Ferida Wolff
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Can Women Save Japan? Needed more career positions & better support for working mothers. Sound familiar?
Raising womens’ participation could provide an important boost to growth, but they face two hurdles in participating in the workforce in Japan. First, few working women start out in career-track positions, and second, many women drop out of the workforce following childbirth. Summary: Japan’s potential growth rate is steadily falling with the aging of…
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New Insights Into How Genetic Differences Among Individuals Influence Breast Cancer Risk from Low-Dose Radiation
“This raises the possibility that we can use gene expression profiles to develop simple tests that screen for women who may be sensitive to low-dose radiation versus women who are resistant.”
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Eleanor Roosevelt’s Fight for Labor Rights Lives On
Brigid O’Farrell writes: Eleanor Roosevelt warned that when fear and prejudice are running high, “We may wake up to find that in trying to remedy certain wrongs, we have shorn ourselves of certain very precious freedoms.” In 1958, Mrs. Roosevelt called the right-to-work effort a “predatory and misleading campaign”.
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Argo, the Movie and Wired Magazine: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran By Joshuah Bearman
“The mob quickly fanned across the 27-acre [American Embassy] compound, waving posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. They took the ambassador’s residence, then set upon the chancery, the citadel of the embassy where most of the staff was stationed.” The magazine article that provides a basis for the new movie, Argo, details the true story of…
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Do Objects Surrounding Us Influence Gender Perceptions?
When people view objects highly associated with one gender, like high heels for women or electric shavers for men, for a short period of time and are then asked to identify the gender of an androgynous face, they are more likely to identify it as being of the gender opposite to that associated with the…
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John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, 2012 Nobel Prize for Medicine
The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop. John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. Shinya Yamanaka…
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Our Saddest NPR Moment: The Retirement of the Magliozzi Brothers of Car Talk Fame
In the late ’90s, we called NPR’s Car Talk for Time Magazine’s Notebook section to ask Tom and Ray which ‘retired’ car would they like to see revived. Their producer, Dougie Berman, asked and they replied. But Car Talk was a fixture of our lives, an eagerly-looked- forward-to bright spot on the Saturday morning routine.…
