Thursday, May 13, 2010

“Saybrook celebrates Hepburn stamp - New Haven Register” plus 3 more

“Saybrook celebrates Hepburn stamp - New Haven Register” plus 3 more

Saybrook celebrates Hepburn stamp - New Haven Register

Posted: 12 May 2010 11:10 PM PDT

[fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content]

... nation today when actor Sam Waterston ... the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, with "Law & Order's" Waterston acting as master of ceremonies. Waterston starred with Hepburn in the 1973 TV production of "The Glass Menagerie."

Dalai Lama to visit Bloomington, Indianapolis - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Posted: 06 May 2010 04:58 PM PDT

BLOOMINGTON – The Dalai Lama is due to make his sixth visit to Bloomington and a return visit to Indianapolis this week.

The Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington will host the 74-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate for teachings on Buddhism Wednesday and Thursday at the Indiana University Auditorium. He's also due to hold the only news conference of his U.S. visit on Thursday.

The Dalai Lama also will give a public talk at Conseco Fieldhouse on Friday. That event will be hosted by the Indiana Buddhist Center of Indianapolis and the Interfaith Hunger Initiative of Indianapolis.

The Dalai Lama appeared before a crowd of 4,400 at Market Square Arena in 1999.

His U.S. visit this month also includes stops in Madison, Wis., Cedar Falls, Iowa, and New York City.

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

'The pill' turns 50: debate continues over cultural significance ... - Allentown Morning Call

Posted: 07 May 2010 02:30 AM PDT

CHICAGO (AP) — A world without "the pill" is unimaginable to many young women who now use it to treat acne, skip periods, improve mood and, of course, prevent pregnancy. They might be surprised to learn that U.S. officials announcing approval of the world's first oral contraceptive were uncomfortable.

"... Our own ideas of morality had nothing to do with the case," said John Harvey of the Food and Drug Administration in 1960.

The pill was safe, in other words. Don't blame us if you think it's wicked.

Sunday, Mother's Day, is the 50th anniversary of that provocative announcement that introduced to the world what is now widely acknowledged as one of the most important inventions of the last century.

The world has changed, but it's debatable what part the birth control pill played. Some experts think it gets too much credit or blame for the sexual revolution. After all, sex outside of marriage wasn't new in 1960.

The pill definitely changed sex though, giving women more control over their fertility than they'd ever had before and permanently putting doctors — who previously didn't see contraceptives as part of their job — in the birth control picture.

But some things haven't changed. Now as then, a male birth control pill is still on the drawing board.

"There's a joke in this field that a male pill is always five to seven years away from the market, and that's what people have been saying since 1960," said Andrea Tone, a history professor at Montreal's McGill University and author of "Devices and Desires: A History of Contraception in America."

The pill is America's favorite form of reversible birth control. (Sterilization is the leader overall.) Nearly a third of women who want to prevent unwanted pregnancies use it. "In 2008, Americans spent more than $3.5 billion on birth control pills," Tone said, "and we've gone from the one pill to 40 different brands."

There are Yaz, Yasmin, Seasonale, Seasonique and Lybrel — all with slightly different packaging, formulations and selling points. Lybrel is the first pill designed to eliminate menstrual periods entirely, although gynecologists say any generic can do the same thing if you skip the placebo and take the active pill every day.

In the 1960s, anthropologist Ashley Montagu thought the birth control pill was as important as the discovery of fire. Turns out it wasn't the answer to overpopulation, war and poverty, as some of its early advocates had hoped. Nor did it universally save marriages.

"Married couples could have happier sex with more freedom and less fear. The divorce rate might go down and there would be no more unwanted pregnancies," said Elaine Tyler May, 62, a University of Minnesota history professor who wrote "America and the Pill.

"None of those things happened, not the optimistic hopes or the pessimistic fears of sexual anarchy," she said.

And it didn't eliminate all unwanted pregnancies either. Nearly half of all pregnancies to U.S. women are unintended and nearly half of those end in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which has gathered data on abortions for years.

The pill is often associated with the women's movement of the 1970s. But the two feminists behind the pill, the ones who provided the intellectual spark and the financial backing, were born a century earlier, in the 1870s.

As suffragists worked for the vote, renowned birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger distributed pamphlets with contraceptive advice and dreamed of a magic pill to prevent pregnancy.

