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  • Elaine Soloway’s Caregiving Series: All For One, One For All

    4 musketeers

    It’s a perfect day for golf. The sun is shining and the temperature is in the 70’s. There is no wind. Although I’m not a player, the weather delights me because it means Tommy will be hitting the links with his three friends.

    This is Tuesday, the day of the week I cede responsibility for Tommy to the group I call the Three Musketeers. I fancy Barry, Hal, and Marshall as characters from the Dumas novel because the way they care for my husband, their motto must be “all for one, one for all.”

    I’ve driven Tommy to the golf course, and paid for his round and the rental of a pull cart. After he rolls his clubs onto the practice green, I take a seat on a concrete bench to await the arrival of at least one of the Musketeers.

    While my love for the Musketeers could be considered self-serving because they give me a day off, Tommy enjoys their personalities. Each player adds charm to their game that keeps my husband entertained for hours.

    Barry is the first to arrive. He is an artist, retired high school teacher, and devotee of dancing and jazz. “You’re here!” Barry says as he approaches my bench. His golf bag is slung over one shoulder like artillery. Sometimes, he can stop by our house to pick up my husband for their weekly outing. But today, other appointments interfered. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring him home,” he always reminds me. All for one.

    “Not a problem, I can drop him off,” I tell Barry. I’m sincere. I enjoy this small respite on the concrete bench. I enjoy seeing each Musketeer arrive from the parking lot. But mostly, I enjoy watching my husband on the putting green. His stroke looks perfect — careful, slow — as the ball slips through the grass and drops into the cup.

    I never join the foursome on the course itself, so I can’t ogle Tommy’s swing. But, I know he still lives by his mantra, “hit ‘em straight.”

    “He’s still the best golfer in the bunch,” Hal, aka Tiger, assures me. Hal is a retired advertising and sales promotion executive, which accounts for his proficiency as the Musketeer’s organizer. He sets up tee times and starts the round of phone calls to alert the players.  Hal’s acted in local theatre — a talent that surfaces when he narrates his latest joke.

    The third Musketeer, Marshall, is a retired attorney. He’s the young-at-heart and the eternal optimist in the group. In Marshall’s eyes, the glass is always half full; sometimes overflowing.

  • How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

    by Liz Day
    ProPublica, March 26, 2013,

    This story was co-produced with NPR.Turbo Tax Building

    Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes — and for free. You’d open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

     It’s already a reality in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate.

    The idea, known as “return-free filing,” would be a voluntary alternative to hiring a tax preparer or using commercial tax software. The concept has been around for decades and has been endorsed by both President Ronald Reagan and a campaigning President Obama.

    “This is not some pie-in-the-sky that’s never been done before,” said William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “It’s doable, feasible, implementable, and at a relatively low cost.”

    So why hasn’t it become a reality?

    Well, for one thing, it doesn’t help that it’s been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax. Conservative tax activist Grover Norquist and an influential computer industry group also have fought return-free filing.

    Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit’s disclosures pointedly note that the company “opposes IRS government tax preparation.”

    The disclosures show that Intuit as recently as 2011 lobbied on two bills, both of which died, that would have allowed many taxpayers to file pre-filled returns for free. The company also lobbied on bills in 2007 and 2011 that would have barred the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, from initiating return-free filing.

    Photograph: The headquarters of Intuit Consumer Tax Group at the northern end of San Diego; Wikipedia

  • States’ Attorneys Generals Split Ahead of Gay Marriage Arguments; Audio from SCOTUS

    SeniorWomen.com’s Editor’s Note: SCOTUS Oral Argument for Hollingsworth v. Perry; Docket Number: 12-144, date argued: March 26, 2013; SCOTUS Oral Argument for United States v. Windsor; Docket Number: 12-307, date argued: March 27, 2013


    By Jake Grovum, Stateline Staff Writer

    See Stateline Map: Divided States on Same-Sex Unions

    When the Supreme Court heard arguments this week on same-sex marriage, it confronted an issue that has divided the public across the country and exposed fissures among the states. (See map.)

    One divided group could weigh heavily on the justices as they consider what could be a historic, once-in-a-generation constitutional decision: the briefs of states’ attorneys general.protestor for gay marriage rights

    More than half the states’ top lawyers have weighed in on the same-sex marriage issue before the court, underscoring the degree to which state officials and those they represent see their interests at work in the case. Depending how the justices rule, their decision could upend established laws in nearly every state.

    Photograph from Wikipedia by David Shankbone: A woman makes her support of her marriage, and not civil unions, known outside the Mormon temple at New York City‘s Lincoln Center, 2008.

