Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • Transcript of Obama’s Baltimore Meeting at GOP House Issues Conference

    Video of the Exchange Between President Obama and the GOP

    THE PRESIDENT:

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please, everybody be seated. Thank you. Thank you, John, for the gracious introduction. To Mike and Eric, thank you for hosting me. Thank you to all of you for receiving me. It is wonderful to be here. I want to also acknowledge Mark Strand, president of the Congressional Institute. To all the family members who are here and who have to put up with us for an elective office each and every day, thank you, because I know that’s tough. (Applause.)

    I very much am appreciative of not only the tone of your introduction, John, but also the invitation that you extended to me. You know what they say, “Keep your friends close, but visit the Republican Caucus every few months.” (Laughter.)

    Part of the reason I accepted your invitation to come here was because I wanted to speak with all of you, and not just to all of you. So I’m looking forward to taking your questions and having a real conversation in a few moments. And I hope that the conversation we begin here doesn’t end here; that we can continue our dialogue in the days ahead. It’s important to me that we do so.

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  • V&A’s Costume Cleaning Conundrum, Manchu ‘Horse-Hoof’ Shoes and The Invisibles

    “In preparation for the V&A’s autumn 2007 exhibition, The Golden Age of Couture, an extremely rare costume by Christian Dior was brought into the Textile Conservation Studio for treatment. It was amongst over one hundred costumes, underwear, hats, shoes and other items requiring conservation and mounting before display.”

    “The greatest challenge this costume presented was its appearance; it was heavily soiled, distorted and visually unappealing. The question was — could it be cleaned and reshaped?”

    London’s Victoria & Albert Museum presented in its online Conservation Journal, Spring 2008 Number 56, the article Costume Cleaning Conundrums by Frances Hartog:

    “The condition of the costume at the time of purchase was startling. The hem of the skirt was black inside and out. All parts were soiled. There was extensive water-borne staining throughout; the proper left sleeve of the jacket and front of the skirt both had large stains down their entire length that had hardened to the consistency of cardboard. The whole ensemble was very heavily creased and misshapen. The waist of the skirt had been taken apart and cobbled together again in haphazard gathers. As one of my colleagues succinctly put it — it was a mess!”

    “After consultation with Claire Wilcox, the decision was made to wash the jacket, bodice and skirt, in the knowledge there could be colour loss and not knowing what level of soil release would be achieved. This necessitated the removal of the secondary lining in the jacket and the removal of the skirt from its yoke to release the uneven gathers. The primary lining of fine silk found in all parts of the costume was structurally integral and could not be removed; it was accepted there would be probable colour change. To maximise cleaning efficiency, the chelating agent tri-ammonium citrate was added to all wash baths, raising the pH from 5.6 to between 6.3-6.6. Due to the complexity of the jacket’s structure and scale of the skirt, logistics dictated that all parts be washed separately, introducing the further risk of inconsistent results. The bodice was washed first; being the smallest item it was felt to be the most controllable. The results were pleasing, a noticeable reduction in soiling but the creasing remained. The jacket (the skirt of which was lined with three different fabrics) was then washed with enhanced results ; all the water staining was removed and the appearance was much improved. Finally, the skirt was washed, again with impressive results. Though some of the water staining remains, the fabric became soft and malleable, and the lustre of the satin was greatly enhanced.”

    Go to the V&A site to view the outfit.

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  • SOTU: In Spite of Straining Facts, Scoffing and Grumbling, Mizrahi Dress a Hit

    Summary from FactCheck.org:

    President Obama peppered his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation with facts, which were mostly right but sometimes cherry-picked, strained or otherwise misleading.

    He said “there are about 2 million Americans working right now” because of last year’s stimulus bill. But his own economic advisers say the total could be as little as 1.5 million, and independent estimates range down to as low as 800,000.

    He quoted the Congressional Budget Office as saying health care legislation could “bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion” over the next 20 years. But CBO has made clear that’s a soft and uncertain estimate.

    He said that when he took office, the deficit already was projected to total $8 trillion over the next 10 years. But the estimate is from his own Office of Management and Budget; the CBO put the figure at trillions less.

    He said he believes a Supreme Court decision will allow foreign corporations to spend in US elections. Perhaps so, but it actually did not address a law still on the books forbidding any foreign-based corporation from spending on electioneering here.

    We also scoured the Republican response delivered by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. He doctored a Thomas Jefferson quote — omitting Jefferson’s endorsement of government action to protect people from injury. McDonnell also overstated the speed with which the national debt is growing.

