Patricia Beurteaux

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…
Holidays at the White House (time lapse video)

Behind-the-Scenes Look: In 2011, more than 400 volunteers came together to help decorate the White House and assist with celebrations; Medals, badges, and patches from all of the military branches are displayed on ornaments on the tree in the Blue Room
2010 Federal Taxpayer Receipt

President Obama promised that this year, for the first time ever, American taxpayers would be able to go online and see exactly how their federal tax dollars are spent. The taxpayer receipt will give you a breakdown of how your tax dollars are spent
FactCheck.org: The Whoppers of 2011

One independent liberal group posted a widely seen Internet video of a man pushing a white-haired woman in a wheelchair to the edge of a scenic cliff and dumping her over it. It ends by asking, “Is America Beautiful without Medicare?” That bogus claim was found by our sister site, “FlackCheck.org,” to be among the…
Epiphany

This year, under sunny if chilly blue December skies, I probably will be alone. At first I was ecstatic, feeling I’d conquered the longing to slip into a Currier & Ives Christmas scene. Then I ate too many See’s candies and slid backward into “Why will I be alone?”
Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Soldiers’ Abuse

Thousands of women massed in Tahrir Square here on Tuesday afternoon and marched to a journalists’ syndicate and back in a demonstration that grew by the minute into an extraordinary expression of anger at the treatment of women by the military police
Pro Publica’s Guide to the Best Coverage of Newt Gingrich and His Record

“Gingrich’s vagueness was always a problem. But the books show something more: a near-total lack of interest in the political implementation of his grand ideas — a lack of interest, finally, in politics at its most mundane and consequential level.”
Trolling for Christmas

I live in a part of the country that has a large Moravian population. Moravians celebrate the season of Advent, putting up large, beautiful lighted white stars, and making wreaths which sit on a table or hang horizontally, with four candles on them to represent the four Sundays before Christmas. It’s a gentle introduction to…
Jurors on the Internet: a dilemma for courts

This month the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a guilty verdict in a capital murder case because a juror was tweeting about it while the case was being heard. A few days earlier, a California juror was dismissed after the court discovered she had posted extensively about the case and about the other jurors on her…
We’ll Always Have Frances, Emma, The Little Prince and Middlemarch

The most treasured present for any occasion in our family is a book. Immediately, the recipient opens it and usually has difficulty going to another gift, so captured by the world that is appearing in their hands. Here are some of our choices for this holiday in books and DVDs
“Women Were In It From the Beginning”

“Women were out front as a survival tactic. Men could not function in high-visibility, high-profile roles where we come from, because they would be plucked off … The white folks didn’t see the women as that much of a threat … They didn’t know the power of women, especially black women”