    As lawsuits over same-sex marriage have wound through the courts, the tangled web of state laws dealing with domestic partnerships, civil unions and same-sex marriage has become mired in the broader debate.

    States’ rights and federalism could factor strongly in any decision the justices hand down as they consider two key questions: First, whether California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is constitutional. And second, whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act barring the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex unions is either unconstitutionally discriminatory or an infringement on states’ right to define marriage as they see fit.

    In the first question on California’s ban, 20 states have argued the law should stand, while 13 plus the District of Columbia and the state of California argue it should not.

    On the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, as it is known, 17 states filed a brief supporting the law. Fifteen, plus the District of Columbia, filed a brief arguing against it.

    “This is one of those rare cases that has the potential to be the Brown v. Board of Education for our times,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the University of California, Irvine law school. “It’s not surprising that so many attorneys general are participating.”

    “The Defense of Marriage Act represents an unprecedented intrusion into an area of law that has always been controlled by the states.”   — Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D)

  • “A Sport for Every Girl”: Women and Sports at The Metropolitan

    By Val Castronovo

    Collectors take note:  there’s a small but very choice show of vintage trade cards featuring women in sport at The Metropolitan Museum’s Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art, now through July 14, 2013. (more…)

  • Crossroads … Or Not?

    by Joan L. Cannon

    If you’ve ever thought about writing, and probably if you haven’t, you love a metaphor. I don’t care too much about academic literary distinctions. Somehow it doesn’t matter if the figure can be subcategorized into metonymy. I think it’s fun that we all use metaphors all the time without thinking about it. “Top dog, taking a stab at, blowing in the wind, a can of worms, under the gun, between a rock and a hard place, bell, book, and candle …” You can think of dozens. The first here might well be the road or journey of life.cross roads

    English crossroads photograph by Patrick Mackie, Geograph Project; Wikimedia Commons

     “Crossroads” is a perfectly good noun that carries so much psychological (metaphorical) freight, it’s a perfect candidate to become a metaphor -— so much so that it’s seldom used in any other way except in directions. One of the things I love about this figure of speech is the possibility for multiple interpretations. Decision-making is implied, of course. To me, though, there are fewer choices at a crossroads, and the more interesting ones are out of sight after that first turn (or not) is made.

    The word conjures for me a mental picture of a prairie-like landscape — dry, tan, dusty, where two unpaved roads make a perfect plus sign. There, a traveler has four choices: (1) to go straight ahead, (2, which only now occurred to me) to turn and go back the way he came, (3) to turn right, or (4) to turn left. I don’t see any detail near or far that might suggest which option would be most desirable. Thus, my feeling about a metaphorical crossroads immediately suggests a puzzle whose solution could very well be through luck.  If the crossroads are concrete, on a map, I picture signposts that can take much of the mystery and burden off the traveler.

    People often mention Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken when crossroads come up. For me, the Frost poem conjures a completely different mental image. I see woods all around, with an unpaved road that forks in a Y. For no reason, it’s always twilight. A traveler can choose to return, or to take one branch of the Y: three choices. No metaphor presents itself — except for the poem’s compelling title, once again filled with possibilities for our imaginations and especially recollections. My psyche immediately rejects the choice of turning back. Thus, instead of a puzzle, I sense a dilemma with enormous consequences from either choice remaining. Many a book and poem have been written from that starting point. Most of our lives have been affected by one or more of those forks in a metaphorical road. The impact of some we didn’t imagine at the times we made one of those decisions.

    I try to apply each image to people I’ve known or read of who have made life-altering, or merely fortuitous choices, often with unexpected consequences. The woman who decides to accept a marriage proposal seems to me to have been at a fork in her road rather than at a crossroads. The pivotal moment is in the either-or choice. The woman who decides to reject a marriage proposal and study medicine may have stood at a crossroads. From that choice, she may find many others opening afterwards.

    That’s probably not as clear as I wish it were, but I suspect real crossroads bear out their metaphorical possibilities in a kind of geometrically broader range than the much more common, deceptively less complex forks in the paths of our lives.

    ©2013 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com

      This and other images at their locations on: Google Maps – Google Earth – OpenStreetMap

  • Trying to Calculate How Long a Person Might Live: A Check List for Seniors’ 10-Year Survivability

    Calculating medical risk can be an inexact science, especially for older adults, with many factors from the environment to chronic diseases helping determine how long a person lives. Now, a UC San Francisco team has developed a tool that can help determine – and perhaps influence – senior citizens’ 10-year survivability rates.