    Analysis

    This was the president’s first State of the Union address, but not his first speech to a joint session of Congress. We found a number of errors in his first one on Feb. 24, 2009, and also in his health care speech Sept. 9 (when a GOP House member shouted “you lie”).

    This time Republicans merely scoffed and grumbled at some of Obama’s statements. And while we found Obama strained the facts or cited uncertain statistics at times, we uncovered nothing we could show to be false.

    Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site: Desktop Users

    SeniorWomen.com fact: Michelle Obama’s Isaac Mizrahi dress was in a raisin color.

     

     

  • Doesn’t Everyone have a Bird in Their Earring?

    Roberta McReynolds writes: I designed my tattoo with a male English House Sparrow balanced inside the oval of a gold circle like my trademark earrings of long ago. It looked so right to me, how everything seems to come full circle and reach completion. I added a glint of light to the ringlet, a small star which was a symbol I’d been attracted to throughout my life.

  • The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict

    From The Center for American Progess report:

    “As a result, professional women who need hours more like a traditional full-time job of 40 hours a week often find themselves ‘doing scut work at slave wages,’ as one professional woman put it.  This systematic de-skilling of women who work part time — as one in five professional and middle-income mothers do, according to our data analysis — is a major macroeconomic cost of workforce-workplace mismatch. So is underemployment of low-income mothers, who face wage rates so low that it makes little economic sense for them to work; a lack of subsidies for childcare often leads to the perverse situation where a mother’s take home pay is less than childcare costs.”

    “The Economist offers a sober assessment of the macroeconomic consequences of the resulting loss of women’s human capital. The magazine warns that many women ‘are still excluded from paid work; many do not make best use of their skills. Greater participation by women in the labor market could help offset the effect of an ageing, shrinking population and hence support growth.’ “

    “Designing workplaces around the old fashioned breadwinner-homemaker household has microeconomic consequences as well. Individual employers may think, in good faith, that they need to work employees longer and longer hours in order to remain competitive. But that conclusion reflects confusion between the inevitable costs of doing business and the costs associated with a specific, and outdated, business model.”

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  • Gender and Political Communication in America

    Nichola Gutgold reviews:  Editor Janis Edwards examines the senate campaign films of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole; Wendy Atkins-Sayre explores gender issues surrounding Gov. Jane Swift who discovered that pregnancy and power were mutually exclusive for women politicians; Christina Standerfer explores the issue of lesbian identity in politics in Annise Parker’s and Kathy Webb’s campaigns. Edwards and Mary Kahl offer a most timely analysis of Sarah Palin’s vice presidential campaign and conservative political pundit Ann Coulter is the topic of essays that describes her rhetoric as a diatribe.

  • Move Over Barack; Michelle Tops Your Popularity

    The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press released a new survey based on Michelle Obama’s  personal image:

    As she begins her second year as first lady, Michelle Obama has a higher personal favorable rating than her husband, and her image is more positive than that of her two predecessors in the White House.

    In a November survey by the Pew Research Center, 71% expressed a favorable opinion of Michelle Obama while just 16% expressed an unfavorable view. By comparison, 65% had a favorable opinion of Barack Obama, while 30% felt unfavorably (For full results from this survey, see “Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects,” Jan. 12, 2010.)

    In her first year in the White House, Laura Bush’s personal rating was a bit less positive; in July 2001, 64% said they felt favorably toward Laura Bush, while 17% expressed an unfavorable opinion. Hillary Clinton was less popular in her first year than either Michelle Obama or Laura Bush. In May 1993, 60% had a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton, compared with 29% who expressed an unfavorable opinion.

    Clinton, an architect of the Clinton administration’s health care reform proposal, was a more divisive political figure than Obama or Bush. In May 1993, half of Republicans (50%) had an unfavorable impression of Hillary Clinton while 41% had a positive view. By comparison, the balance of opinion among members of the opposition party was positive for Laura Bush in July 2001 (53% favorable vs. 25% unfavorable among Democrats) and for Michelle Obama in November 2009 (50% favorable vs. 36% unfavorable among Republicans).

    Michelle Obama’s image among whites is only somewhat less positive than Laura Bush’s during her first year in the White House: In November, 66% of whites had a favorable opinion of Michelle Obama while 20% felt unfavorably. In July 2001, Laura Bush’s personal rating among whites was 70% favorable, 13% unfavorable. But Obama’s rating among blacks was overwhelmingly favorable (96%), while about as many blacks had an unfavorable opinion of Bush (39%) as a favorable view (37%). Favorable opinions of Hillary Clinton were lower than for Obama both among whites (57% favorable) and blacks (84% favorable).

