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…
Going Forth On the Fourth After Strict Blackout Conditions and Requisitioned Gunpowder Had Been the Law

Julia Sneden wrote: My father told me about the Fourth of July that took place in 1910, when he was 4 years old. He grew up on his grandfather’s prune ranch, in thrall to a slew of young aunts and uncles. Each Fourth, the uncles staged a display of fireworks for the family and the…
Updated, Senate Judiciary Hearing on Tuesday: “Protecting Innocence in a Digital World”; House Hearing Wednesday on Economic Well-being of Women Veterans

A bill to ensure the humane treatment of pregnant women by reinstating the presumption of release and prohibiting shackling, restraining, and other inhumane treatment of pregnant detainees, and for other purposes; A bill to require the secretary of Defense to establish an initiative on improving the capacity of military criminal investigative organizations to prevent child…
Scout Report Choices: It’s Okay to Be Smart, Hidden Brain, LGBT Materials in NY Public Library, Trevor Project and Others

It’s Okay to Be Smart has videos exploring all manner of curiosities and scientific topics, such as why cereal tends to either clump together or stick to the edges in your cereal bowl, whether it’s true that everyone has a doppelganger, and how fire ants became so widespread in the southern US; Hidden Brain “reveals…
Barriers to Health Care Experienced by Women in the United States; Harvard Health on Screening Women Over 75; USPSTF Guidelines for Women Over 50

Despite a lower uninsured rate than men (11% vs 14%), women are more likely to skip a recommended medical test or treatment due to cost… cost barriers to contraception have decreased for insured women since the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) coverage requirement took effect. Women without a regular clinician are less likely to receive certain…
Lessons From a Lifetime in the Classroom: You and I, Me, Us, They, Them, Whatever!

Somehow we have forgotten how to teach grammar using simple, clear rules. When I was young, we were introduced to the difference between subjective and objective and possessive pronouns at an early age. I remember my fourth grade teacher parsing the subjective pronouns with us: “I, you, he-she-it; we, you, they,” and then demonstrating how…
Weekly Legislative Update, June 24th: Reauthorizing Health Programs, Human Trafficking and Migration, Universal Child Care, Coast Guard Gender Diversity, Mammography Coverage, Campus Sexual Violence

Bills Introduced: A bill to increase transparency and reporting on campus sexual violence; House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is scheduled to mark up H.R. 3362, the Small Airports Mothers’ Room Act; Reauthorizing Vital Health Programs for American Families; A bill to require the comptroller general … to conduct a study on ways to increase…
Biden, Klobuchar Rankings by the Lugar Center Highest Among Presidential Candidates Who Built Bipartisan Collaboration in the Senate

The lifetime Senate scores show a wide variance among current Democratic presidential candidates, ranging from former Vice President Joe Biden, who placed in the top quartile of the rankings, to Senator Bernie Sanders who placed 247th out of the 250 Senators covered by the Index. “The new data provides historical context for the challenges to…
Zen and the Rescue Dog: Journeying with Your Dog on the Path to Enlightenment, an Excerpt from KJ Fallon’s New Book

K. J. Fallon writes in her new book, From Zen and the Rescue Dog: Journeying with Your Dog on the Path to Enlightenment©: Making some time to remember your pets, or the animals in need at an area shelter or rescue organization if you don’t have a pet, is a way to refuel your energy.…
Developing an Artificial Intelligence Tool to Help Detect Brain Aneurysms at Stanford

This tool, which is built around an algorithm called HeadXNet, improved clinicians’ ability to correctly identify aneurysms at a level equivalent to finding six more aneurysms in 100 scans that contain aneurysms. It also improved consensus among the interpreting clinicians. The team of researchers cautions that further investigation is needed to evaluate generalizability of the…
A Busy Congressional Action Week: Diversity in the Boardroom, Poverty in America, SNAP, Quality Family Planning Care, Veterans Survivors of Military Sexual Assault and Who Was Vera Rubin?

Human Trafficking — On Thursday, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary is scheduled to mark up S. 1494, the Secure and Protect Act of 2019; a Legislative Fix to the Crisis at the Southwest Border, a bill to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. On Thursday, the House Committee on…