Sightings
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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The Beauty of Flight: A survey of those who flew early and often
“Suddenly that little wedge of sky above Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor was the busiest, fullest piece of sky I ever saw. We counted anxiously as our little civilian planes came flying home to roost. Two never came back. They were washed ashore weeks later on the windward side of the island, bullet-riddled. Not a…
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Invisible Wounds: Examining the Disability Compensation Benefits Process for Victims of Military Sexual Trauma
“The Department of Defense estimates that one in four women who join the armed services will be raped or assaulted, but that only about 10% of such incidents are ever reported,” stated Rep. Jon Runyan, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. “Even more alarming is that of those few who did…
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Before the Games Begin: Is it Discriminatory for There Not to Be Women’s Olympic Canoe Events?
“Ms Rippington does not seek to use this claim to change the 2012 Olympic sports programme. She wants the organisers of these Olympics, who are in the UK bound by equalities rules, to conduct an in-depth examination of the gender bias in the canoeing programme, and, she hopes, in the Olympic sports programme in general.”
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Museum Shopping: Noctural and Tide Computer, a Shakespeare Toy Duck, a Mrs. Delaney Pink Botanical Mug,
Since London will be the focus for the Summer Olympics, we thought we’d explore the British Museum Shop’s offerings and, yes, there’s no end of the intriguing and unusual.
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Were You Considering Testing Your Genetic Makeup for Disease Prediction? “The road to efficient genetic risk prediction is likely to be long.”
The Harvard team examined whether disease risk prediction would improve for breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis if they included the effect of synergy in their statistical models. They found no significant effect by doing so. “Statistical models of synergy among genetic markers are not ‘game changers’ in terms of risk prediction in…
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The Marketing of the American Beauty
Advertisers turned to images of feminine mystique to which consumers could aspire (and hopefully emulate) through the purchase of goods and services. Men were also charmed by these images and magazine publishers used the attraction of pretty faces on their covers to boost impulse buying for their all-important newsstand sales.
