Liz Flaherty

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…
Lifelong Pursuits: Allure

Joan L. Cannon writes: My father’s desk would be glittering with snippets of gold foil, spools of brilliantly colored silk, as resplendent as a jeweler’s tray with iridescent peacock and pheasant feathers, tiny bits of deer and badger and elk hair, and puffs of down.
How Did Older Workers Fare in 2009? The Urban Institute’s Report Doesn’t Paint a Pretty Picture

High unemployment has attracted much attention, but there has been less consideration of how older workers have fared. In past recessions unemployment has remained relatively low for older workers, whose seniority often protected them. However, age might not protect older workers as well as it once did, because workplaces are now less regularized and labor…
Textile Exhibits, The British Quilt, 1700 – 2010 and Japanese Sashiko Textiles

Jo Budd’s diptych was bathed in soft light, accentuating the stitches and ripples, the shadows and softly curvaceous contours of ‘Female/Summer’. In ‘Virtue and Virtuosity’, Dinah Prentice was installing ‘Billowing Maenads’, seductively draping and illuminated against the peachy tones of the walls. We have won over the lighting engineers who want to know more about…
Sweeping the Conflicts Away

I sensed this out on the distant horizon several months ago, but not even in my wildest imagination the exact form it would take. (I catch myself vacillating between laughter at the bizarre and tears of frustration.) Something was in the air, like a foreboding atmospheric change signaling a storm. When the weather report warns…
Hollywood’s Gender Equality, Written in Invisible Ink; Where Are the Women in Film and TV?

“Across 400 top-grossing G, PG, PG-13 and R rated films released between 1990 and 2006, only 27 percent of over 15,000 speaking characters were female.”
Joanna Grossman at Writ, Annulments Based on Fraud: What is the “Essence” of Marriage?

“The second marriage, she alleged, had been based on fraud — a false representation that he would soon be dead.”
Making Movies: Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail; revenge in modern times must not be justified

Making Movies: Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail and revenge in modern times must not be justified.
Shopping for Shoes, Bags and Accessory Treasures

Ped – A San Francisco-based site that offers shoes, jewelry,handbags and … treasures. We fell for the Pepita jewelry pieces, which are made of such ingredients as lace, fabric beads, flea market finds, haberdashery stocks
Medical Radiation: The Excruciating Testimony of the Father of Scott Jerome-Parks

“We ask that medical equipment manufacturers of deadly machines develop failsafe interactive expert systems that can interact with human technicians to reduce, or eliminate human errors. It is further recommended that such dangerous equipment never be operated by anyone not fully trained and qualified. Oncologists and supervising physicists must learn to micromanage every aspect of…
So You Want To Be a Teacher … Read This First: Review of Diary of an Inner City Teacher

To write about her students, her colleagues and herself without violating their privacy, she gives them names reflecting a notable characteristic. Moncur of course, is Ms. Teacher. Some of her students are Got to Blurt Out, Mr. Playful, Anger, Apathy, Missing Skills, The Intellect and A Really Nice Child. Teaching math to this varied group…