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
"The Secret" Revisited
Rose Madeline Mula writes: I must admit, though, that whenever I pass the bedroom door to go into the bathroom or to access my laundry, my spirits (and any drive I may have had) plummet when a glance reveals that crumpled bed. And I can’t erase that vision for the rest of the day. It remains emblazoned on my brain when I sit at my computer and try to finish that essay I started a week ago (the last time I made my bed) or go into the kitchen to cook dinner (which I hadn’t done since that day last week when I last made my bed).
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From the Census Bureau: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016
The 2016 real median earnings of men ($51,640) and women ($41,554) who worked full- time, year-round were not statistically different from their respective 2015 medians. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.805, an increase of 1.1 percent from the 2015 ratio of 0.796. This is the first time the female-to-male earnings ratio has experienced an annual increase since 2007.Between 2015 and 2016, the total number of people with earnings increased by about 1.2 million. In addition, the total number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 2.2 million between 2015 and 2016, suggesting a shift from part-year, part-time work status to full-time, year-round work status. more »
Secrets, Seductions from the Cliffs of Cornwall to the Shores of Corfu and Streets of Paris: A New Masterpiece Schedule for Fall 2017
Casting is complete, filming has begun, and Downton Abbey's writer and creator Julian Fellowes is taking us back to 1922… but this time it's set in America, in his adaptation of Laura Moriarty’s best-selling novel, The Chaperone! Downton Abbey'‘s Elizabeth McGovern is Norma Carlisle, a Midwestern housewife whose life is forever changed when she chaperones a young and soon-to-be famous Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson, Columbus, The Edge of Seventeen) to the 1920s in New York. Returning series include Poldark, Victoria, The Durrels in Corfu while the new entries include The Collection, Little Women and The Man in the Orange Shirt. more »
Study: Most Prescribed Opioid Pills Go Unused and Not Disposed Of In Recommended Ways
"If we can better tailor the amount of opioids prescribed to the needs of patients, we can ensure patients receive appropriate pain control after surgery yet reduce the number of extra oxycodone and other opioid tablets in many homes that are just waiting to be lost, sold, taken by error, or accidentally discovered by a child," says Mark Bicket, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the paper's first author. Analysis of two studies — which focused on opioid storage and safety — shows that up to 77 percent of patients reported that their opioids were not stored in locked containers. more »
