Culture Watch

Housed in a suite of galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection includes masterpieces from four areas of European and British decorative arts: silver and gold, enamel portrait miniatures, micromosaics and gold boxes. Weidenbach consciously engages with the extravagance of these objects: her box is encrusted with the same abundance of diamonds and mother-of-pearl as their historic counterparts, posing questions of how this aesthetic functions today. more »

Bills Introduced: A bill to direct the administrators of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation to produce a report to Congress regarding the efforts to support minority women involvement in STEM fields; A bill to prohibit the use of restraints and restrictive housing on inmates during the period of pregnancy, labor and postpartum recovery; A bill to require certain companies to disclose information describing any measures the company has taken to identify and address conditions of forced labor, slavery, human trafficking, and the worst forms of child labor within the company’s supply chains. more »

Julia Sneden wrote: "Bosky," my mother the English teacher said firmly. "It means covered with trees and shrubs. Thickly grown. And a dell is a..." "I know," I said, falling easily into our mother/teacher, daughter/pupil mode. "A dell is a small valley or hollow, usually secluded." I find myself wondering how long it will take people to realize that when we take out trees, we take out the oxygen producers that keep us alive. Humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. It's that simple. more »

Jo Freeman writes: While some races are still too close to call, 2018 also saw a great leap upward in the number of women running and winning. More than a quarter of all candidates running for Congress or Governor this year were women (272 of 964). What 1992 has in common with 2018 is that these candidates were overwhelmingly Democrats. For the Democratic Party, this was another year of the woman; not so much for the Republicans. In November, Democratic women ran for 93 seats and won nearly half. Republican women ran for 13 and won less than a quarter. Several issues were prominent which attracted women voters. Exit polls said that the chief issue in 2018 was healthcare. Family separation of would-be immigrants was another. more »