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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…
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…
Money, Personal Preferences Push States on Long-Term Care: Staying in Your Home

Many states are trying to make it easier for frail seniors to stay in their homes — as many prefer — instead of moving into more costly nursing homes. In Minnesota nursing home beds have been cut more than a third as the state focuses on its home and community-based care system. In Hawaii, the…
Jo Freeman’s Republican Convention Diary: Cleveland’s Other Gatherings

“Political conventions attract strange bedfellows. Over the weekend preceding the Republican Convention, two other conventions met to talk about issues that were almost polar opposites to those of the Republicans. Both were held in black Baptist churches. The traditional Sunday protest march was small and peaceful.”
2016 GOP Convention Program: Daily Themes & Headliners, An Unconventional Lineup of Speakers

“Veterans, political outsiders, faith leaders and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s family members will lead an unconventional lineup of speakers who have real-world experience and will make a serious case against the status quo and for an agenda that will make America great again.”
Jo Freeman’s Convention Diary: RNC Pre-Convention Passes and Confusion

“I’m not a member of an organized party. I’m a Democrat.” If Will Rogers had said this today he would be describing the Republican convention in Cleveland, or at least the preconvention meetings. Although organizing for these meetings starts long before the actual convention, the lack of organization, multiple mistakes and repeated shifts of direction is unlike…
The Art of Adriana Varejão Surrounds a Rio Olympics Aquatics Stadium

Regarded as one of Brazil’s most accomplished contemporary artists, Varejão often references cultural and historic research through an intense investigation into anthropology, colonial trade, demography, and racial identity. She is especially influenced by theories of mestizaje (a term for the mixing of ancestries) and cultural anthropophagy — as proposed by the Brazilian poet Oswald de…
A Bit of History: Lyndon B. Johnson Accepts the Nod to Become Vice-President, July 14, 1960

“Liberal Democrats reacted negatively to Johnson as a wheeler-dealer, and Robert Kennedy, as the campaign manager, had given his word to labor leaders and civil rights groups that Johnson would never be the vice-presidential candidate. When John Kennedy reported that he would offer the second spot to Johnson, his brother interpreted the move as only…
Hearings on Zika and Campus Safety: Bills On Eliminating Pornography from Federal Computers, Opioid Use, Sexual Assault Survivors

Violence Against Women — On Wednesday July 13th, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on Campus Safety, Improving Prevention and Response Efforts. The hearing is scheduled for 2:45 pyem, Eastern. Also on Wednesday, a Senate Foreign RElations Subcommittee will hold hearings on “Zika in the Western Hemisphere: Risks and…
The Shopping Trip: Cutting Table Wars

Roberta McReynolds writes: It never fails. Just in case you have never personally experienced the ‘cutting table wait’, the odds are that no matter how many people are ahead of you, the person who is buying a shopping cart filled to capacity with quilting fabric will have edged ahead of you by a nanosecond. You…
Stars Ignite: How Stars and Clusters Form Over 700,000 Years

Like fireworks bursting through a smoky haze, protostars ignite within colossal filaments of gas in a new supercomputer simulation of stars forming inside molecular clouds. The simulation covers 700,000 years, and is based on computer code created by UC Berkeley astrophysicist Richard Klein to capture the effects of radiation, magnetic fields, gravity and other physical…
Andrea Leadsome: A Former Prime Ministerial Candidate Addressing the Gender Imbalance in the Nuclear Industry

“We can send people to the moon. We can explore the vast depths of our oceans. We can build great cities and towering structures. We can even talk to our computers. We have achieved greatness in many areas. But on the issue of gender imbalance, while there has been progress in the UK and around…