital Visitation
The White House, MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
SUBJECT: Respecting the Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate Decision Makers for Medical Emergencies
There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean — a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them.
Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides — whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.
For all of these Americans, the failure to have their wishes respected concerning who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf has real onsequences. It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients’ medications and medical histories and that friends and certain family members are unable to serve as intermediaries to help communicate patients’ needs. It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall.
Many States have taken steps to try to put an end to these problems. North Carolina recently amended its Patients’ Bill of Rights to give each patient “the right to designate visitors who shall receive the same visitation privileges as the patient’s immediate family members, regardless of whether the visitors are legally related to the patient” — a right that applies in every hospital in the State. Delaware, Nebraska, and Minnesota have adopted similar laws.
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Elsie de Wolfe’s The House in Good Taste
Project Gutenberg’s ebook version of 1913’s The House in Good Taste authored by renowned decorator Elsie de Wolfe is available on the Web in its entirety, along with a generous number of illustrations. It has been suggested that it was ghost-written by another successful decorator, Ruby Ross Wood. Published just before the onset of World War I the book reflects dated social concepts and relationships between men and woman that, thankfully, have changed.
Chapter One, The Development of the Modern House
I know of nothing more significant than the awakening of men and women throughout our country to the desire to improve their houses. Call it what you will — awakening, development, American Renaissance — it is a most startling and promising condition of affairs.
It is no longer possible, even to people of only faintly æsthetic tastes, to buy chairs merely to sit upon or a clock merely that it should tell the time. Home-makers are determined to have their houses, outside and in, correct according to the best standards. What do we mean by the best standards? Certainly not those of the useless, overcharged house of the average American millionaire, who builds and furnishes his home with a hopeless disregard of tradition. We must accept the standards that the artists and the architects accept, the standards that have come to us from those exceedingly rational people, our ancestors.
Our ancestors built for stability and use, and so their simple houses were excellent examples of architecture. Their spacious, uncrowded interiors were usually beautiful. Houses and furniture fulfilled their uses, and if an object fulfils its mission the chances are that it is beautiful.
It is all very well to plan our ideal house or apartment, our individual castle in Spain, but it isn’t necessary to live among intolerable furnishings just because we cannot realize our castle. There never was a house so bad that it couldn’t be made over into something worth while. We shall all be very much happier when we learn to transform the things we have into a semblance of our ideal.
How, then, may we go about accomplishing our ideal?
By letting it go!
By forgetting this vaguely pleasing dream, this evidence of our smug vanity, and making ourselves ready for a new ideal.
By considering the body of material from which it is good sense to choose when we have a house to decorate.
By studying the development of the modern house, its romantic tradition and architectural history.
By taking upon ourselves the duty of self-taught lessons of sincerity and common sense, and suitability.
By learning what is meant by color and form and line, harmony and contrast and proportion.
When we are on familiar terms with our tools, and feel our vague ideas clearing into definite inspiration, then we are ready to talk about ideals. We are fit to approach the full art of home-making.