Julia Sneden

Articles by Julia Sneden

  • 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…

  • Fitness For Fogies*

    Rose Mula writes: I usually start my day with isometrics, or tensing of the muscles — in my case, the calf muscles. Actually this tensing is completely involuntary. I guess a more accurate term is leg cramps. They propel me out of bed, whereupon I jump up and down and shake my legs vigorously to…

  • The Puzzling Workforce Decline

    Marsha Mercer writes: “From World War II to the early 1960s, men 20 to 64 were very, very heavily relied upon” by women and families, Gary Burtless at Brookings said. Men without a high school diploma were able to hold a stable career and support a family by working in construction and heavy manufacturing. Over…

  • The Bletchley Circle Returns: Alice Is Quietly Resigned To the Fact She Will Hang

    This second series follows Susan, Millie, Lucy and Jean, ordinary women with an extraordinary ability to break codes, a skill honed during World War II when they worked undercover at Bletchley Park, site of the United Kingdom’s main decryption establishment. Now, in 1952, the four have returned to civilian life, keeping their intelligence work secret…

  • Bills Introduced: Background Checks on Foster Care Placements,Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, Military Sexual Trauma & Tax Credit Increase for Childless Workers

    Judge Donna Quigley Groman on the need to treat children who have been trafficked as victims. “It is important to understand that these youth are not criminals. They are children who are being abused by sex traffickers, and they deserve the same protections and resources to which other child victims of sexual or physical abuse…

  • The GM Ignition Switch Recall: Why Did It Take So Long?

    GM CEO Mary Barra is testifying in front of the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the company’s previous knowledge of the ignition switches’ faulty technology that has been blamed for 13 vehicle deaths. A live feed of the hearing is on the Committee’s website today, Wednesday, April 2.

  • Night of the Runaway Wheelchair; A Life-Altering Class

    Roberta McReynolds writes: The breeze lifting the hair off my face didn’t originate from any meteorological conditions. It occurred when my wheelchair broke free of my white-knuckled grip at the top of a long ramp, consequently launching me across the parking lot. It felt like I was about to execute an imitation of one of…

  • Forget Your Twitter Following; Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?

    Ever since President Obama made securing nuclear weapons assets a top priority for his global arms control agenda, guarding and disposing of these holdings have become an international security preoccupation. Yet, in all of this, the urgent task of securing and disposing of known nuclear weapons assets has all but sidelined what to do about…

  • Draft Rules Would Help Protect Seniors When Medicare Advantage Plans Drop Doctors

    Representatives for UnitedHealthcare and Humana, the two leading Medicare Advantage insurers, declined to answer questions or provide copies of their comments to CMS related to the proposals. UnitedHealthcare said earlier the cancellations were partly the result of cuts in federal reimbursements required by the Affordable Care Act and also part of an effort to improve…

  • Janet L. Yellen: Remarks on Women’s History Month

    Women have made great progress in many occupations and professions, but lag in others. In my own profession, there has been a gradual increase in the share of women in economics, but women still remain underrepresented at the highest levels in academia, in government and in business. There are doubtless numerous reasons for this, and…

  • First on the List: Cubbing

    Joan L. Cannon writes: When I was in my thirties, I used to think that one day, somehow, I’d get to go to Ireland or England and go cubbing. For those to whom that’s a new term, it refers to the practice of taking novice hounds out to learn how to be fox hunters in…