Roberta McReynolds

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…
Reproductive Rights Back Before the Court: Should Health Plans Offer Contraceptive Coverage?

Jo Freeman writes: Rules written by the Department of Health and Human Services for the ACA provided a way for religious organizations, such as universities, hospitals and social service groups, to opt-out of providing coverage by notifying their insurer or the government that their religious beliefs preclude contraceptive coverage.
Eight Presidents Who Shaped America’s Public Lands: From the Roosevelts to Barack Obama

Consider the legacies of eight presidents who made a difference in American conservation. For one, Theodore Roosevelt created five national parks, 18 national monuments, 51 bird sanctuaries, began the National Wildlife Refuge system and set aside 100 million acres for national forests. Another Roosevelt, FDR, put millions of people to work under the CCC building…
A Medieval Alchemical Book at the British Museum Reveals New Secrets

The Book of the Seven Climes is the earliest known study focused wholly on alchemical illustrations. The ‘climes’ (from which our word ‘climate’ is derived) are the seven latitudinal zones into which the astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy divided the inhabited world in the 2nd century AD.
Meet Chief Judge Merrick Garland, the President’s Nominee to the Supreme Court: What Generation Progress Is Doing

Since 1875, every Supreme Court nominee has received a Senate hearing or a vote … Senator Patty Murray. Generation Progress highlights the individual senators you can contact directly: Senators, #DoYourJob
Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Grackles Out for Dinner; A Flock is a Family

Then I saw this tree. There were so many birds on it. The birds were grackles, a species that travels in flocks, sort of like traveling with a large family. It made me think about the concept of family. There are many individuals connected to each other. Sometimes the connection works, sometimes not but when…
Domino Effect: Restoring, Backing Up, Collecting All Those Scattered Data Pieces and Photos, Oh My!

Roberta McReynolds writes: The very process of attempting to simplify data storage creates questions and problems I never encounter when I merely toss papers into a box to sort later. Admittedly that system also has drawbacks beyond the obvious fact that I can’t locate, let alone remember, 80% of what’s in all those cardboard containers.…
The Cantor Arts Center: Myth, Allegory and Faith and a Preview of a Hopper

More than 180 works, selected from one of the most extensive private collections of Mannerist prints in the world, epitomize the 16th-century’s extravagant and sophisticated style featuring engravings, etchings, woodcuts and chiaroscuro woodcuts by renowned artists and famous printmakers of the era. One of Hopper’s early paintings, the oil on canvas was created when Hopper…
A Handel Scholar Discovers New Cantata by a Baroque Master

“It took only a few minutes,” John Roberts said of his inspection of a digital version of the document. “In fact, I realized almost immediately that I was dealing with a genuine alternative setting of an earlier text. I recognized musical ideas found in other Handel pieces while at the same time knowing that I…
Zika: A Chance to Expand Reproductive Rights?

As scientists look for definitive proof of a link between Zika and serious birth defects, governments in countries like Brazil and Colombia have offered this piece of advice to their citizens: Don’t get pregnant. That guidance, says Wendy Chavkin, professor emerita in Population and Family Health, is as about as helpful as Marie Antoinette’s infamous…
The Airplane Bathroom That Cleans Itself; A Toilet Seat That Lifts Itself

After watching a steady parade of people emerge from the lavatory on an extended commercial flight, many passengers are reluctant to expose themselves to the germs left behind. But what if the lavatory could clean itself after every use? Boeing engineers and designers have built a prototype lavatory that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to kill…