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  • The Art of Pinning: Museum Pinners Worth Following

    By Val Castronovo

    Since its founding in 2010, Pinterest, the photo-sharing site that has become the third most popular social network after Facebook and Twitter, has been enthusiastically embraced by art museums across the country. A virtual bulletin board, Pinterest allows users — more than 70 million now — to set up “boards” to which they “pin” images of favorite things — in this case, artworks and artifacts culled from museum collections and archives.

    Pinterest pages are now standard fare for art institutions, a way to promote their works and expand their audience — but also just to inspire.  Some boast hundreds of thousands of followers; others, mere hundreds.  Herewith a selection of some finely curated sites, including that of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, just named one of the 30 Pinners to Follow by Time Magazine in its 2013 roundup of expert users.  But first a look at some Pinterest pages from museums lining Manhattan’s Museum Mile:

     The Metropolitan Museum of Art

     http://pinterest.com/metmuseum/

     558, 919 Followers; 22 Boards; 1,252 Pins  (As of Sept. 9, 2013)

    Note:  All figures for Followers, Boards and Pins in this article are subject to change

    Favorite Boards:  The Cloisters; 82nd  & Fifth; Lady in Red; Connection/The Nose; Wicked Works 

    Favorite Pin:  On The Cloisters Board: Former Met Director Philippe de Montebello’s world-class video tour of The Cloisters, commemorating this Upper Manhattan outpost’s 75th anniversary. Take in the medieval architecture and the glory of the unicorn tapestries. 

    The Met’s Pinterest page offers a wide variety of lenses through which to view the richness of its collection.  Start with 82nd  & Fifth — a year-long series of mini-talks by 100 Met curators on the 100 works in the collection that inspired them.  Check each Wednesday for new installments about these transformative artworks. And get in the mood for Halloween by browsing Wicked Works, a board devoted to artistic renderings of spooky things — ghosts, skulls, witches, bats, vampires — you get the picture.

    The Frick Collection

    http://pinterest.com/frickcollection/Man in Red Cap

    231 Followers; 14 Boards; 356 Pins

    Favorite Boards:  Painting Highlights from the Permanent Collection; Art History’s Best Facial Hair; Clocks and Watches; Hats; A Girl’s Best Friend (it’s dogs, not diamonds)

    Favorite Pin: On the Hats Board:  Titian’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap, c. 1510, oil on canvas; photo: Michael Bodycomb

    Savor vicariously the splendor of Henry Clay Frick’s Gilded Age mansion and European art collection via this Pinterest page, which includes a “Fricktagram” board replete with Instagram photos (some illegal!) of the interior and exterior of this extraordinary building.  As one fan commented about an exterior view of the entrance on East 70th Street in Manhattan:  “That s [sic] how I like New york [sic]- classy, upscale and elegant.” See Clocks and Watches with items recently reviewed on SeniorWomen.com.  Museum gift shop devotees will also revel in The Museum Shop board — think tony mugs, totes and melamine plum blossom plates. 

  • The Noble Purpose: Human Cells Respond in Healthy, Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness

    Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health, according to new research led by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Barbara Frederickson

    Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, right, Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at the University of North Carolina

    The sense of well-being derived from “a noble purpose” may provide cellular health benefits, whereas “simple self-gratification” may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found. “A functional genomic perspective on human well-being” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

    “Philosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a ‘hedonic’ [hee-DON-ic] form representing an individual’s pleasurable experiences, and a deeper ‘eudaimonic,’ [u-DY-moh-nick] form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification,” wrote Fredrickson and her colleagues.

    It’s the difference, for example, between enjoying a good meal and feeling connected to a larger community through a service project, she said. Both give us a sense of happiness, but each is experienced very differently in the body’s cells.

    “We know from many studies that both forms of well-being are associated with improved physical and mental health, beyond the effects of reduced stress and depression,” Fredrickson said. “But we have had less information on the biological bases for these relationships.”

    Collaborating with a team from the University of California at Los Angeles  led by Steven W. Cole, professor of medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Fredrickson and her colleagues looked at the biological influence of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through the human genome. They were interested in the pattern of gene expression within people’s immune cells.

