Culture Watch

Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…
An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…
Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…
Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…
Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…
Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…
Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…
Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…
What “substantial improvement” means: Comments on Monetary Policy by Federal Reserve Governor Jeremy Stein

“Specifically, we continue to have a 6.5 percent unemployment threshold for beginning to consider a first increase in the federal funds rate. As we have emphasized, the threshold nature of this forward guidance embodies further flexibility to react to incoming data. If, for example, inflation readings continue to be on the soft side, we will…
Ferida Wolff’s Backyard Series: Clouds Communicate and A Gift of Diamonds

The cirrocumulus clouds I saw recently delighted me. They brought to mind popcorn scattering over the earth I wanted to open my mouth and catch them on my tongue. For a while I was a kid again. These were high atmosphere clouds and they lifted my spirits. The rain made it all glitter. The scene…
“I dare say Mrs D. will be in Yellow”: Reconstructing an Art Exhibit Attended by Novelist Jane Austen

“Even if Jane Austen had not attended this public exhibit, it would still be well worth reconstructing. …The British Institution’s show was a star-studded ‘first’ of great magnitude for the art community and a turning point in the history of modern exhibit practices.” Among the canvases in the retrospective gallery, portraits of 18th-century politicians, actors,…
Top Medicare Official: ‘We Can and Should Do More’ to Oversee Drug Plan

Work with Congress on legislation that would restrict patients who are suspected of “doctor shopping” to obtain painkillers. One Miami psychiatrist8,900 prescriptions in 2010 for powerful antipsychotics to patients older than 65, including many with dementia. Require that all providers who write prescriptions to Medicare patients be enrolled in Medicare. That means they must verify…
Culture Watch: The View from Penthouse B and The Paris Wife

Jill Norgren reviews: Each of these novels is a thought provoking domestic drama. Sit down with each and then consider what Gwen and Margot would have thought of “Hem” and Hadley, and what the Hemingways might have made of Anthony, Gwen, and Margot. Smiles or snickers? – the contemplation will be interesting, perhaps provocative.
Mail, Mail, Go Away!

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Every day, except Sunday, my mail carrier inundates my mail box with mountains of miscellany — sales flyers from every store within a fifty-mile radius of my home, and mail order catalogs from companies based in states boasting purple mountain majesties or fruited plains, from sea to shining sea — and…
ProPublica: A Buyer’s Guide to Safer Communication

The good news is that as we understand more about how surveillance works, it helps the people who create and use secure tools to make better and more informed choices — even if that choice is simply not minding having their data collected. There are a lot of ways to talk to people securely on…
A Grandmother by Any Other Name

Julia Sneden writes: The name Grandabbie was my own invention. Before she came to live with us, my mother’s mother lived next door to a lively band of six nieces and nephews who called her Aunt Abbie. One day I referred to my Grandmother as Aunt Abbie, whereat several of them pounced on me. “She’s…
Shopping at Santa Monica’s Museum of Art

Does Fluffy have dreams of grandeur? A cardboard cityscape scratcher can help her fulfill those dreams by allowing her to reenact her favorite 1950s horror film. From proper revolving door etiquette to learning how to tie a Windsor Knot The Gentleman’s Deck will help men become a man of the 21st century. Four sets of…
The Gene Patent Decision Explained by the Supreme Court Blog: In Plain English

The exclusion of natural substances from eligibility for patents was the theory on which the Court relied Thursday in its unanimous ruling that a company cannot get a patent monopoly on the use and study of human genes that it isolates in the bloodstream, and them takes them out — without changing their natural character…