Joan L. Cannon

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…
My Mother’s Cookbook — Winter Salads: Jell-o, Salads of the Era, and Pickled Beets

The winter salad creations of my childhood memory seem quaint, if not downright silly. For instance, the Candlestick Salad, dating back to the 1920s, probably elicited a few adult comments unfit for younger ears to hear. The tapered banana top received a decorative finishing touch of miracle whip and a maraschino cherry, meant to resemble…
Mom, Me, and Menopause

My mother was completely finished with menopause by the time she was forty-four. At least I think she was; Mom had an aversion to admitting that anything was not perfect. When my aunt found her lying prone on the living room sofa with a wet dishtowel draped over her head, Mom insisted that she wasn’t…
Secrets of the Silk Road

With graceful eyelashes, long flaxen hair and serene expression, the “Beauty of Xiaohe” seems to have just softly fallen to sleep — yet she last closed her eyes nearly 4,000 years ago. She was found in 2003, one of hundreds of spectacularly preserved mummies buried in China’s vast Tarim Basin
This President’s Day: Are We Believing in Madam President or Not?

There is evidence to show that more young women were encouraged by the presidential race of Hillary Clinton than by the vice-presidential bid of Sarah Palin and that the effort of both women were more encouraging than discouraging to their belief that there would be a woman president in their lifetimes
Female Foreign Correspondents’ Code of Silence, Finally Broken

Women reporters do a pretty good job of covering what it’s like to live in a war, not just die in one. Without female correspondents in war zones, the experiences of women there may be only a rumor. Women can cover the fighting just as well as men, depending on their courage
Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870

Photography has been central to voyeuristic looking since 1871, when the gelatin dry plate was invented;cameras could be secreted in books, clothing, shoes, pistols, or canes. “Detective cameras” were advertised as harmless amusements for amateurs, but the public found them troubling, raising concerns about privacy that remain valid
Congress’s Investigative Arm Now on Flickr

The agency examines the use of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. The Flickr page makes the reports’images, photos and graphics searchable, viewable, and downloadable
A Review of Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

Coontz set out to write about a generation of intelligent, well-educated women who had been marginalized by their own society. She wanted to understand how being confined to the home had undermined their sense of self and self-worth, until Friedan told them about “the problem that has no name.”
Pew Reports A Split Verdict on Changes in Family Structure

Survey about these trends: unmarried couples and gay/lesbian couples raising children; single women having children without a male partner to help raise them;people living together without marriage; mothers of young children working outside the home;people of different races marrying;women not ever having children
I’m Going to Get Organized One of These Days

My friend Jane could teach PhD classes in minimalism. You can actually walk into Jane’s closets — and they’re not walk-in closets. Once she asked if I had an extra postage stamp. I tried to give her two. “No” she said, “I need only one right now.”I suggested she might have something else to mail…