    10-year mortality index

    Click to download a PDF of the clinical checklist developed by UCSF researchers to help doctors assess health risks that influence the longevity of older adults. This tool is designed for physicians to assess their geriatric patients in a medical setting. It is not meant for patients to conduct self-assessments. This is not meant as medical advice. Please consult your personal physician if you have questions about your health.

    The simple checklist helps doctors assess health risks that influence the longevity of older adults, and according to the authors, could be an opportunity for seniors to really engage with their primary care provider in having informed discussions about their health care maintenance.

    The UCSF team created a 12-item “mortality index” based on data of more than 20,000 adults over the age of 50 from 1998 until 2008, from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally-representative sample of independently living US adults. The point system was based on their risk factors and survival rate at the end of 10 years.

    Calculating medical risk can be an inexact science, especially for older adults. Many factors from environmental to chronic diseases can help determine how long a person lives.

    “The most important thing we found was the risk factors that go into estimating shorter intermediate survival are very similar to risk factors that go into estimating the likelihood of longer-term survival,” said first author Marisa Cruz, MD, a clinical fellow with the UCSF School of Medicine. “We also found that building a tool that clinicians can use to estimate that likelihood of longer-term survival requires considering many different types of risk factors.

    “Not one particular risk factor tells you whether or not you are likely to survive but a host of attributes about your life and your medical conditions will give you a clearer picture,” she said.

    Points for Risk Factors

    The clinical tool operates on a point system, and the total determines a patient’s 10-year risk of mortality. For example, age, gender and medical conditions were given specific points. Adults between the ages of 60 and 64 received one point, for example, compared to those over the age of 85 who received seven points. Health risks such as current tobacco use, non-skin cancers, chronic lung disease and heart failure each were assigned two points.

  • The Science of Clouds — Why They Matter, and Why There May be Fewer of Them

    by Julie Chao

    The climate models that scientists use to understand and project climate change are improving constantly, with better representations of the oceans, ice, land surfaces and other factors in the atmosphere. While there is still some degree of uncertainty in all these components, the largest source of uncertainty in today’s climate models are clouds.

    Clouds can both cool the planet, by acting as a shield against the sun, and warm the planet, by trapping heat. But why do clouds behave the way they do? And how will a warming planet affect the cloud cover?

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist David Romps has made it his mission to answer these questions. “We don’t understand many basic things about clouds,” he says. “We don’t know why clouds rise at the speeds they do. We don’t know why they are the sizes they are. We lack a fundamental theory for what is a very peculiar case of fluid flow. There’s a lot of theory that remains to be done.”

    The Earth’s response to changes in atmospheric CO2 is studied using what are known as global climate models (GCMs), which run on supercomputers. Due to computational limitations, however, these GCMs are unable to explicitly model atmospheric phenomena less than 100 kilometers in size. Since convective clouds have sizes closer to 1 km, they cannot be resolved by a GCM. “So the GCM has to ask a submodel: what clouds do I have and what are they doing?” Romps says.

    The submodel takes the temperature and humidity profile of a column of air and has to answer the question, “what’s happening right now?” Unfortunately, despite decades of research and development on these submodels, they remain far from perfect.

    “If you ask meteorologists to do this, it would be a very challenging task,” Romps says. “There are some things you can infer, but it’s hard to know, for example, what the rain rate is. That’s one of the key things this model has to tell the GCM.”

    This is a large-eddy simulation of a deep cumulonimbus (a tall rain cloud). The grey color shows the cloud, and the bluish color shows the precipitation.

    This is a large-eddy simulation of a deep cumulonimbus (a tall rain cloud). The grey color shows the cloud, and the bluish color shows the precipitation.

  • Serendipity in the Woods: Author Carol Gracie Explores the History and Life of Wildflowers

    by Kristin Nord

    On the morning that the Bedford, New York Audubon group set forth on its field trip blustery winds and cold temperatures were conspiring; ephemerals that had been in bloom appeared to have shut up like drums, but would open as the day proceeded.violets

    Outfitted in parkas and mittens and hats the hearty women scaling the hillsides were soon rewarded. There were meadows of trillium and foamflower, wild ginger, ginseng, and Solomon’s seal. There were Jack-in-the-pulpits, Mayapple, blue cohosh, and five varieties of violets, some 55 natives in all.

    The naturalist Carol Gracie was at the helm, urging the group to slow down, and look closely at the natural feast spread out like a picnic before them.  For these wildflowers have evolved to take advantage of the early spring sunlight that reaches the forest floor before the tree canopy has leafed out.  With few exceptions, people must take to the woods to find them.

