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
Pew's Analysis of Growth in Personal Income Shows Uneven US Recovery
States have recovered at different paces. Adjusted for inflation, personal income in 21 states has grown faster than in the nation as a whole since the start of the recession. Only in mid-2015 did the final state — Nevada — recover its personal-income losses and return to its pre-recession level. more »
It's a Prototype! 2016 White House Science Fair
"As a society, we have to celebrate outstanding work by young people in science at least as much as we do Super Bowl winners. Because superstar biologists and engineers and rocket scientists and robot-builders ... they’re what's going to transform our society. They're the folks who are going to come up with cures for diseases and new sources of energy, and help us build healthier, more successful societies." — President Barack Obama more »
Regrets, I've Had a Few
Rose Madeline Mula writes: At the risk of sounding immodest, I did become a fantastic secretary, but that turned out to be one of my biggest regrets. We secretaries didn't have glass ceilings. Ours were reinforced steel. In those early days, the only women I knew who managed to get ahead were those who were smart enough to claim they didn't know how to type. It took me a couple of more decades to live down my 100-words-per-minute skill, and I landed a job as Operations Manager of a chain of New England dinner theaters. more »
What is the Status of VA Primary Health Care Scheduing? Actions Needed to Improve Access to Primary Care for Newly Enrolled Veterans
"... ongoing scheduling errors, such as incorrectly revising preferred dates when rescheduling appointments, understated the amount of time veterans waited to see providers. Officials attributed these errors to confusion by schedulers, resulting from the lack of an updated standardized scheduling policy. These errors continue to affect the reliability of wait-time data used for oversight, which makes it more difficult to effectively oversee newly enrolled veterans' access to primary care." more »
