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
STEM Women All-Stars Hit the Road
Lauren Andersen writes: :Over the past few months, students from Santa Barbara, California to Miami, Florida have played hosts to some unusual substitute teachers, as senior women scientists and engineers from the highest levels of the Obama Administration hit the road as part of the Women in STEM Speakers Bureau roundtable series." more »
Pen to Publisher: The Life of Three Sendak Picture Books
Outside Over There features a powerful Sendakian heroine, but the adventure here is more perilous, the style of artwork more inventive; the story is full of allusions to Romantic-era painters and musicians. This book also tapped into dark memories from Sendak’s childhood and proved to be one of his most labor-intensive books to write and conceptualize. more »
Women: Underrepresented in Film but Twice As Likely in Explicit Sexual Scenes
“It’s disheartening to see that unbalanced portrayals of men and women persist in popular films,” noted Amy Bleakley, the lead author of the paper. “Movie-going youth – the largest consumers of movies per capita – who are repeatedly exposed to portrayals of women as sexual and men as violent may internalize these portrayals.” more »
Diary of a Would-Be Athlete
Rose Madeline Mula writes: "I just joined a spinning class for seniors (spinning wool, that is); I’ve become a surfing enthusiast (TV channels and the Internet); I cycle every day (actually, recycle); and last week during a trip to Vermont, I participated in chair lifting — not lifting chairs, but riding in one up a mountainside." more »
