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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…
CultureWatch: Jane Fonda and Red Grooms

In Jane Fonda; The Private Life of a Public Woman, Bosworth explores the ambivalences of Jane Fonda as artist, romantic, businesswoman, femme fatale, and partly finished intellectual. Red Grooms’ Marlborough Gallery show, New York: 1976-2011, is a madcap collection of paintings, sculptures and walk-through “sculpto-pictoramas” depicting the high-life, low-life and in-between-life of the metropolis
Great Neighborhoods, Streets and Public Spaces

“From Providence, Rhode Island’s historic College Hill neighborhood and St. Louis’s revitalized Washington Avenue to Tacoma, Washington’s Point Defiance old-growth forest and park and Colorado Springs, Colorado’s Garden of the Gods Park, Great Places reflect a tremendous amount of history, diversity and economic vitality.”
Celebrating Dickens’ Bicentennial at the Morgan Library

In collaboration with British heiress Angela Boudrett-Coudetts, Dickens founded Urania Cottage, a shelter for “fallen women” — that is, prostitutes and low-level criminals. Letters to Boudrett-Coudetts reveal a compassionate, hands-on manager intent on offering a safe haven to, and rehabilitating, the residents of the “Asylum,” beginning with the clothes on their backs
Sexual Assault, Next Steps for Peace Corps, Subjects of Senate Hearing

“In response to a 20/20 broadcast earlier this year and a previous congressional hearing, OIG [Office of the Inspector General] has initiated a review of the agency’s guidelines for responding to rape and major sexual assault, which is ongoing.”
Progressives Talk Politics, and Protest Politicians

The heros of the TBAD conference were the public employees of Wisconsin and Ohio. The Freedom Plaza protest had been months in the planning by anti-war activists and they began calling themselves Stop the Machine; Occupy DC set up shop in an effort to show solidarity with Occupy Wall Street
Why Worry? Relationships and GAD

A new research study shows that worrying can be so intrusive and obsessive that it interferes in the person’s life and endangers the health of social relationships; the negative methods they use to cope — from over nurturing to extreme detachment — may be destructive
As States Cut Aid, Localities Learn to Do Less With Less

Plenty of other states [aside from Ohio] this year, including Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, cut direct state aid, revenue sharing, or funds for specific local services
Making the Macintosh, Stanford Library’s Electronic Archive

This project seeks to tell the stories of people who have not been included in earlier accounts: technical writers who created the documentation for the Mac; marketing people; enthusiasts who organized user groups; industry analysts and journalists who wrote about it
Daphne Guinness at FIT’s Museum

While there have been many exhibitions devoted to great fashion designers, only a few have focused on individual women of style. They inspire designers and create a look that affects the way other people dress.
GAO Investigates Instances of Questionable Access to Prescription Drugs

CMS has systems to identify individuals with doctor shopping behavior; however, federal law may not authorize them to restrict these individuals’ access to drugs, including highly abused drugs, such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.