    Past work by Cole and colleagues had discovered a systematic shift in gene expression associated with chronic stress, a shift “characterized by increased expression of genes involved in inflammation” that are implicated in a wide variety of human ills, including arthritis and heart disease, and “decreased expression of genes involved in … antiviral responses,” the study noted. Cole and colleagues coined the phrase “conserved transcriptional response to adversity” or CTRA to describe this shift. In short, the functional genomic fingerprint of chronic stress sets us up for illness, Fredrickson said.

    But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers.

    Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.  

    Fredrickson found the results initially surprising, because study participants themselves reported overall feelings of well-being. One possibility, she suggested, is that people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume the emotional equivalent of empty calories. “Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term,” she said.  

    “We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically,” she said. “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.”

    The results bolster Fredrickson’s previous work on the effects of positive emotions, as well as research linking a sense of connectedness with longevity. “Understanding the cascade to gene expression will help inform further work in these areas,” she added.

    Fredrickson collaborated with Karen M. Grewen, associate professor of psychiatry in UNC’s School of Medicine; and Kimberly A. Coffey, research assistant professor, and Sara B. Algoe, assistant professor, both of psychology, in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

  • The Other Side of Silence; What Sounded Appealing Regardless of its Horror

    french retreat, napoleonic wars

    French retreat from Russia in 1812; 1874. Painted by Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov; Tret’yakov Gallery in Moscow

    By Joan L. Cannon

    If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.” George Elliot, Middlemarch.

    Early in our lives, most of us are taut with eagerness to vibrate in unison with every sensation we find available. A few unlucky souls are oblivious. Those most observant, most open to subtlety, most susceptible to resonances with emotion become artists. The second tier of sensitivity allows for appreciation by the rest of us for what those elect produce.

    As time passes, those less hardy understand better what George Elliot meant about “dying of the roar on the other side of silence.” In a world so full of fast communication and visual images, the test of survival (psychic and emotional) is often the ability to withstand the worst, even though it doesn’t happen to you.

    As a teenager, I read whatever was recommended or what sounded appealing regardless of its horror, and managed only occasional nightmares. In a single summer I made my way through War and Peace, Gone with the Wind, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Anna Karenina, The Robe, and more. Those books were Book-of-the-Month Club selections on my aunt’s shelves.

    Later I watched the movie Gone with the Wind, and suddenly the gripping scenes of the wounded in Atlanta, for instance, were no longer confined to what my imagination could conjure. I read All Quiet on the Western Front, The Moon is Down, Journey’s End. After a childhood surrounded by the knights of the Round Table, the exploits of Greek heroes, biblical warriors, I began to have a dawning realization of the difference between literary and artistic war and the real thing. By 1939, I couldn’t have escaped it if I’d tried.

    I have several friends who have joined the general rave about the movie War Horse. Some wonder that I won’t watch it. As I’ve grown older, I’ve discovered that my tolerance for a lot of reality has diminished in inverse order to the number of years I’ve lived. I no longer find it necessary to keep up with experiences I doubt I can withstand without paying an emotional price I’m afraid is too high.

    There’s no doubt I’m a coward, both physical and emotional. The things we all manage because we have no choice are beginning to seem like all I can take. I don’t need to subject myself deliberately to things that will be too easy to imagine far too accurately. So I won’t watch what horses went through (not to mention men and mules and farm animals and civilians) in World War I because I don’t have to.

    Since I’m not alone in my love of mystery writers who combine puzzles with penetrating characterizations and engrossing settings, I frequently find myself watching or reading about terrible things — acts of depravity or cruelty that in some strange way fail to make me shrink from them. Probably this is simply evidence of the almost endless human capacity for self-delusion. There’s an invisible switch somewhere that signifies what my conscience must or may not respond to. Without a conscious decision, I’m able to become immersed in the story for itself so long as there’s a hope of some sort of redemption.

    The corollary to this understanding is the question of whether that hypocrisy, callousness, failure of imagination become ingrained in the young before they know how so much as even to wonder whether there’s a difference between fact and fantasy. Yet another doomsday question about the future.

    Are we in a time when we forget that the silence at the end of a disaster of whatever kind hides a roar that only saints and philosophers have the stomach for?

    ©2013 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com

  • “Fly Me to the Moon”: LADEE, a Robotic Probe Via a Minotaur Rocket

    Ladee spacecraft at NASA Wollops Facility, Virginia

    Engineers as NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia encapsule the LADEE spacecraft into the fairing (the foremost section) of the Minotaur V launch vehicle nose-cone.  Photograph from: NASA Wallops/Terry Zaperach

    In an attempt to answer prevailing questions about our moon, NASA is making final preparations to launch a probe at 11:27 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 6, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.

