Tam Gray

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…
To Survive, Rural Hospitals Join Forces: What It’s Like to Lose a Hospital

There are approximately 2,300 rural hospitals in the US, most of them concentrated in the Midwest and the South. For a variety of reasons, many of them are struggling to survive. In the last five years, Congress has sharply reduced spending on Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, and the patients at…
A Playlist Connected to a Pillow Before, During and After An Operation

A United Kingdom Study: “Music is a non-invasive, safe, and inexpensive intervention that can be delivered easily and successfully in a hospital setting. We believe that sufficient research has been done to show that music should be available to all patients undergoing operative procedures.” They add: “Timing of music does not make much difference to…
The So-called Mirror Image Has Become Oddly Suspect

Joan L. Cannon writes: The ubiquitous cameras of our daily lives may is some ways replace some of the older functions of the looking glass, but they don’t give rise to the emotional resonances stirred by passing a household fixture or treasure that has seen most of one’s years of consciousness. The missing image of…
Editorial in JAMA Journal Oncology: Rethinking the Standard for Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Treatment

“As we pushed to find smaller and smaller cancers, and targeted calcifications instead of just masses, we began to identify DCIS more frequently. Now DCIS accounts for approximately 20% to 25% of screen-detected breast cancers. The cells that make up DCIS look like invasive cancer both pathologically and molecularly, and therefore the presumption was made…
Mary K. Gaillard: One Woman’s Journey In Physics

Gaillard writes about the slights and frustrations that gradually raised her consciousness as she rose to the top among theoretical physicists trying to understand the complexities of the universe’s fundamental particles. The wife of a physicist, she mothered three young children while simultaneously laying the theoretical groundwork for key experiments that proved the validity of…
Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues and Applicable Federal Law

Facial recognition technology — which can verify or identify an individual from a facial image — has rapidly improved in performance and now can surpass human performance in some cases. The Department of Commerce has convened stakeholders to review privacy issues related to commercial use of this technology, which GAO was also asked to examine.…
Fireflies And Summer Rain … Stars at Night, a Million Stars, Hung Low

Julia Sneden wrote: But after all, summer is summer, no matter where you live, and it needs nothing else to recommend it. In any guise, it’s a time for living lightly and slowing down to enjoy whatever nature brings you. If you do it right, when Labor Day rolls around you’ll have begun to be…
Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Blogcation and Poor Oak Trees

There is a time for everything to flourish, I guess, and then to draw away. It’s hard to accept that sometimes that withdrawal is hastened; the oaks should last longer than this. Nature is a continuum of growth and loss. We can delay the process now and then but there is a time for it…
Is your neighbor a Democrat or Republican? Desirability of Partisan Composition on Real Estate

While political considerations do not trump other concerns in the search for a place to reside, they do matter when all factors are considered. Research shows that Democrats cluster in urban areas and Republicans in rural areas based on attitudes and viewpoints as well as “pre-existing political balance that attracts an influx of co-partisans, while…
Museum of Imaginary Instruments Exhibits

In historical terms, the entries span from ancient Rome to the late 20th century. Some entries are true thought experiments, or as Douglas Kahn has called them, “conceptual instruments” which — at least according to our current estimations of technological possibility — could not exist outside of the imagination. Others bear close relationship to historical…