Elaine Soloway

Elaine Soloway’s Author Page

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…
The Story of the Beautiful: Freer, Whistler and Their Points of Contact

Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Wayne State University in Detroit have launched a new online resource, a comprehensive guide to James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room and its dynamic history. The elaborately painted former dining room and one of the most famous masterpieces in the Freer’s collection, celebrates its 90th anniversary of being on public…
Love and Marriage

D’Vera Cohn writes: Love only goes so far. Most Americans cast cold water on a central premise of many a song or poem, that each person in the universe has only one true love. About seven-in-ten (69%) people do not agree with that notion; only 28% do. Among those who do agree, men (31%) are…
Deemed Unreliable by the GAO: VA Health Care Outpatient Medical Appointment Wait Times

This statement highlights key findings from the GAO December 2012 report that describes needed improvements in the reliability of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA’s) reported medical appointment wait times, scheduling oversight, and VHA initiatives to improve access to timely medical appointments.
A Comprehensive Look at George Bellows

Val Castronovo writes: Almost one-third of his portraits are of family members, and the ones of his wife, to whom he was extremely devoted, are quite arresting. Portraits were one of the mainstays of his career; he painted them from the time he arrived in the city up until his death. For an artist intent…
Encountering Unusual Headwinds: Fed Reserve Vice Chair Yellen Explains the Painfully Slow Recovery for America’s Workers

Fed Reserve Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen: As an objective of public policy, maximum employment doesn’t appear in the US Constitution, in any presidential decree, or even in the mission statement of the Labor Department… the Federal Reserve is the only agency assigned the job of pursuing maximum employment. The gulf between maximum employment and…
Senate Continues to Consider Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act; Congressional Bills Introduced Including Homeland Security and Abortion

The Senate is scheduled to resume consideration of the WAVA measure on February 11. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would authorize about $660 million annually for FY2014 through FY2018 for programs that address domestic and sexual violence in the US.
Veronica Fake

Ferida Wolff writes: Who would have thought that hair could be so opinionated? It used to be reasonable, letting me do pretty much what I wanted with it. But then I guess we change in many ways as we age. Ideas we held in our twenties shift with experience and perspective. Foods we loved as…
Life in the Kingdom of Chaos Where Treasures and Pretties Were In a Royal Mess

Roberta McReynolds writes: Once upon a time there was an imperial matriarch who reigned over the Kingdom of Chaos. The queen presided with a stubborn ferocity and insisted on fortifying her castle walls with buttresses of cardboard boxes bursting at the seams with mystifying collections. Here’s the plain truth: your 1942 phone bill is not…
Shopping at the Museum: NYC’s Historical Society

Tam Gray writes: A favorite museum of ours is the New York Historical Society. Their online shop is appealing and quite different. Products range from Tiffany-style lamps, to retro dresses and handbags based on their own spectacular Audubon collection, which is the largest single repository of Auduboniana in the world.
Congressional Bills Introduced: Pay Equality, Repealing the Healthcare Act & 50th anniversary of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing

Retiring Senator Tom Harkin and Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on account of sex, race, or national origin, and for other purposes. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)/Read the first time (1/29/13)—A bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education…