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
Senate Committee Holds Roundtable Discussion on Working Women, Bills to Improve Quality of Infant and Toddler Care & Preventive Heart Screenings
The Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a resolution recognizing the importance of providing preventative heart screenings to women through primary care. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced a bill to authorize additional leave for members of the armed forces in connection with the birth of a child. Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) introduced bill to provide for an increase in the amount of monthly dependency and indemnity compensation payable to surviving spouses by the secretary of Veterans Affairs. more »
Remembering ... On a Day Once Known as 'Decoration Day'
Julia Sneden writes: To me, they were just my big cousins, glamorous in their uniforms — so brave, so tall, so handsome — and it while I knew they were going off to danger, I never for a moment considered that they might not come back. It's right that we pause to remember the cost, and also right to look back and remember that they were often youngsters who fought as much for their own remembered good times as they did for that anomalous thing called "my country." more »
Pauline C. Fryer, Union Spy and Miss Sarah A. Bowman, San Francisco National Cemetery
Two unusual interments at San Francisco National Cemetery are "Major" Pauline Cushman and Miss Sarah A. Bowman. Cushman’s headstone bears the inscription "Pauline C. Fryer, Union Spy," but her real name was Harriet Wood. Also buried at San Francisco National Cemetery is Sarah Bowman, also known as "Great Western," a formidable woman over 6 feet tall with red hair and a fondness for wearing pistols. more »
Face Value, Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction: A Startling Freshness and A Touch of Defiance
The National Portrait Gallery is featuring mid-20th century artists who were reinventing portraiture at a moment when almost everyone agreed that figuration was dead as a progressive art form. The Gallery has gathered more than 50 paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture from approximately 1945 to 1975 to demonstrate the innovations of American portraiture despite the vogue for abstraction. more »