    The small car-sized Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky. A thorough understanding of these characteristics of our nearest celestial neighbor will help researchers understand other bodies in the solar system, such as large asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets.

    “The moon’s tenuous atmosphere may be more common in the solar system than we thought,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington. “Further understanding of the moon’s atmosphere may also help us better understand our diverse solar system and its evolution.”

    The mission has many firsts, including the first flight of the Minotaur V rocket, testing of a high-data-rate laser communication system, and the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the agency’s Virginia Space Coast launch facility.

    LADEE also is the first spacecraft designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. The probe will launch on a US Air Force Minotaur V rocket, an excess ballistic missile converted into a space launch vehicle and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.

    LADEE was built using an Ames-developed Modular Common Spacecraft Bus architecture, a general purpose spacecraft design that allows NASA to develop, assemble and test multiple modules at the same time. The LADEE bus structure is made of a lightweight carbon composite with a mass of 547.2 pounds — 844.4 pounds when fully fueled.

    “This mission will put the common bus design to the test,” said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. “This same common bus can be used on future missions to explore other destinations, including voyages to orbit and land on the moon, low-Earth orbit, and near-Earth objects.”

    Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames, said the innovative common bus concept brings NASA a step closer to multi-use designs and assembly line production and away from custom design. “The LADEE mission demonstrates how it is possible to build a first class spacecraft at a reduced cost while using a more efficient manufacturing and assembly process,” Hine said.

    Approximately one month after launch, LADEE will begin its 40-day commissioning phase, the first 30 days of which the spacecraft will be performing activities high above the moon’s surface. These activities include testing a high-data-rate laser communication system that will enable higher rates of satellite communications similar in capability to high-speed fiber optic networks on Earth.

    After commissioning, LADEE will begin a 100-day science phase to collect data using three instruments to determine the composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and remotely sense lofted dust, measure variations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, and collect and analyze samples of any lunar dust particles in the atmosphere. Using this set of instruments, scientists hope to address a long-standing question: Was lunar dust, electrically charged by sunlight, responsible for the pre-sunrise glow above the lunar horizon detected during several Apollo missions?

    After launch, Ames will serve as a base for mission operations and real-time control of the probe. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will catalogue and distribute data to a science team located across the country.

    NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LADEE mission. Ames manages the overall mission. Goddard manages the science instruments and technology demonstration payload, the science operations center and provides overall mission support. Wallops is responsible for launch vehicle integration, launch services and operations. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages LADEE within the Lunar Quest Program Office.

    For more information about the LADEE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ladee

    Editor’s Note: While you’re at the NASA site, consider that over the course of September 2013, NASA climate experts will answer selected questions on Climate Change through the agency’s social media channels – primarily on YouTube, Twitter and Google+. Go ahead, ask a question!

  • An Interested Party Presents: For Whom the Troll Dwells

    Editor’s Note: About a decade ago, we bought a floor lamp at a well-known San Francisco American Craft Shop, V. Breier. We were told that it was made by Bill Roan, the ironworker and creator of the troll referenced below. Our lamp incorporates a theme of Cerberus, the dog of Hades. It’s our favorite lamp for jigsaw puzzle sessions — currently a Giovanni Paolo Pannini painting of Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome. A new troll has been placed on the East Span Replacement bridge and the ‘old troll’ will find temporary residence at the Oakland Museum of California where we are members. Cerberus is safe in our Berkeley home and continues to shed light.

    For Whom the Troll Dwells: A Legendary Case for Supplemental Safety Measures on the New San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span 2013

    Trolls are symbolically linked to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span Replacement Project in many ways. Renowned for their protective powers, longevity and superhuman strength, trolls represent a history and spirit that deserve to be both commemorated and continued.

    Recommendations for the Troll Bridge Program; Oversight Committee, Project Management Team, Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program*Bay Bridge Troll

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

    In the wake of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, just after repairs were completed on the failed section of the Bay Bridge East Span above Pier E-9, a troll appeared on the upper deck of the East Span. His arrival was a surprise, but the fabricated steel figure was soon accepted as part and parcel of the bridge. With the new Bay Bridge East Span scheduled to open in 2013, and the old span slated for demolition, the troll’s fate is unclear. Ideally, this long-serving guardian would be retired to a place of honor, and a new troll welcomed onto the new bridge. Such action would be consistent with a longstanding tradition that recognizes trolls for their superior strength, longevity and protective powers — all characteristics for which the new East Span of the San-Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge is designed as well.

