An online journal for women engaging the third third of their lives.
The Third Third Topic: Current Events
If we had some really good political discussions here, I wouldn't object. But until then, comments and stories about the world that engages us every day — the economy, the environment, public education, the media, feminism, war, peace, and health care — everything else that's happening in our lifetime.
Perspectives on Current Events
A Battle for the Ages
I have always believed that a significant portion of the newly-aging 60-somethings (formerly known as baby-boomers) felt called upon to –finally – make a real difference in the world in this third third of their lives.
I have read tomes, in fact, that suggest in the strongest of all ...
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CURRENT | 162 Views | 0 Comments
It's Very Complicated
Some of what I read about the new movie “It’s Complicated” and its Hollywood woman-of-the-hour, writer-director-producer Nancy Meyers, made me embarrassed to want to see it. I was reminded of the quiet scorn I once received from a college president about to leave on sabbatica...
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CURRENT | 162 Views | 0 Comments
All Wrapped Up
I love the holidays.
Go ahead – say it – Bah! Or Humbug! You can’t snuff my spirit.
I love the holidays. And I even like them when they no longer turn out exactly as I might have planned. (Did they ever?) I’m getting used to them co...
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CURRENT | 185 Views | 0 Comments
A Different Kind of Anniversary
My daughter and her husband gave me permission to remember September 11 in a very different way than most: they chose it as their wedding day in 2004.
It was time, she said, to reclaim the day for love.
Still, we struggled with engraving (letter-pressing, actual...
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CURRENT | 209 Views | 0 Comments
Congrats, Diane Sawyer!
Congratulations to Diane Sawyer! And a huge Thank You to Katie Couric for paving the way for her. Maybe Diane won't have to suffer the indignity of the Hairstyle and/or Gravitas critiques as the second woman to host a prime time network news show. And good for all women over 60 who have paid the...
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CURRENT | 184 Views | 0 Comments
Are we history? Or still making it?
The first time I heard the Days of Our Lives reviewed as History was when my kids started studying the Vietnam War in high school. “But that was just yesterday!” I protested, although, in fact, it had been 20 years since the TET offensive. How did something that seemed so immediate, ...
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CURRENT | 156 Views | 0 Comments
Assignment: College Reunion
College Reunion. Your 40th College Reunion. It’s an event you might lose sleep over. (But, then, these days, at this age, isn't almost everything?) Also an event women have made fortunes – or at least names for themselves – writing about. An event, I confess, I have gussied u...
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CURRENT | 516 Views | 0 Comments
Anna, Say It Isn't So!
Anna, say it isn’t so. Say you’re not really leaving the last page of Newsweek every other week because you’re white and gray. That you think you should be done. That you think we all should be done. . . and moved out to pasture. (http://www.newsweek.com/id/195657) Please. Sa...
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CURRENT | 233 Views | 0 Comments
Dig In
Earth Day. Let’s call it Earth Week. At the rate Americans have taken up the cause to date, they might have to call it Earth Millenium. Yet, there’s a glimmer of hope, like one of Spring’s awesome, tender green shoots peeking through winter’s thawed out mud. And that ho...
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CURRENT | 226 Views | 0 Comments
What's a News Junkie to Do?
One of the luxuries of my retirement from fulltime Motherhood and the option to freelance, untethered to a 9 to 5 job, is an hour or so every morning with my newspapers and a cup – or three – of tea. I’ve been doing this for five or six years now, and even when the news is its mos...
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CURRENT | 370 Views | 0 Comments
Tax Troubles
It’s as if the obligation to pay your taxes comes as a surprise to some folks, as if they’ve never heard the adage about taxes and death. How can that be? I learned how to fill out the 1040 form in high school civics class; it’s not rocket science, and it doesn’t take a l...
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CURRENT | 249 Views | 0 Comments
My Walkabout
Does anyone else out there remember Evonne Goolagong, the professional tennis player from Australia? Unfortunately for her, what I remember most is not the 14 Grand Slam titles she won in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, but her tendency to go on what sportscasters called a “walkabout...
