Two memories. 1) 3rd grade. My friend Rebecca’s mom was an artist, like my mom, and she did a painting for our class based on Charlotte’s Web. I wanted everyone to know that my mom was an artist, too, so I suggested to her that she should paint our class a picture of the Boxcar [...]
Dear Sibyl, My father was abusive to me growing up. Not very frequently was the abuse physical (the verbal variety dominated), but it was enough to instill a fear of him into me that I’ve never been able to shake. When he got angry, he took it out on me, I assume because I was [...]
In our ruggedly individualistic culture, I often wonder: what is it like to be famous because of the person you’re married to? To appear in the press, go down in history books, as “so-and-so’s wife”—to never, ever be mentioned without your spouse as starting point or explanation? In some ways, I think it must be [...]
I watched an episode of “Futurama” recently (this isn’t an uncommon occurrence), and in it the whole staff of the Planet Express is stranded on a barren island that has begun to go through robo-evolution, starting with prehistoric robot sludge and yielding robot dinosaurs and then robot cavemen in a matter of hours. Fry, Leela, [...]
Strong female characters—or even mediocre female characters—can be in short supply in Hollywood, on both the big and small screens. It’s something I’ve become more aware of as the years go by, and it’s a bit dismaying. Recently, I’ve discovered that one of the best quick-view gauges by which to determine whether a film has [...]
Dearest Clara, You won’t find a shortage of wisdom coming from our Founding Fathers. After all, they broke with every tradition of their time to put together one of the greatest homes for the freedoms that we enjoy. Is it perfect? Not always, but just because something is an ongoing work in progress, doesn’t it [...]
I first became acquainted with this historical woman of the day because she was one of the only sources for describing a bunch of historical men. Isn’t that the way the historical cookie always crumbles? Anna Comnena (1080 – c. 1153) was a Byzantine princess, the daughter of Emperor Alexius Comnenus I, and an eyewitness [...]
Like many of you, I was riveted this past week watching the story coming out of Cleveland unfold. The rescue of three young women who had been held hostage for ten years by a brutal perpetrator is both utterly surreal and devastatingly sad. It is virtually impossible to integrate the details of this story. The [...]