    HISTORY  &  SYMBOLISM of TROLLS

    The first legends in which trolls appear were recorded over a millennium ago in medieval Scandinavia. They appeared frequently in the annals of Norse mythology, where the word “troll” was associated with magical enchanters.1 From these origins, trolls worked their way into the folklore of diverse regions. In Denmark they were imagined as hook-nosed humpbacks called “trolds,” while on the Shetland and Orkney Islands they became known as “trows.”2  Today, the mythology surrounding trolls is so vast that no one definition suffices. Instead, a few critical features bear mentioning.

    Physically, trolls have been described as being any size or shape. Two consistent features are their great age and enormous strength.3 But perhaps the most important characteristic is their intolerance for light. Indeed, many tales recount how trolls turn to stone when exposed to the sun. As a result, trolls hid within the Nordic landscape. They were thought to live in caves and forests, beneath bridges, or underwater. If they were caught swimming or strolling at sunrise, they turned into massive rocks, which formed beautiful islands and mountains.4

    The trolls of Norse mythology shaped the landscape in other ways, too. Trolls were known as master builders, and skilled craftsmen. Metalwork was their specialty.5 And indeed, many stories recount how trolls were hired to speed along special construction projects.6

    Although there are tales about trolls and humans sharing and doing favors for each other, trolls generally are considered to be solitary and anti-social. This may explain why, in Norse mythology, trolls 7

    1 Terence H. Wilbur, “Troll, An Etymological Note,” Scandinavian Studies, 30.3 (1958): 243-262.

    2 Carol Rose, “Troll,” Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes and Goblins, 1996, 316.New Bay Bridge Troll in place

    3 Relmund Kvideland and Henning Sehmsdorf, Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1998).

    4 Lise Lunge-Larsen, The Troll with no Heart in his Body and Other Tales of Trolls from Norway (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999) 17.

    5 Rose, 316.

    6 Lone Thygesen Blecher and George Blecher, Swedish Folktales and Legends (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993)

    7 Ibid.

    Above, the ‘new’ Bay Bridge troll, seen in front of the just opened bridge. (Metropolitan Transportation Commission). Forged out of iron by a local craftsman, the new troll stands more than two feet tall and carries a hammer in one hand, and a torch in the other.

  • Woman of Note, Ellie Kinnaird: What’s Going On in North Carolina?

    Former North Carolina Senator Ellie Kinnaird is a woman of considerable accomplishment. At 81 years of age, she seems to be going stronger than ever. Her major in college was music, but by the 1980’s, she was serving as mayor of Carrboro, NC and pursuing a law degree at North Carolina Central University. Having achieved that, she practiced law for awhile, and then ran (as a Democrat) for the State Senate. She won her seat, and has won reelection 9 consecutive times. She served for nearly 18 years.

    On August 19th of this year, however, she posted a letter to her constituents announcing her resignation from the Senate.

    SeniorWomenWeb, aware that what is happening in North Carolina is relevant beyond the borders of North Carolina, has asked Senator Kinnaird to explain for the rest of the country exactly what caused her to resign.Ellie Kinnaird

    Herewith, Ellie Kinnaird, in her own words:

     “In 2010, Republicans captured the North Carolina legislature after 104 years of Democratic rule (albeit some Democrats were as conservative as Republicans for much of that time.)  The takeover was possible thanks to an infusion of money from out of the state, in particular from Americans for Prosperity, the billionaire Koch brothers’ Political Action Committee (PAC). 

    “Following the US Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, PAC’s are allowed to spend unlimited money on election campaigns and candidates as long as they do not coordinate directly with the candidate.  This is of course a fiction, since campaign workers often leave the campaign staff to go to work for the PAC.  Other national organizations also poured money into North Carolina knowing that if they won the legislature, they would control the decennial redistricting that would draw the congressional and legislative seats. 

