What’s New
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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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Outsourcing the Local Library Can Lead to a Loud Backlash
LSSI has received consistently icy receptions in most of the places where it has come in and taken over. Every community has its share of library users who believe that a library system is a core function of local government, regardless of what the budget situation is.
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Can You Rely on Restaurant Calorie Counts?; The What I Eat Book
“Foods purchased in restaurants provide approximately 35 percent of the daily energy intake in US individuals but the accuracy of the energy contents listed for these foods is unknown.”
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Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations
It is often the casual record that reveals the rhythms of an age. Lists, whether dashed off as a quick reminder or carefully constructed as a comprehensive inventory, give insight into the list maker’s personal habits and enrich the understanding of individual biographies.
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Helen Mirren and Other Women of Note
Helen Mirren has now been chosen as having the best female body by a poll of 2,000 people. Nancy Pelosi manages to remain extremely attractive, well-dressed and poised — as well as politically powerful. Perhaps the oldest working model is Carmel Dell-Orefice, at age 80.
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Ovarian Cancer Genome Mapped, Opens Door to Personalized Medicine
“We are the first to systematically catalog the genetic mutations associated with ovarian cancer… “This represents an opportunity to improve cancer care by approaching the treatment of each subtype differently”
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CBO’s Director On the Debt Ceiling: Defaulting “a dangerous gamble”
Public statements by many financial-market participants and experts have made clear that default by the federal government on obligations to debt holders would be a significant shock to the global financial system and economy.
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FactChecking Dueling Debt Speeches
The president and House speaker restated familiar positions in their dueling debt ceiling speeches, but they took their points too far at times or made them without enough context.
