Current Reading
-
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…
-
Terrorism, Immigration, Economy: Which Do Voters Want to Hear the Most Debated? And, Support for Hillary Clinton Generally Tracks with Views of Obama’s job Performance
Voters have some clear preferences about what issues they want to hear the candidates talk about more – or less – in those forums. Given the chance to decide how much time is spent on each issue, voters would allocate more time to discussions of the candidates’ plans on keeping the US safe from terrorism…
-
Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War, A Documentary by Ken Burns
Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War is an account of a daring rescue mission that occurred on the precipice of World War II. It tells the story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, a Unitarian minister and his wife from Wellesley, Massachusetts, who left their children behind in the care of their parish and boldly committed…
-
A Sort of Drawing-Room Tobogganing Exercise: John Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children
Sargent carefully staged his stylishly dressed sitters against 18th century French furniture and architectural elements. The animated Mrs. Meyer is posed just to the right of center at the edge of a canapé. She wears a dress of satin, velvet, and organdy which may have been supplied by Worth in Paris. A rope of oriental…
-
Wild Bees, a Critical Piece of the Pollination Puzzle
Quinn McFrederick and co-authors collected bees and flowers at two sites in Texas and one on the UC Riverside campus. He simulated bee nests by drilling holes into wood and placing these nests in fields with wildflowers. The wild bees naturally nest in abandoned holes in trees created by beetles. McFrederick believes that the bacteria…
-
Hearings: Child Marriage, Holocaust Art, Social Security and Bills Introduced: Child Safety & Family Violence, SNAP, Zika Virus Response & Preparedness
Senate Hearings to examine S.2763, to provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs a fair opportunity to recover works of art confiscated or misappropriated by the Nazis, S.3155, to amend chapter 97 of title 28, United States Code, to clarify the exception to foreign sovereign immunity set forth in section 1605(a)(3) of such…
-
Designing More Effective Opioids: A Search for a Potential Pain Reliever with Fewer Side Effects
Researchers used computer simulations to screen millions of molecules for opioid-like pain-relieving properties. The analyses allowed scientists to create a molecule that effectively alleviates pain in mice, but with fewer side effects than the opioid morphine.
-
“Hispanic Voters Are Poised to Have an Unprecedented Influence on the 2016 Election”
If you start doing the math, 3,000 more Hispanics are eligible to vote every day. It’s a young population: 800,000-plus of native-born eligible voters every year in the last four years, in addition to the new immigrants that are naturalizing. It’s unprecedented: more than 27 million eligible Hispanic voters. An estimated 13, maybe 14 million,…
-
Joint Statement from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior Regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. US Army Corps of Engineers
The Army will not authorize constructing the Dakota Access pipeline on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe until it can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws. Therefore, construction of the pipeline on…
-
Is ‘Going Green’ Unmanly? How Can Men Be Encouraged to Recycle?
Aaron Brough and James E.B. Wilkie led a study that examines why men are less likely than women to engage in so-called green behaviors. Brough, Wilkie hypothesize that men are more likely to avoid green behavior “in order to safeguard their gender identity.” They designed seven experiments to gauge whether male behaviors can be changed.…
-
Boosting Sales Targets: CFPB Fines Wells Fargo $100 Million For Widespread Illegal Practice of Secretly Opening Unauthorized Accounts
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. $100 million for the widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts. Spurred by sales targets and compensation incentives, employees boosted sales figures by covertly opening accounts and funding them by transferring funds from consumers’ authorized accounts without their knowledge…
