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…
UC Berkeley Demographers: COVID-19 is Likely to Shorten the Average US Lifespan in 2020 By About a Year; “Those are real people, not abstract statistics”

Their findings, published online last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, conclude that 1 million deaths in 2020 would cut three years off the average US life expectancy, while 250,000 deaths would reduce lifespans by about a year. That said, without the societal efforts that have occurred to lessen the…
Race and Woman Suffrage, an Excerpt from One Room At a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics

Jo Freeman wrote: The reluctance of men to allow women to participate in democratic decision-making stemmed from many sources, not all of which were consistent. One of the biggest deterrents was the importance of race in American politics, especially in the South. According to Southern historian Anne Firor Scott, “Because many of the early suffragists…
“Housewife” to “Hussy”; A Revisit To Grammarphobia: From Domestic to Disreputable

The word “housewife” was spelled “husewif” when it showed up in Sawles Warde, an early Middle English homily written around 1200: “Inwið beoð his hinen in se moni mislich þonc to cwemen wel þe husewif aȝein godes wille” (“Indoors, both his servants have a great many miserable thoughts about how to please the housewife against…
Where We Stand: Partial Draft of Democratic Party Platform Already Voted Upon By Delegates; Covid-19 Pandemic Is a Prime Focus

“In a public health crisis, we all have to rely on each other. That’s why Democrats support making 9 COVID-19 testing, treatment, and any eventual vaccines free to everyone, regardless of their wealth, insurance coverage, or immigration status. We are all only as safe from this disease as are the most vulnerable among us. It…
Jo Freeman Writes: The Political Parentage of Kamala Harris

Jo Freeman writes about Kamala Harris’ political parentage: She has said that she is a child of the civil rights movement because her parents participated in demonstrations while they were grad students at Berkeley in the early 1960s. In fact, her political parents were Burton Machine and the Women’s Liberation Movement. If Joe Biden is…
Decision Matter of: Department of Homeland Security — Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security

“Upon Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation on April 10, 2019, the official who assumed the title of Acting Secretary had not been designated in the order of succession to serve upon the Secretary’s resignation. Because the incorrect official assumed the title of Acting Secretary at that time, subsequent amendments to the order of succession made by…
GAO* Report on Retirement Security: Older Women Report Facing a Financially Uncertain Future

GAO* was asked to report on the financial security of older women. This report examines women retirees’ perspectives on their financial security, and (2) what is known about the financial security of older women in retirement. Women also cited a range of experiences that hindered their retirement security, such as divorce or leaving the workforce…
A New Study: Sex Differences in Pharmacokinetics Predict Adverse Drug Reactions in Women

For decades, women were excluded from clinical drug trials based, in part, on unfounded concerns that female hormone fluctuations render women difficult to study said lead author Irving Zucker, a professor emeritus of psychology and of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. The findings, published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences, confirm the persistence of…
Jo Freeman Writes: Kamala Harris on the Democratic Ticket

Jo Freeman Writes: Kamala Harris is a first in many ways, her race just being the most obvious. What’s different this time is the general assumption that she will be the Democratic Party nominee in 2024, with a real possibility of becoming the first woman President.
Exclusive: Over 900 Health Workers Have Died of COVID-19; Memorializing Every US Health Care Worker Who Dies During the Pandemic and the Toll Is Rising

Lost on the Frontline is a partnership between the two newsrooms that aims to count, verify and memorialize every US health care worker who dies during the pandemic. The tally includes doctors, nurses and paramedics, as well as crucial support staff such as hospital custodians, administrators and nursing home workers, who put their own lives…