Festivals and Culture

Julia Quittman's grandmother told her she should choose any career that made her happy: Now she's a Senior Computer Systems Engineer keeping BART’s systems running. Maansii Chirag Sheth's parents supported her decision to leave India as a young woman for the United States to pursue higher education and an electrical engineering career. Now she’s a Project Manager for cathodic protection, battling corrosion wherever metal meets water. Van Nguyen loved math and science since childhood and considered medical school, but decided to get an engineering degree in four years. Now she’s a Senior Engineer working on the Transbay Tube earthquake retrofit. Editor's note: One interviewee when asked about the perception that women tend to have more “soft skills,” she said, “You still have to back it up with logic and really knowing your subject matter, being a good manager or engineer.” more »

Jane Shortall writes: A Dubliner, a girl in her twenties, envies me for living in that city through the seventies. She and many of her friends do not snigger at those years described as ‘the decade that style forgot.’ They love how things were back then, citing everything from our apparent carefree life, lots of jobs, not so many crazy rules, many different styles of clothing and, in their words, totally brilliant music. ‘Tell me, what music from today will we be listening to in forty years’ time?’ she asked. Yes, I did see lots of bands in Dublin back then. From Led Zeppelin to Horslips, they came to Dublin and belted out their hits. more »

Jo Freeman writes: Sex, race and religion marched through the streets of Washington, DC over the long holiday weekend dedicated to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. There wasn’t much brotherly (or sisterly) love, which would have been a more fitting tribute to Dr. King’s memory; neither was there any physical violence, though there were some confrontations. The Women’s March was so successful in 2017 that it has become an annual event.   more »

Sonya Zalubowski writes: One of the most thrilling moments was our visit to the Alcazar in Segovia, the castle with foundations that date to Roman times, where Isabella and Ferdinand reigned in the 15th century. We stood in the very throne room where Christopher Columbus once knelt before her. The people are surrounded by remnants of a succession of cultures ranging all the way back to prehistoric to Roman, Visigoth and Moorish, to the kings and queens whose rule dominated Europe as they sent out Portuguese and Spanish explorers, to 20th-century despots and finally present day governments more »