Doris O'Brien is a retired college Speech teacher and banker. She has published two books of humor (Up or Down With Women's Liberation and Humor Me a Little) and for many years contributed light verse to the Pepper 'n Salt column of the Wall Street Journal. She is an avid writer of letters to the editors.
Doris celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary in the same year she welcomed her first grandchild. She now lives in Pasadena with a great view of the San Gabriel mountains — and the annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
She can be reached by e-mail: witsendob at (@) gmail.com
Regret is a Gambler's Curse: “If you don’t feel any regret, you are getting close to the world of addictive or antisocial behavior”
“Right after making a choice and right before finding out about the outcome, the brain is replaying and revisiting nearly every feature of what happened during the previous decision,” said senior author Ming Hsu, an associate professor in the Haas School of Business and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley. “Instead of ‘I just gambled but maybe I shouldn’t have,’ it is, ‘Last round I gambled and that was a really good choice.’ Or, ‘I played it safe last time but should have gone for it.’” more »
Two Exhibits: Veiled Meanings, Fashioning Jewish Dress and Contemporary Muslim Fashions
“The Contemporary Jewish Museum is pleased to present the first West Coast showing of this magnificent exhibition of costumes and textiles made and worn by people of Jewish heritage all around the world,” says Lori Starr, Executive Director, The CJM. “Visitors will delight in the beauty and craftsmanship of these garments, but will also truly be struck by both the vast diversity of the Jewish global diaspora and by how much commonality there is in the dress of other world religions and cultures. With the deYoung’s exhibition, Contemporary Muslim Fashion, on view at the same time, San Francisco is going to be a destination this fall for anyone interested in what clothing tells us about culture.” more »
Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria: Funded by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Others
"From the survey data, we estimated a mortality rate of 14.3 deaths (95% confidence interval [CI], 9.8 to 18.9) per 1000 persons from September 20 through December 31, 2017. This rate yielded a total of 4645 excess deaths during this period (95% CI, 793 to 8498), equivalent to a 62% increase in the mortality rate as compared with the same period in 2016. However, this number is likely to be an underestimate because of survivor bias." more »
The Making of Masterpiece Theater's The Miniaturist and Petronella Oortman’s Dolls' House in Amsterdam's Rijksmusum
Author Jesse Burton’s inspiration for The Miniaturist was a dollhouse that the author saw on display in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum* when she was on vacation. Made in 1689 for the real Petronella Oortman, the dollhouse was a detailed, elaborate, and precise replica of the Dutch woman’s own home. Fascinated by the exquisite furnishings for a doll’s house cost as much as the home in which it was displayed, Burton couldn’t help but wonder “Why?” That answer and her research led to The Miniaturist. more »