    Michelle Obama More Popular than Barack

    Opinions about Michelle Obama changed only modestly during her first year in the White House. In January 2009, shortly before Barack Obama’s inauguration, 68% said they had a favorable impression of her compared with 15% who felt unfavorably. The proportion expressing a favorable view climbed to 76% in April and then edged downward to 71% in November; unfavorable opinions of Michelle Obama barely moved.

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  • The Ancient Egyptians Makeup May Have Prevented Eye Diseases

    A release from the American Chemical Society  about Ancient Egyptian cosmetics introduces an article in their journal, Analytical Chemistry:

    “There’s more to the eye makeup that gave Queen Nefertiti and other ancient Egyptian royals those stupendous gazes and legendary beauty than meets the eye. Scientists in France are reporting that the alluring eye makeup also may have been used to help prevent or treat eye disease by doubling as an infection-fighter.”

    “Christian Amatore, Philippe Walter, and colleagues note that thousands of years ago the ancient Egyptians used lead-based substances as cosmetics, including an ingredient in black eye makeup. Some Egyptians believed that this makeup also had a ‘magical’ role in which the ancient gods Horus and Ra would protect wearers against several illnesses. Until now, however, modern scientists largely dismissed that possibility, knowing that lead-based substances can be quite toxic.”

    “In earlier research, the scientists analyzed 52 samples from ancient Egyptian makeup containers preserved in the Louvre museum in Paris. They identified four different lead-based substances in the makeup. In the new study, they found that the substances boosted production of nitric oxide by up to 240 per cent in cultured human skin cells. Modern scientists recognize nitric oxide as a key signalling agent in the body. Its roles include revving-up the immune system to help fight disease. Eye infections caused by bacteria can be a serious problem in tropical marshy areas such as the Nile area during floods, the scientists note. Therefore, the ancient Egyptians may have deliberately used these lead-based cosmetics to help prevent or treat eye disease, the researchers suggest, noting that two of the compounds do not occur naturally and must have been synthesized by ancient Egyptian ‘chemists.’ “

    The full text of their paper is available here. An excerpt follows:

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  • Stereotypes, Confidence and Math Ability

    “Girls around the world are not worse at math than boys, even though boys are more confident in their math abilities, and girls from countries where gender equity is more prevalent are more likely to perform better on mathematics assessment tests, according to a new analysis of international research.”

    ” ‘Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics are a distinct contrast to the actual scientific data,’ said Nicole Else-Quest, PhD, a psychology professor at Villanova University, and lead author of the meta-analysis. ‘These results show that girls will perform at the same level as the boys when they are given the right educational tools and have visible female role models excelling in mathematics.’ “

    “The results are reported in the latest issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association. The finding that girls around the world appear to have less confidence in their mathematical abilities could help explain why young girls are less likely than boys to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”

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  • The Pew Research Center’s New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives

    by Richard Fry and D’Vera Cohn

    We pick up this report at the following point:

    Educational attainment plays an important role in income, so a central focus of this report is to analyze economic data by level of schooling. Through this lens, too, married people have outdone the unmarried. The higher their education level, the more that adults’ household incomes have risen over the past four decades; within each level, married adults have seen larger gains than unmarried adults. Among married adults at each education level, men had larger household income increases than did women. Those who gained most of all were married male college graduates, whose household incomes rose 56%, compared with 44% for married female college graduates.

    For unmarried adults at each level of education, however, men’s household incomes fared worse than those of women. Unmarried women in 2007 had higher household incomes than their 1970 counterparts at each level of education. But unmarried men without any post-secondary education lost ground because their real earnings decreased and they did not have a wife’s wages to buffer that decline. Unmarried men who did not complete high school or who had only a high school diploma had lower household incomes in 2007 than their 1970 counterparts did. Unmarried men with some college education had stagnant household incomes.

    Unmarried men with college degrees made gains (15%), but the gains were not as great as those for unmarried women with college degrees (28%). In fact, household incomes of unmarried men with college degrees grew at half the rate of household incomes of married men with only a high school diploma — 33% versus 15%.

    There is an important exception to the rule that married adults have fared better than unmarried adults from 1970 to 2007. Married women without a high school diploma did not make the same gains as more educated women: Their household incomes slipped 2% from 1970 to 2007, while those of their unmarried counterparts grew 9%. The stagnant incomes of married women without high school diplomas reflect the poor job prospects of less educated men in their pool of marriage partners. These less educated married women now are far less likely than in the past to have a spouse who works — 77% did in 2007, compared with 92% in 1970.

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