Relationships and Going Places

Bills Introduced: A bill to amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to provide for better protections for children raised in kinship families outside of the foster care system; A bill to amend the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998; A bill to improve the effectiveness of tribal child support enforcement agencies; A bill to require the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate data on maternal health outcomes into its broadband health maps; A bill to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a study to assess the unintended impacts on the health and safety of people engaged in transactional sex; A bill to direct the secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide abortion counseling to a veteran who has an unwanted pregnanc; A bill to amend the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998   more »

Ferida Wolff writes: In America, we accept many different pronunciations and still understand what is meant; it is the word itself that conveys its meaning. In China, it is the tone of the character that makes the word and, depending upon which is used, the meaning changes. The character ma, for instance, can mean you are calling your mother, asking a question, naming a horse, or saying something offensive. So, armed with our new linguistic knowledge, we headed off on our own into the shops that lined Nanjing Road, a major shopping area in Shanghai. more »

"Could arts engagement have protective associations with survival? We analysed the longitudinal relation between receptive arts engagement and mortality across a 14 year follow-up period in a nationally representative sample of adults aged 50 and older. Risk of dying at any point during the follow-up period among people who engaged with cultural activities on an infrequent basis (once or twice a year) was 14% lower than in those with no engagement; for those who engaged on a frequent basis (every few months or more), the risk was 31% lower." more »

Rose Mula writes: But when I wake up, it’s New Year’s Day, which is not so wonderful, because I feel compelled to make those cursed resolutions that I know are doomed to failure. If I didn’t lose those stubborn ten pounds last year, why will turning a page on the calendar help me shed them this year? (Could you hand me that last brownie, please?And don’t be stingy with the ice cream.) And why would I think that taking a new pledge to hike three miles a day is going to work when it never did before? It’s too cold to go out and walk anyway.It’s January in New England, for heaven’s sake! I’ll start in April when it warms up a bit. Or maybe not. What would be the point? I would have already blown three months. more »