Her grandson, Alex Sanger, 62, now chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council, remembers playing catch as a boy with his famous grandmother and eating her firehouse-spicy food.

"My grandmother had the idea for the pill back in 1912 when she was working on the lower East Side of New York," Alex Sanger said. "She saw women resorting to back alley, illegal abortions. One too many of these women died in her arms and she said 'Enough.'

Katharine McCormick, a philanthropist with a science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bankrolled the work of Gregory Pincus, the man Sanger convinced to develop the pill. "It was my grandmother's idea and Katharine McCormick's money," Alex Sanger said.

Ironically, when health hazards of the early pill arose — high levels of hormones caused blood clots in some women — young feminists protested that men had invented it and turned women into unwitting guinea pigs.

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

On Mother's Day, taking a look at delightful baby ... - Mercury

Posted: 09 May 2010 05:06 AM PDT

Click thumbnails to enlarge

DR. LORI Arts and antiques

/mstore/mosaic/tmp/piepsAAAE5aG1n

Click to enlarge

Photo courtesy DrLoriV.com Sterling silver duck teething ring, circa 1950-1960.

Most parents collect something for their children. Collections may be the traditional family keepsakes handed down from generation to generation, objects from the day of one's birth, or a special toy.

I thought Mother's Day provided a great opportunity for me to review some of art history's rarely discussed but really delightful baby collectibles.

One of the most coveted baby objects — for both the tired parents and the teething baby — is the pacifier. While few babies could afford an antique pacifier dating back to the late 18th century, they were interesting cultural objects. Today, on the retail market, a colonial teething ring would set the most discriminating infants back about $2,500.

Colonial cuddle

A wealthy child of the late 1700s would have been outfitted with her first baby toy/teething ring from the local silversmith or metalsmith. Typically, made of sterling silver or gold, a colonial era pacifier would have been adorned with natural materials such as coral, abalone, or mother of pearl.

It would have been equipped with all the bells and whistles — literally. Metal bells and a whistle on the end of the pacifier entertained most babies of the 1700s. The smooth coral satisfied the baby's urge to suck while the bells and whistles satisfied the urge to scream. Thus, the fancy pacifier kept the infant both content and entertained.

In the latter part of the 1700s, Newport, R.I., silversmith Benjamin Brenton's baby pacifiers were commissioned by socialites of the period in a manner similar to way a family's silver tea service would be ordered.

Colonial silversmiths produced silver and coral teething rings, and today such an example of infantile opulence resides in the American Collection of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Conn., as well as other prestigious museums.

Though these teething rings were riddled with small parts, back then few worried about the child choking. In the 18th century, most people were happy that both mother and child survived childbirth.

Of course, in the art historical tradition, materials selected for these fancy pacifiers had specific symbols and references. Silver, gold, and other precious

metals spoke to the status of the family, only the best for these high-style babies.

Coral was selected for its smooth composition and its ancient association with preventing illness and warding off ailments. Mother of pearl was another popular teething ring material which offered a bright white color symbolizing purity and the white lilies often times associated with images of the Virgin Mary.

Many teething rings, even those produced in the 1900s, demonstrated white as the color of choice. Some 20th century teething white plastic teething rings offered a sterling silver duck or bunny rabbit to entertain baby.

Baby bling

From Victorian baby rings to tiny earrings, baby collectibles, particularly infant jewelry is quickly gaining popularity with collectors and curators. Stylish babies always accessorize with bling!

The mid-20th century American beaded baby bracelets produced for general hospitals everywhere has sparked interest with contemporary jewelry designers and promise to command high prices with collectors.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, bracelets with alphabet letter beads spelling out the mother's surname were a baby's first bobble. With pink for girls and blue for boys, these baby bracelets were worn during the first days of a newborn's life. Many mothers save the tiny jewelry pieces as family keepsakes for their sentimental value.

An antiques appraiser, author, TV personality, and talk show host, Dr. Lori presents antique appraisal events nationwide and hosts vacation cruises focusing on antiques. Bring an object to Dr. Lori's antiques appraisal event at Bucks County Visitor Center in Bensalem on June 19 at 10 a.m. Visit www.DrLoriV.com,or www.Facebook.com/DoctorLori, or call 888-431-1010.

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)