The Holidays: So Help Me, Muse . . . To Rhyme my News
Doris O'Brien writes: I plead guilty to having already turned out several drafts of an annual Holiday card, and in a different meter and rhyme scheme than those of last year’s piece. Variety spices life, even in small, poetic measures. I plan to add something else: a photo of the clan taken during our summer outing. That ought to mitigate any literary slights from the offspring. And if they find fault with either picture or poetry, I’ll remind them that this is the season of peace on earth, good will toward Mom.
For Architecture Buffs: National Building Museum's Building Brain Busters
Q: What famous American author wrote an 1840 essay titled, "The Philosophy of Furniture," outlining sound principles of interior decorating? A: Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, the master of the macabre took a break from poems and horror stories to describe the characteristics of the ideal room, proper draperies, and tasteful carpets. He began by stating, "In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme."
Have You Received the Letter? Medicare Trying To Nudge Seniors Out Of Plans With Low Ratings
Susan Jaffe writes: Medicare officials are trying a novel approach during this open enrollment season to gently nudge a half million beneficiaries out of 26 private drug and medical plans that have performed poorly over the past three years. The effort marks the first time that Medicare officials have tried to steer beneficiaries away from some private drug and medical plans.
Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen
“What women wear today has been immeasurably influenced by Katharine Hepburn's strength of personality and insistence on wearing what she wanted. She took charge of her career and her public image early in her career and maintained a consistent style.”
Who Would I Like to Be?
Rose Mula writes: I’ll tell you what my real fantasy is — if you’ll promise not to breathe a word to Gloria Steinem. I’d like to be a sex symbol. Who am I kidding? It’s way too late for that, so I’d settle for being someone who can ice skate (on the blades instead of my ankle bones), or who can swim more than three strokes without sinking, do the latest dance steps without looking like a sneaker in the dryer, play a mean game of tennis, or even someone who can gargle without gagging.
A Changing Relationship to Visual Truth
With the perfection of halftone printing in the 1890s, newspapers and magazines began publishing photographs on a regular basis. Photojournalism was still in its infancy and standards of veracity were in flux. Were news photographs supposed to be strictly factual eyewitness reports, or could they be modified and embellished after the fact, like the drawings by newspaper sketch artists?
Roses for a Philosophical Garden
Ferida Wolff writes: What a marvelous philosophical garden we could have if everyone could plant his or her people-supporting ideas within our society. Some of them would not prove viable, no doubt, but some might be just what we need. And it wouldn’t matter which side of the aisle the planter came from because a good idea would grow into something beautiful and benefit all.
The Electoral College Needs Some 'Splaining; Who Are Faithless Electors?
While the Constitution is silent on the exact procedure for awarding each state’s electoral votes, 48 states and the District of Columbia currently use the “general ticket” or “winner-take-all” system. The sole exceptions to this practice, Maine and Nebraska, use the “district” system,
Writing a Novel in a Month? Go on, you can do it, if not this year, next.
Editor's Note: The pumpkins are now decorated with turkey feathers, the waters are receding, it isn't tax time (yet), and after voting, you can turn off the commercials, so sharpen the pen or keyboard and go to it. And good luck.
Voting Lessons from Kindergarten: When candidates are Big Bird, The Cat in the Hat, Winnie the Pooh and Olivia
Julia Sneden writes: The class came to the realization that if your candidate didn’t win, it didn’t mean that you were “dumb” or “a loser.” It just meant that many of us have different opinions, and that election was simply a reflection of those differences. And that our class, like America itself, was special because we accept — and even celebrate — differences, an idea eagerly seized on by the kids.
Wedding Belles: Bridal Fashions from the Marjorie Merriweather Post Family, 1874-1958
American weddings have traditionally been emblematic of social status, wealth, and personality. "For Marjorie Merriweather Post, they also reflected her progression from young bride to fully-emancipated American businesswoman, collector, philanthropist, and every bit an embodiment of the American dream. And what dream doesn’t include a great love story or two?”
National Weather Service Alerts By State; Just What is a Post-Tropical Cyclone?
Hurricanes can create storm surges along the coast and cause extensive damage from heavy rainfall. Floods and flying debris from the excessive winds are often the deadly and destructive results of these weather events. Slow moving hurricanes traveling into mountainous regions tend to produce especially heavy rain. Excessive rain can trigger landslides or mud slides. Flash flooding can occur due to intense rainfall.
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House and Ceramicist Grete Marks
The Iveagh Bequest is a collection of masterpieces that includes paintings by seventeenth-century Dutch artists such as Rembrandt, Anthony van Dyck, and Albert Cuyp, and those inspired by them — Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds. Also at the Milwaukee Art Museum the work of Grete Marks: When Modern Was Degenerate, a ceramicist whose art was derided in Nazi Germany.
