The testimony on Capitol Hill in front of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel regarding the issue of sexual assault in the miltiary encouraged us to pull up some of the articles and references that SeniorWomen.com has, in the past, produced on our site. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand delivered an opening statement. It has to be remembered that the Defense Task Force report also covered thousands of assaults on male military servicemembers.

Among Baby Boomers, only 20 percent of women have a backup plan if retirement happens sooner than expected. “Life’s unforeseen circumstances such as a job loss, health issues, or family obligations can derail the best of intentions. ” said Collinson. “Especially with so many women planning to delay retirement or continue working part-time in retirement, a backup plan is an essential part of a retirement strategy.”

Ferida Wolff writes: I was reading an article in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer about Winnie-the-Pooh. I remember the Pooh books. Many nights were spent with my kids tucked in and cozy as we followed Christopher Robin and the adventures of Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, Kanga and little Roo.  

I confessed, “I hate this. It’s taken all of the pleasure out of eating.” “Think of the alternative,” my daughters said. “Tommy choking, you trying the Heimlich, you panicking. Is that what you want?” “No,” I said. “I’ll talk to his doctors.” Although they discounted the nurse’s report, and said they’d never heard of a patient choking, the doctors concurred a Cookie Swallow Test might be a good idea.

Curious about whether your neighbor is armed? Wondering if local officials are illegally doling out gun permits to convicted felons? It may be impossible to find out, unless you live in one of a small and shrinking group of states. Lawmakers in most states sealed such records in past years. This year, many others are rushing to join those ranks, spurred by a suburban New York newspaper’s publication of names and addresses of handgun permit holders.

Women across the lifespan appear to report elevated levels of dissatisfaction with their bodies, although women in older adulthood (60 years and older) may report less dissatisfaction in some domains such as a perception that weight and shape negatively affected life, in comparison to younger women.

Reviewer Jill Norgren writes that Justice Sotomayor has said that she wrote My Beloved World because being a role model “is the most valuable thing I can do.” It is to her credit that the memoir is, like the justice, unpretentious and welcoming to readers of all ages. Reviewer Julia Sneden declares the depth of the research for Consider the Fork mind-boggling, but Be Wilson's style is simple, direct, and leavened with wry humor; calling her just “a food writer” would be a bit like calling Yo Yo Ma “a guy who plays the cello.”

Diane Girard writes: Unlike the members of a certain famous rock group who think they are young rebels but look like the permanently undead; I don’t believe that seventy-something is the new forty. At age sixty-nine, I know that I’m almost seventy. My body knows it too and it reminds me every morning. When it complains, I know for sure that I’m still in this world. However, I won’t always be here and those dread-filled ads keep reminding me of that. So, how to deal with the facts of death?

Val Castronovo reviews: A collaboration between The Met, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the works collected chronicle the golden years of Impressionist painting from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s when Paris became the style capital of the world ... the avant-garde sought to distinguish themselves ... and paint their subjects in a new, modern light, focusing on au courant costumes and accoutrements at the expense of the individuals’ physical characteristics.

Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin: "Many of the darkest manifestations of the financial crisis have finally begun to diminish: the boarded-up homes with overgrown lawns, the half-built skyscrapers, the 'We Buy Houses Cheap' signs planted at exit ramps, the eviction notices nailed to front doors. But even as the economy comes back to life, our memory of these events is still sharp and the reputational damage suffered by US financial institutions during the crisis endures."

Editor's Note: The audience was surprised to see the First Lady (appropriately dressed in a silvery gown by Naeem Khan) present the Best Picture Oscar to Argo, appearing via satellite from the White House last night. This morning we viewed her on C-Span addressing the nation's governors about a much different and very important subject:

Joan L. Cannon writes: The wakeup call was the realization of how much we were still using that's intended to be disposable and can't be reused. The hundredweight of magazines and catalogs astonished me every time we loaded the trunk of the car. Then there was the prohibition on dry cat food pronounced by our vet. You don’t know what it’s like to collect aluminum cans until you’ve fed a voracious feline for a month on wet food.

Meghan Mott, Ph.D. writes: Our brains naturally deteriorate with age. Sleep quality — specifically the slow-wave activity that occurs during deep sleep — also decreases as we get older. Previous research found that slow waves are generated in a brain region called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which exhibits age-related deterioration.

 In past versions of the News IQ test, Republicans have often outperformed Democrats and independents, but that was not the case with the current quiz. Overall, Republicans on average answered 8.7 items correctly, no different than Democrats (8.6) and independents (8.7). Democrats (47%) were more likely than Republicans (37%) to recognize a photo of Elizabeth Warren, the new senator from Massachusetts. Other partisan differences were very small.

Aside from the Senate passing VAWA, these some congressional bills introduced last week: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), placing limitations on the possession and sale of a firearm by persons convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses against children; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), prohibiting taking minors across state lines in circumvention of laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions; Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), ensuring women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child.

Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Wayne State University in Detroit have launched a new online resource, a comprehensive guide to James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room and its dynamic history. The elaborately painted former dining room and one of the most famous masterpieces in the Freer’s collection, celebrates its 90th anniversary of being on public view in 2013.

Frances Beinecke writes: When I started talking about climate change more than a decade ago, I worried my future grandchildren would someday face rising sea levels and punishing drought. Now it’s clear those dangers won’t wait until a later date. They have arrived already, and they are delivering heartache and suffering right now.

Val Castronovo writes: Almost one-third of his portraits are of family members, and the ones of his wife, to whom he was extremely devoted, are quite arresting. Portraits were one of the mainstays of his career; he painted them from the time he arrived in the city up until his death. For an artist intent on blowing up the art world and defying convention, he had a quite conventional personal life.

D’Vera Cohn writes: Love only goes so far. Most Americans cast cold water on a central premise of many a song or poem, that each person in the universe has only one true love. About seven-in-ten (69%) people do not agree with that notion; only 28% do. Among those who do agree, men (31%) are slightly more likely to do so than women (26%). Young and old, married and unmarried are equally skeptical.

This statement highlights key findings from the GAO December 2012 report that describes needed improvements in the reliability of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA's) reported medical appointment wait times, scheduling oversight, and VHA initiatives to improve access to timely medical appointments.

Ferida Wolff writes: Who would have thought that hair could be so opinionated? It used to be reasonable, letting me do pretty much what I wanted with it. But then I guess we change in many ways as we age. Ideas we held in our twenties shift with experience and perspective. Foods we loved as teens often become indigestible later on (gluten sensitivity and lactose intolerance have become watchwords for a more mature generation).

Fed Reserve Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen: As an objective of public policy, maximum employment doesn't appear in the US Constitution, in any presidential decree, or even in the mission statement of the Labor Department... the Federal Reserve is the only agency assigned the job of pursuing maximum employment. The gulf between maximum employment and the very difficult conditions workers face today helps explain the urgency behind the Federal Reserve's ongoing efforts to strengthen the recovery.

The Senate is scheduled to resume consideration of the WAVA measure on February 11. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would authorize about $660 million annually for FY2014 through FY2018 for programs that address domestic and sexual violence in the US.