    “The scale of campaign money was breathtaking: the Republicans spent $1,000,000 to win a seat in a sparsely populated mountain district against a very popular former district court judge.  After winning in 2010, the Republicans created gerrymandered, heavily Republican districts, assuring their winning the legislature. To assure victory, they placed Democratic incumbents in the same district so only one could survive.  They forced eleven Democratic women to run against each other, greatly reducing the number of women in the legislature. They packed African Americans into a few districts, thereby diluting their influence outside those black districts.  (The Obama Judiciary didn’t help by approving the maps under the Voting Rights Act.)

    “To lock in their lopsided victory, more outside money infused $2.32 million to defeat a Democratic judge who would hear the redistricting case, thus assuring the gerrymandered districts would not be overturned by the North Carolina Supreme Court.                       

    “Equipped with the fruits of their monetary gains, the Republican legislature began to enact their goals. Their first term they repaid their far-right base with culture wars legislation. They passed a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, which passed easily in a religiously conservative state (including African-American churches that oppose gay marriage).  They passed a restrictive abortion bill, which is still being contested in the courts. 

  • A Museum on the Move: The Art of Oya and Fiber Artist Wearables at theTextile Museum Shop

    oya needle crocheted brooches

    The art of Oya, a form of crocheting, is on display in the form of necklaces at the Textile Museum’s Shop in Washington, DC, as well as the brooches, right. The Turkish Culture’s site describes its history:

    “Anatolia’s thousand and one species of plants and gaily colored flowers are reborn in the imagination and inner eye of its women. The history of the decorative edging known in Europe as Turkish lace is thought to date back as far as the 8th century B.C. to the Phrygians of Anatolia. Some sources indicate that needlework spread from 12th century Anatolia to Greece and from there via Italy to Europe. Traditionally, the headdresses and scarves women wore on their heads, the printed cloths, and prayer and funeral head coverings were decorated with various kinds of oya, which was also used on undergarments, to adorn outer garments, around the edges of towels and napkins and as a decorative element in many other places. In the Aegean region even men’s headdresses were decked with layers of oya.”

    “Oya edging, which appears all over Anatolia in various forms and motifs, has different names depending on the means employed: needle, crochet hook, shuttle, hairpin, bead, tassel to name just a few. Sewing needle oya is a variety that was produced by affluent, aristocratic, urban women. The most beautiful examples of such oya, which was usually made with a sewing needle using silk thread, were produced in the Ottoman Palace.”

    (Editor’s Note: A shop and museum, both bricks-and-mortar and online,  Lacis,  carries many craft books on the varied styles of thread crochet, as well as other needlework techniques,  costume and preservation topics. In addition they feature fans, gloves, hair combs, hoop skirts and undergarments, lace costume accessories, parasols and millinery for both men and women.)

    The Textile Museum itself is in transit; it will be joining with the George Washington University to become a cornerstone of a new museum scheduled to open in fall 2014 on GW’s main campus in Foggy Bottom. The shop, however, remains open during the move and beginning October 14 will be open Friday – Sundays, 10 am – 5 pm until the end of 2013.Serail secret garden jacket

    Scarves and shawls are a dominant feature of the shop, with Randall Darwall and other artists’ examples for sale, always a effective way to update a ‘little black dress’ or casual outfit. Wearables include hand-painted items by Dominque Bello featuring a The Serail Secret Garden Jacket and other more elaborate (and pricey) jackets and robes. Fiber artists are well known, displayed in wearable art shows and their work sought after.

    Felt handbags and totes from Nepal remain popular, colorful and practical as well as felt roses and mums brooch or hair clips handmade in Kyrgyzstan. Aprons from Malawi and baskets from Senegal are bright as well as practical.

  • OMCA Exhibits: Inspiration Points, Peter Stackpole’s Bridging the Bay and Vintage Car Last Over the Old Bridge

    Inspiration Points: Masterpieces of California Landscape

    Thomas Hill, Land's End (Land's End, San Francisco)

    Thomas Hill, Land’s End (Land’s End, San Francisco), n.d. Oil on canvas, masonite, 20.75 x 27.5 inches. Collection of Oakland Museum of California, gift of Grace Decker Meyer in memory of her husband, Victorien Melville Meyer.

