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
For Some States, a Focus on Older Workers: Laws With Little Protection from Hiring Discrimination
According to the EEOC, charges of age discrimination have risen steadily since the turn of the century, from about 16,000 in 2000 to close to 21,000 in 2014. A senior attorney with AARP said "the number of charges filed with the EEOC is just the tip of the iceberg." Most employers, according to the attorney "are smart enough not to make any sort of comment against the person's age, which would provide the smoking gun piece of evidence. So often, it's really not worth filing a job discrimination claim." more »
Best of Scout: Teaching History with 100 Objects, Pick Your Poison, Open Culture Sources, Roman Empire Maps and the Lesser Prairie Chicken
A selection of sites to explore and get lost in: Open Culture, the artsy information hub that features "the best free cultural & educational media on the web" contains reviews and links to hundreds of open educational resources. Whether readers are interested in learning Arabic, would like to hear Patti Smith read Virginia Woolf, or are eager to explore a collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez stories, Open Culture has something for everyone, including Stephen Colbert reading from Flannery O'Connor. more »
Van Gogh and Nature, the Serious Artist, Not the Mythic 'Tortured Painter' of Film and Fiction
Over the course of his short but intense working life, Van Gogh studied and depicted nature in all its forms — from the minutiae of insects and birds' nests to the most sweeping of panoramic landscapes — creating a body of work that revolutionized the representation of the natural world at the end of the nineteenth century. more »
Elaine Soloway's Rookie Widow Series: Forget Him Not, Boston and Beyond, Double Dating With My Mother
"I assume, with your record of zero and sixteen you're bowing out. No more online dating?" asked my (late) mother after, during my imaginary conversation with her, I mentioned that I might check out another dating site. "It is kind of a fun game and my ego is strong enough to take the rejections. "I'm going to check out the Gentiles. Maybe they'll be more open to an adorable grey-haired woman in her mid-seventies." "Try sixty-five and you may have a shot," she said. more »