Blink: Your Digital Health Care is Now
Preventice’s Body Guardian is designed for the remote management of individuals with cardiac arrhythmias. KnowMyMed’s supports team-based medication management and medication reconciliation for high-risk people and provides automated medication. Avado’s Patient Relationship Management System allows doctors and patients to securely track, share, and manage medical information with each other and coordinate health issues outside the doctor’s office.
Culture and Political Watch, The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It
Jill Norgren writes: "The authors explain this failure of representatives to work together as fallout from the permanence of campaigning in modern American politics. Successful campaigning selects for men and women who present themselves as tenaciously principled agents. These candidates appeal to voters with take-no-prisoner policy positions (refined for local predilections)."
Elaine Soloway's Rookie Caregiver Series: Take Care of Yourself
It’s 8:45 in the morning and I’m at the living room window watching my husband enter the passenger side of a car that is not mine. The driver is an attractive young woman. In some other scenario, I’d be the jealous wife, tearful at Tommy’s choice of a new companion. But since this is my life, and the driver is my aide, my feelings are of relief, not wrath.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Take Care of Yourself
It’s 8:45 in the morning and I’m at the living room window watching my husband enter the passenger side of a car that is not mine. The driver is an a…
Downton Abbey, Season Three: Will 'Matthew' Not Re-sign for Season Four and Is There A Controversy Afoot?
The Great War is over and a long-awaited engagement is on, but all is not tranquil at Downton Abbey as wrenching social changes, romantic intrigues, and personal crises grip the majestic English country estate for a third thrilling season. With the retu…
Lifelong Pursuits: Hooked on Bridge
Joan L. Cannon writes: If I don’t play once a week, I miss it. If it happens that I play three times, I don’t even mind the apparent waste of time. I learn something every time I sit down at a card table. The trouble is, I can’t retain it all, so there’s always a sense of renewal and salubrious reminders of proper humility. I’ve seen Life Masters make mistakes, and that’s an encouragement.
CultureWatch Books: The Hemlock Cup and Train Dreams
Bettany Hughes' The Hemlock Cup transcends a mere factual recounting of what we know about Socrates; the book makes the fifth century BC as accessible as possible to a modern reader. Train Dreams protagonist represents a tradition of American men in the as-yet-undeveloped great West who struggled through to their unnoticed deaths after surviving the first World War.
The Real Women Behind the 'Binders': MassGAP
Prior to the 2002 election, women comprised approximately 30 percent of appointed senior-level positions in Massachusetts government. By 2004, 42 percent of the new appointments made by the Romney administration were women. Subsequently, however, from 2004-2006 the percentage of newly-appointed women in these senior appointed positions dropped to 25 percent
Can Women Save Japan? Needed more career positions & better support for working mothers. Sound familiar?
Raising womens' participation could provide an important boost to growth, but they face two hurdles in participating in the workforce in Japan. First, few working women start out in career-track positions, and second, many women drop out of the workforce following childbirth.
Summary: Japan's potential growth rate is steadily falling with the aging of its population. This paper explores the extent to which raising female labor participation can help slow this t…
New Insights Into How Genetic Differences Among Individuals Influence Breast Cancer Risk from Low-Dose Radiation
"This raises the possibility that we can use gene expression profiles to develop simple tests that screen for women who may be sensitive to low-dose radiation versus women who are resistant.”
Eleanor Roosevelt's Fight for Labor Rights Lives On
Brigid O'Farrell writes: Eleanor Roosevelt warned that when fear and prejudice are running high, “We may wake up to find that in trying to remedy certain wrongs, we have shorn ourselves of certain very precious freedoms.” In 1958, Mrs. Roosevelt called the right-to-work effort a “predatory and misleading campaign”.
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Many Mushrooms and Squash, a Fruit and a Vegetable?
Wild mushrooms can be dangerous to eat. Some have toxins that can cause digestive or respiratory problems that are uncomfortable, while others are downright life-threatening. But the right kind of mushroom is delicious. As to squash, botanically speaking, it is a fruit! Like a tomato, it has seeds, the telltale marking. Yet, in the culinary sense, the way we prepare and eat it, it is a vegetable. So it is both. And what does that mean?
Argo, the Movie and Wired Magazine: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran By Joshuah Bearman
"The mob quickly fanned across the 27-acre [American Embassy] compound, waving posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. They took the ambassador’s residence, then set upon the chancery, the citadel of the embassy where most of the staff was stationed." The magazine article that provides a basis for the new movie, Argo, details the true story of the five who escaped in the Iranian hostage crisis.