    Oakland Museum of California opened the vaults to showcase the very best in California landscape art from the museum’s holdings, including works by Ansel Adams, Thomas Hill, David Hockney, William Keith, Arthur Mathews, Richard Misrach, Thomas Moran, and more. The first special exhibition to be featured in the newly transformed Gallery of California Natural Sciences, Inspiration Points: Masterpieces of California Landscape explores the human presence on the landscape through approximately 60 of OMCA’s best landscape paintings, photographs, and works on paper.

    From majestic scenes of unspoiled wilderness to exploited lands and dystopic visions, the exhibition showcases how artists have interpreted the landscape at particular moments in time. Highlighting important recent acquisitions while also shedding new light on timeless favorites, the exhibition examines the changing attitudes toward the environment over time, and provides a surprising investigation of California’s natural world. 

    The artworks included in Inspiration Points have been carefully selected from the Museum’s extensive and pre-eminent holdings of California art from the Gold Rush era to the present to tell the stories of how people have interacted with the natural world. The exhibition will be divided into several areas of focus that reflect artists’ depiction of the landscape from a celebration of California’s sublime natural world, to the documentation of exploitation of natural resources, to the investigation of the intersection of the urban and “wild.”

    “This is a terrific special exhibition to complement the all-new 25,000 square-foot Gallery of California Natural Sciences,” says OMCA Senior Curator of Natural Sciences Douglas Long. “It eloquently and beautifully demonstrates the interdisciplinary nature of the transformed Gallery of California Natural Sciences — drawing on nature, art, and history to tell the many stories of California and allowing Museum visitors to see themselves in the landscape. The emphasis in these great works of landscape art is on the human presence, which is the main focus of our completely new presentation in the Gallery.”

    Don’t overlook the museum’s terrific shop and its selection of books and jewelry. We rarely leave without a purchase for ourselves and family.

  • Disaster Declaration Denials Exasperate Governors

    By Daniel C. Vock and  Jim Malewitz, Staff Writers, Stateline*

    Yarnell AZ fire, June 2013

    Earlier this summer, a wildfire near Yarnell, Ariz., killed 19 firefighters and destroyed 109 homes at an estimated cost of $6.8 million. When Gov. Jan Brewer asked President Barack Obama to declare a federal disaster, he turned her down.

    The Yarnell Fire began on Jun. 28, 2013 from a lightning strike and was approximately 1.5 miles from Yarnell, AZ when this photo by the US Forest Service photo was taken.

    A few months earlier, a fertilizer plant explosion leveled the town of West, Texas. In that case, Obama did declare a disaster — albeit after an appeal from Texas Gov. Rick Perry. After Hurricane Sandy rocked the eastern U.S. last October, the feds declared landlocked West Virginia and several other states to be disaster areas — but not Florida.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is supposed to follow specific guidelines when it advises the president on whether to approve federal disaster aid for a state or individuals.

    But experts in the field say the disaster standards are unclear — and often ignored. The result is that disaster decisions can seem arbitrary or politically motivated.  FEMA’s public explanations typically do not shed much light on its rulings, leaving governors to wonder why they missed out on federal help.

    “The damage to uninsured private residences from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments and voluntary agencies,” Craig Fugate, FEMA administrator, wrote to Brewer in a typical denial.

    Between 1991 and 2011, presidents approved more than 85 percent of governors’ disaster requests. During that period, the states most likely to be denied disaster declarations were Connecticut (39 percent), Arizona (37 percent), Texas (35 percent) and Rhode Island (33 percent), according to a Stateline analysis of documents obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

    Disappointed governors may see politics at work when their requests fall flat, but the numbers tell a different story. According to Stateline’s analysis, Democratic presidents denied requests from Republican governors 53 times and Democratic governors 44 times. Republican presidents turned down requests from fellow Republicans 49 times and from Democrats 43 times. Republicans held the majority of governorships between 1995 and 2007, and again after the 2010 elections.

  • Mary McHugh

    Mary McHugh has published 22 books on subjects ranging from feminism to How Not To Become A Crotchety Old Man. At present she is writing a series of murder mysteries for Kensington Books.

    Mary worked for The New York Times for their special sections, and her article, “Telling Jack” in the Sunday Times magazine was nominated for an award for best personal essay by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

    Her book, Special Siblings: Growing Up with Someone with a Disability, was awarded a prize for Special Recognition of a National Project by The Arc of New Jersey.

    She worked as an articles editor at three national magazines and was a contributing editor for Cosmopolitan magazine. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle and SeniorWomen.com