    Gracie’s passion for wildflowers was kindled on childhood hikes with her father.  As time went by, just knowing the names of wildflowers was not enough;  “I wanted to know more about them, why they lived where they did, what insects visited them, how they got their names,” she writes. “As with people, plants become both more interesting and more memorable once you get to know them.”

    Temperament, interest, and natural ability would lead to work at The New York Botanical Garden and a burgeoning later-life career as a writer and photographer. Gracie ran the BG’s children’s education and adult travel programs for many years and still exudes the patience and enthusiasm of a special teacher. Along the way she obtained her degree in botany, and spent about 25 years traveling and working in remote places with her husband, Scott Mori, a tropical botanist.Jack in the pulpit

    In Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast*, which garnered an honorable mention from the 2012 National Outdoor Book Awards, Gracie takes us on an armchair excursion as special as some of the tours she’s led in other years to many exotic places. The book follows on the heels of a field guide she coauthored with Steven Clemants and focuses on some of the Northeast’s most iconic natives.

    Her book is a blend of natural and social history as well as an overview of how wildflowers figure in folklore, literature, and art history. She reports on the pests and pathogens, explores medicinal applications, and distills current findings from scientific journals into nuggets accessible to laymen.  And because Gracie herself is a visual learner, she feels it crucial to use photographs to tell the story. In many of the more than 500 color photographs she employs a special macro lens to capture a natural world not visible to the naked eye.

  • Congressional Bills Introduced: Abortion, Economic Security and Safety of Victims of Dating Violence

    Sexual Assault in the US Military Hearings; Job Training Bill Eliminates Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Programs

    Abortion
    H.R. 1122—-Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)/Education and the Workforce (3/13/13)—A bill to prohibit federal education funding for elementary schools and secondary schools that provide on-campus access to abortion providers.

    Child Protection
    H.R. 1096—-Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)/Ways and Means (3/12/13)—A bill to provide funds to state courts for the provision of legal representation to parents and legal guardians with respect to child welfare cases.

    Family Support
    H.R. 1069—-Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA)/Ways and Means (3/12/13)—A bill to require states to implement a drug screening and testing program for applicants for and recipients of assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and for other purposes.

    Judiciary
    H.R. 1091—-Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)/Judiciary (3/12/12) — A bill to implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.S. 583 —- Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)/Read the first time (3/14/13)—A bill to implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.

    Military
    S. 548—-Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)/Armed Services (3/13/13) — A bill to improve and enhance the capabilities of the armed forces to prevent and respond to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the armed forces, and for other purposes.

    Violence Against Women
    H.R. 1177—-Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA)/Judiciary (3/14/13) — A bill to protect more victims of domestic violence by preventing their abusers from possessing or receiving firearms, and for other purposes.H.R. 1229 —- Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)/Education and the Workforce, Financial Services, Ways and Means, Judiciary (3/15/13) — A bill to promote the economic security and safety of victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, and for other purposes. 

    Senate Panel Focuses on Military Sexual Assault

    On March 13, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel held a hearing, “Sexual Assaults in the Military.” Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) heard testimony from three panels of witnesses regarding the pervasiveness of sexual assault in the military, as well as potential reforms to prevent sexual misconduct and to address the challenges faced by victims.

    In her testimony, Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder of the Service Women’s Action Network, recommended reforms to the military justice system, saying, “Congress should grant convening authority over criminal cases to trained, professional, disinterested prosecutors. Commanding officers cannot make truly impartial decisions because of their professional affiliation with the accused, and often times with the victim as well.” She continued, “Allowing military victims to pursue civil claims will act as a real deterrent to workplace assault and harassment – a deterrent that does not exist in today’s military.”

    Major General Gary S. Patton, United States Army, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, discussed the importance of preserving the commander’s role in the investigation of sexual assault cases in his testimony, saying, “By DoD policy, sexual assault complaints are investigated by military criminal investigative organizations that are independent of the chain of command. The results of these investigations are provided to commanders, who then are responsible for taking appropriate actions. Removing disciplinary authorities from a commander’s purview would jeopardize the good order and discipline of the unit, and impact unit readiness.”

    The following individuals also testified:

  • Diane Girard

    Diane Girard writes personal essays, short stories, longer fiction and creative non-fiction and  lives in Kitchener, Ontario. 

    Diane’s short story collection Waves, is available from Volumes Publishing at https://volumesdirect.com/products/waves

    Diane can be contacted at  digirar@gmail.com

    Waves by Diane