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CURRENT | 326 Views | 0 Comments
Hillary's Loss, My Lessons
It’s been almost three weeks since the year’s last Democratic Presidential primary election -- which proves my mother was right, at least in some instances, when she said “This, too, shall pass.” It’s over. Finally. It was probably way over some time ago, but I have ...
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CURRENT | 399 Views | 0 Comments
Lessons from the Campaign Trail
I am feeling somewhat personally responsible for Hillary Clinton's 10 percentage point victory in PA! I am particularly proud of the votes in several of my now favorite boroughs and townships of Bucks County, where voters came out, as they told us they would, very strongly (70+ percent) for Hillary...
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CURRENT | 432 Views | 0 Comments
My Friend, Hillary
I’ve known Hillary Rodham Clinton since we were sophomores in college. And I like her. I think she’s nice. (Nice enough, for example, to invite my college-aged daughter to tea at the White House just because she and I had been interns in Washington when we were in college, too). I als...
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CURRENT | 320 Views | 0 Comments
Change Happens
Probably the most dangerous thing you can do at mid-life is write a book about mid-life. After I wrote a book called What’s Next about women changing direction at mid-life to do something more meaningful or use their gifts in a different way, people kept asking me what was next for me. After...
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CURRENT | 1643 Views | 0 Comments
Making History with Hillary
I was part of history this week. On the one hand, I simply attended an event that was part fund-raiser, part rally, part Presidential Campaign teach-in. On the other, it dawned on me in the course of this one-day women’s policy summit in Washington, D.C., that we are truly very likely to e...
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CURRENT | 323 Views | 0 Comments
Blog entries on Current Events
Twitter as Policy Tool?
Twitter as Policy Tool? It’s a fascinating “ and humbling “ thought. Fascinating because so many of us all-too-parochial Americans of a certain age who have previously found Twitter to be alien turf (I don't really get it. Who has the time? Why do those people think we care what ...
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Category: CURRENT | 338 Views | 0 Comments | June 18, 2009 09:07:03 am
Progress for The Skirts
I wish we lived in what I believe would be called a truly Post-Feminist World. That is, we wouldn’t have to be measuring women’s “progress;” we could simply measure human progress. Women would need not be the “other” anymore. But considering, much less thinking about our decisions and...
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Category: CURRENT | 580 Views | 0 Comments | April 30, 2009 10:13:52 am
News You May Need -- An Update
I'm going to sound like the blogger my son says I should be today and simply send you, sans much editorial comment to sources for some good information (which is different from good news, unfortunately). First, finances: The Wall Street Journal's Getting Smart About Annuities does just what says -...
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Category: CURRENT | 377 Views | 0 Comments | April 21, 2009 11:00:01 am
I'm a News Junkie
My name is Ann and I am a News Junkie. It would be very hard for me to give up my morning papers. But according to much of what I’ve read and heard in the news, recently, and to two very thoughtful articles in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=1&em) ...
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Category: CURRENT | 414 Views | 0 Comments | March 21, 2009 12:46:24 am
Who deserves a bonus?
I want a bonus. A Mom’s retention bonus, for example, would be very smart. Even a wife’s. I can see bonuses for patience. For understanding. But today’s “outrageous” bonus business is silly. I'm trying to think more positively, though, to look beyond the greedy bullies in the headline...
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Category: CURRENT | 304 Views | 0 Comments | March 18, 2009 1:32:46 pm
A Vision Beyond Camelot
I’ve no dynastic heritage. For me, Camelot was a great Broadway musical, but not the myth of my childhood. My mother was never an icon; my father was neither a President nor a national tragedy; my brother didn’t live writ so large or die so young. And yet, as I read about Caroline Kennedy’s...
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Category: CURRENT | 332 Views | 0 Comments | February 03, 2009 4:32:11 pm
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! Please forgive my online absence; I was called to the front lines of living (and, sadly, my friend's dying), and found myself bereft, devoid of energy to observe and/or write, having nothing to say. The loving care of my family and the supportive friendships of women sharing this t...
