Help |
Site Map
|
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
Rose Madeline Mula writes: I have the greatest collection of cute clutch bags — sparkly ones festooned with sequins or rhinestones for festive evenings; leather ones in rainbow hues to match various outfits for outings to the movies, the grocery store, or a restaurant; and even a couple of little canvas ones for the beach. I just used to throw in a lipstick, a credit card, some tissues, and a couple of bucks, and I was set to go anywhere. I now need a roomy tote bag, preferably one with wheels, to carry all my essentials. more »
Five states will vote on legalizing recreational marijuana use this year: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. And, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota, could be the latest states to legalize medical marijuana use — it's already legal in 25 states and the District of Columbia. As Silvia Martins, associate professor of Epidemiology, notes: "There are several potential pros and cons of legalized recreational marijuana. More years of data are needed for researchers to truly be able to estimate the public health impact of these policies." more »
In 2012, more than 46 million voters — almost 36% of the total — cast ballots in some manner other than at a traditional polling place on Election Day, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of state and federal election data. That figure includes 23.3 million people who cast civilian or military absentee ballots, 16.9 million who voted early and 6.3 million who mailed in their ballots. The share of the total electorate that such nontraditional voting represents has grown rapidly over the past few election cycles. In 2004, according to our analysis, about 22% of the total vote was nontraditional; by 2008, nearly a third was. more »
Stanford cybersecurity expert Herb Lin says the Oct. 21 cyberattack that snarled traffic on major websites reveals weaknesses in the Internet of Things that need to be addressed. But stricter security requirements could slow innovation, cost more and be difficult to enforce. "It was a distributed denial-of-service attack on a major internet services provider. The company [Dyn] operates much of the internet's infrastructure. It's not a consumer-facing company, but is in between the user and a company like, say, Amazon." more »
|
|