Doris O'Brien is a retired college Speech teacher and banker. She has published two books of humor (Up or Down With Women's Liberation and Humor Me a Little) and for many years contributed light verse to the Pepper 'n Salt column of the Wall Street Journal. She is an avid writer of letters to the editors.
Doris celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary in the same year she welcomed her first grandchild. She now lives in Pasadena with a great view of the San Gabriel mountains — and the annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
She can be reached by e-mail: witsendob at (@) gmail.com
Updated With Events Calendar: Apollo Mission Control Room and the 50th Anniversary of the First Astronauts Who Set Foot on the Moon: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface – the first men on the moon. The US space agency, NASA, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of this historic event in style – by restoring and reopening the control room that handled the historic Apollo 11 mission. Today it is a museum, but it looks every bit alive and real as it did in 1969, as though engineers and scientists just stepped away for a moment. Lesia Bakalets visited the control room. Anna Rice narrates her story. more »
Rembrandt's The Night Watch Condition Is Being Investigated; The Painting Has Been the Highlight of the Rijksmuseum Collection Since 1808
Rembrandt’s group portrait of officers and other civic guardsmen of District 2 in Amsterdam under the command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch has been known since the 18th century as simply The Night Watch. It is the artist’s most ambitious painting. One of Amsterdam’s 20 civic guard companies commissioned the painting for its headquarters, the Kloveniersdoelen, and Rembrandt completed it in 1642. It is Rembrandt’s only civic guard piece, and it is famed for the lively and daring composition that portrays the troop in active poses rather than the traditional static ones. more »
Updated: Mueller's Testimony Expected on *July 24th in Front of House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
On April 18, 2019, the Department of Justice released the "Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election", also known as the Mueller Report. This audio is courtesy of Timberlane Media, which recorded the full report as a podcast. C-Span.org is repeating the report. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committees on the Russia investigation and the published report released by his office on Wednesday, July 24, 2019 more »
STATELINE: How Disaster Warnings Can Get Your Attention
Gerardo Ramirez, a central Texas dairy worker, was near his home but taking an unusual route to a children’s hospital in April when he drove his Volkswagen Jetta into a flooded section of road, not seeing in the pre-dawn dark that heavy rains had turned a tiny creek into a death trap. Ramirez survived, but his wife and two children drowned. In March, 800 miles away in Lee County, Alabama, 23 people ranging in age from 6 to 93 were killed in a 170 mph tornado — despite an evacuation warning by local authorities just like ones that many residents had heeded in previous storms this year. The deadly situations illustrate what experts increasingly see as two common reasons for unnecessary storm deaths: unfamiliar terrain that leads to bad decisions, and people ignoring too-familiar warnings that haven’t panned out in the past. more »
