Jo Freeman

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…
Abstract: The role of doctors’ religious faith and ethnicity in taking ethically controversial decisions during end-of-life care

Ethnicity was largely unrelated to rates of reporting ethically controversial decisions. Independently of speciality, doctors who described themselves as non-religious were more likely than others to report having given continuous deep sedation until death …
Questions and Answers About the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ From FactCheck.org

FactCheck.org has set out to separate fact from fiction as it relates to what the center’s sponsors call the Park51 project, and what detractors refer to somewhat inaccurately as the “Ground Zero Mosque.” So, here FactCheck.org answers some of the main questions we’ve been asked about the controversial center.
Portraits in Disguise and Imaginary Lives

We are confronted by images of people who are making the most of clothes and jewels to reinforce their powerful presence. These bodily coverings and adornments are not always all that they seem, painters can easily invent the odd diamond, and records suggest that Elizabeth I had fake jewels on her clothes that were recycled…
Time to Reconsider Texting? Using Daily Text-Message Reminders to Improve Adherence With Oral Contraceptives

OBJECTIVE: To estimate whether women receiving daily text-message reminders have increased oral contraceptive pill adherence compared with women not receiving reminders.
Lessons From a Lifetime in the Classroom: YOU AND I, ME, US, THEY, THEM, WHATEVER!

“Just seeing your face at Mike and I’s wedding …” Unbelievable, you say? Even more unbelievable is the fact that the writer is a graduate student at a major university. The child obviously doesn’t lack brains; what she lacks is proper training in the use of her native tongue.
The FDA’s Recall Week:One Half Billion Eggs, Moonstruck Chocolate and Mr. Magic Male Enhancer

It was a busy week for the US Food and Drug Administration. Recalls (voluntary and otherwise) ranged from a male enhancer, to tablets for emergency contraception, frozen mamey pulp, the withdrawal of a low blood pressure drug and those half billion eggs.
The Most Dangerous Woman in America, a Review of Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness

Her fame grew not just because she was a very effective woman in a man’s world but because of her creative use of street theater and of womanhood itself. Her work made her an ardent opponent of child labor, but not a supporter of woman suffrage, which she saw as a distraction from class struggle.
Why Doesn’t the Social Page Tell the Better Story?

Sometimes I read about a couple well into the later part of middle age who have been married. It doesn’t taint my enjoyment whatsoever to read that “the bride and bridegroom’s previous (several) marriages ended in divorce.” I believe in love.
The Folger Library’s Digital Image Collection and Shop

A true relation of a most desperate murder, committed upon the body of Sir John Tindall Knight, one of the maisters of the Chancery; who with a pistoll charged with 3. bullets, was slaine going into his chamber within Lincolnes-Inne.
MEDcottage; Care in the Backyard

The MedCottage can be purchased or leased and temporarily placed on the caregiving family’s property with features that most hospital and nursing home rooms are denied. Like an RV, it connects to a single-family house’s electrical and water supplies.