Jo Freeman

  • Joan Fontaine

    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

    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: 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…

  • high heels

    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…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    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…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    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…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    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…

  • stack of books

    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…

  • Where Does the US Rank in Gender Equality; Think Nordic

    The United States (19th on the list) closed its gender gap, rising 12 places to enter the top 20 for the first time in the report’s five-year history. The climb reflects the higher number of women in leading roles in the current administration and improvements in the wage gap.

  • Working in Retirement: A 21st Century Phenomenon

    Already today, one in five workers aged 50 and older has fully retired from his or her former career job but currently is working for pay in a new role, which we define as a “retirement job.” And this will soon become the “new normal” — fully 75% of workers aged 50 and older expect…

  • CultureWatch, October 2010

    “When I had finally finished The Master of Hestviken, I could hardly bear the realization that it wouldn’t be waiting by my chair of an evening, with yet another chapter to read. Great books are like great loves — delicious while they last, but when they…

  • My Paradise: The Finnish Summer Home

    It is a place of relaxation and quiet retreat to nature. It is also a place where architects either further develop new ideas or crystallize essential themes from their other designs. Their own summer homes are very personal; like diary entries.

  • Thought You’d Receive Social Security Benefits at 65? Were You Born After 1938?

    Full retirement age (also called “normal retirement age”) had been 65 for many years. However, beginning with people born in 1938 or later, that age gradually increases until it reaches 67 for people born after 1959.

  • Wine Packaging Lightens Up: More Appealing Wines Are Available in Eco-Friendly Containers, Offering Good Value and Lower Carbon Footprints

    They’re lightweight, easing the burden on the people who transport the wines (as well as those who carry them home), and convenient. Several are shatterproof and impermeable to UV rays. Some eliminate the tainted-cork nuisance, the corkscrew hassle and the spoiled-leftover-wine quandary.

  • Midterm Election Updates

    The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press research reflects a variety of responses to the Center’s polling including changing health care, social security, partisan bickering, a leaderless political party and citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.

  • Shop for Home, Gifts and Self at Velocity

    Have you thought about Holiday presents? Velocity might be a one-stop shopping experience for those names on your list. A Bob’s Your Uncle Open Sesame Password Reminder Book, a Multi-Task Planner Journal, a Witches’ Kitchen line that Christine O’Donnell might like, as well as an eco-friendly section, this site is fashionable, modern and good-humored.

  • Nobel Prize in Medicine to Robert G. Edwards for the development of in vitro fertilization

    Approximately four million individuals have so far been born following IVF. Many of them are now adult and some have already become parents. A new field of medicine has emerged, with Robert Edwards leading the process all the way from the fundamental discoveries to the current, successful IVF therapy. His contributions represent a milestone in…

  • Woman of Note: One Life, Katharine Graham

    From her entrée to the world of journalism to her formidable attainment of power, the National Portrait Gallery’s One Life: Katharine Graham exhibition presents a multifaceted view of the woman whose personal tenacity had the ability to shape the nation