What’s New

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…
Death Takes a Policy: How a Lawyer Exploited the Fine Print and Found Himself Facing Federal Charges

Rhode Island prosecutors say that Joseph Caramadre is an unscrupulous con artist who engaged in identity theft, conspiracy and two different kinds of fraud. Prosecutors contend he deceived the terminally ill to make millions for himself and his clients. His criminal trial is scheduled to begin in November.
CultureWatch: A Debut Author – The Warmth of Other Suns; DVD Tip: The Forsyte Saga

The stories of these individual three lives involved in “The Great Migration” are brilliantly told in The Warmth of Other Suns and serve to soften and humanize the long, carefully researched story Isabel Wilkerson has to tell. The DVD Tip, The Forsyte Saga, reminds us just how compelling and sexy the Victorian and 1920 eras…
We Have Another Five Years? Underestimating Longevity and Working in Retirement

In the past half-century, life expectancy for newborn Americanfemales, the average increase was about 1.5 years per decade, from 73.1 years in 1960 to 80.8 years by 2010. “There is a general misunderstanding of what ‘average life expectancy’ means, and when people are told they will live to an age such as 80 or 85,…
The Century of the Child: Contributions of women as architects, designers, teachers, critics, and social activists

“Our age cries for personality, but it will ask in vain, until we allow them to have their own will, think their own thoughts, work out their own knowledge, form their own judgements; or, to put the matter briefly, until we cease to suppress the raw material of personality in schools, vainly hoping later on…
One Woman’s Reaction: US Representative Todd Akin on Rape and Pregnancy

Julia Sneden writes: Isn’t it odd that the very people who keep saying we need to get the government out of our lives, at the same time condone legislation insisting that more than half the population needs its government to tell them what to do or not to do with their wombs?
Entering College Class of 2016: They have never needed an actual airline “ticket,” a set of bound encyclopedias, or Romper Room

They are probably the most tribal generation in history and they despise being separated from contact with friends. They are helping their parents understand that you don’t take pictures on “film” and that CDs and DVDs are not “tapes.” Those parents have been able to review the crime statistics for the colleges their children have…
Shopping With The Irresistibles: Spoon Sisters and One King’s Lane

We discovered One King’s Lane not long ago and although we’ve sworn off daily emails from any shopping sources, we have to admit that we lost our resolve with this site. Years ago we added the Spoon Sisters to our shopping pages and although they sound like a singing duo, they’re dedicated to quirky, useful,…
Todd Akin’s “Forcible rapes hardly ever result in pregnancy”: A 1996 Study About Rape-related Pregnancies

The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.
Why Don’t They Vote: Who Are the Unlikelies?

“There is a huge block of Americans who are never asked their opinions because they are immediately screened out once they’ve indicated that they are not registered or unlikely to vote. It is the first poll taken this year that exclusively looks at this segment of the population.”
What Is In That Lipstick and Other Beautiful Questions

“While voluntary action on the part of manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson indicates that some in the cosmetics industry are getting the message that consumers want safer products. Only stricter regulation of this $50 billion industry will ensure that all consumers are protected.”