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Category: CURRENT | 388 Views | 0 Comments | January 02, 2009 1:06:54 pm
Beyond Musical Chairs
I don’t pretend to fully understand the current financial crisis. But I know what it feels like. It feels like a game of Musical Chairs. You know, the childhood birthday party game where there aren’t enough chairs, and when the music stops, you’ve got to grab yours? As I recall, it was nev...
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Category: CURRENT | 378 Views | 0 Comments | September 22, 2008 11:20:44 am
Mama Mia!!!
Mama Mia!! (the movie): Go see it! See it today! Go back and see it again! Buy the soundtrack! Enjoy!! Now, look carefully. You will see no other such endorsements anywhere on this site. And in this one, you will see none of the usual thoughtful (I hope) analysis. This is just a fun, dance-...
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Category: CURRENT | 333 Views | 0 Comments | August 01, 2008 09:16:37 am
Finally, they're talking about misogyny
Please take time to read Judith Warner’s Woman in Charge, Women who Charge, an “op-ed” column on the New York Times online. It starts in sometimes brilliant fashion (and I use that term advisedly “ fashion, not brilliant) the conversation about misogyny in today's society as reflected i...
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Category: CURRENT | 385 Views | 0 Comments | June 07, 2008 09:34:59 am
I thought I knew, but I didn't
Watch this 9 minute video I think you will find it will stir your emotions. I know 9 minutes is long. Watch it and then watch it again. Watch until the very end (Maya Angelou).
Watching it affected me profoundly. It is hard for me to write about this because it stirs up anger and sadness at...
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Category: CURRENT | 623 Views | 0 Comments | April 11, 2008 3:28:03 pm
Too Much March Madness?
I think the NCAA Tournament drags on for far too long. It interferes with baseball’s opening days. It happens at the end of a long season, when the players are tired and prone to injury, not to mention at mid-term, when they have more important things to worry about, like studying and polishing ...
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Category: CURRENT | 292 Views | 0 Comments | March 27, 2008 09:56:56 am
A respite from politics
I don't know about you, but I am at once fascinated and exhausted by presidential politics this year. It's truly heartening to have so many people engaged in -- or mesmerized by -- the process. Until you analyze the process. Rallies, like high school pep rallies, to elect the leader of the free w...
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Category: CURRENT | 369 Views | 0 Comments | March 06, 2008 12:16:01 am
What are we thinking?
What are we thinking? Actually, the question is this: Why aren't we thinking? Today's most recent poll results once again show Barack Obama besting Hillary Clinton among an impressive majority of Democratic voters who feel he can unite the country and handle the war, the economy, and health care....
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Category: CURRENT | 359 Views | 0 Comments | February 26, 2008 10:38:57 am
The Purpose Prize
“Leading with experience.” No, it’s not a political slogan. It’s the value a group called Civic Ventures (www.leadingwithexperience.org) associates with outstanding individuals over 60 who are involved in “significant social innovation” and “accomplishing work of great importance.” ...
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Category: CURRENT | 367 Views | 0 Comments | February 11, 2008 10:56:48 am
Not Over the Hill-ary
It's been quite a blow to my self-image to have my college classmate Hillary Clinton and the women who support her called "old." I really resent the media-hyped suggestion that younger people in our country are "so over Hillary" because she is "so over the hill."
But then along came New Hampshire...
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Category: CURRENT | 625 Views | 0 Comments | January 09, 2008 1:43:58 pm
Benazir Bhutto
This week's assassination of Benazir Bhutto is having a far more profound effect on me than I would have expected.It is deeply unsettling in a global sense, of course. And it resurrects those never-too-distant memories of the American assassinations (Kennedy- King-Kennedy) that occurred during my po...
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Category: CURRENT | 414 Views | 0 Comments | December 28, 2007 4:55:16 pm
A Woman in the Whitehouse!
I was part of history this week. I participated in a campaign rally and fund-raiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton. And in the course of this event, the 2007 Women's Policy Summit, I realized there is today a very real probability that Hillary will be our next president, that we will have a woman in t...
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Category: CURRENT | 1274 Views | 0 Comments | October 22, 2007 10:15:18 am
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