From the Las Vegas Review Journal:Longtime pen pals Tracey Sharpe and JoAnne Snyder, who began communicating through old-fashioned snail mail 29 years ago, met for the first time on the Strip last weekend.
Sharpe, then 16 and growing up in New Zealand, and Snyder, 14, a California girl, began their correspondence after finding a pen-pal service in the back of magazines.
Paired by chance, they quickly became the best of friends, each willing to expose secrets to the other they wouldn't tell their friends back home.
After nearly 20 years of steady letter-writing and rare international phone calls, they fell out of touch for 10 years after Snyder moved to Chandler, Ariz., in 1999.
After learning that another friend had just reunited with a pen pal through Facebook, Sharpe, now 45, signed up -- and there was Snyder, now age 43!
From Village Soup:
Women, Work & Community honored Meredith Jones of Belfast as one of six statewide champions for Maine women and communities at its 30th anniversary celebration May 21, at the University of Maine at Augusta.
In addition to Jones, five champions were honored: Lu Bauer, CPA of a Balancing Act; Kathy Dexter, UMA’s Dean of Students; Mary McPherson, Former Advisory Council Chair; Candace Sanborn of Encompass Marketing & Design, and Florence Young, LCSW, Casey Family Services.
From Philly.com:Koko Taylor, a sharecropper's daughter whose regal bearing and powerful voice earned her the sobriquet "Queen of the Blues," has died after complications from surgery. She was 80.
"The passion that she brought and the fire and the growl in her voice when she sang was the truth," blues singer and musician Ronnie Baker Brooks said Wednesday. "The music will live on, but it's much better because of Koko. It's a huge loss."
Taylor's career stretched more than five decades. While she did not have widespread mainstream success, she was revered and beloved by blues aficionados, and earned worldwide acclaim for her work, which including the best-selling song "Wang Dang Doodle" and tunes such as "What Kind of Man is This" and "I Got What It Takes."
Koko Taylor - Queen of the Blues
From the Star:The anthology, dedicated to female readers, is known today as Biblioteca Nazionale. Written in Middle English, it predates by centuries many modern women's magazines such as Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan and Redbook. But just like modern women's magazines, it offers advice aplenty – everything from ways to ease childbirth to how to lure a rabbit out of its warren.
The document, which is part of a collection in the Naples Library, was likely one of a number of books that were produced in the latter half of the Middle Ages as paper replaced parchment, says medieval specialist Dr. James Weldon, soon to be chair of the English and film studies department at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Weldon stumbled upon it while doing research on Lybeaus Desconus – one of the romance tales in the anthology. "It really is a valuable manuscript," said Weldon. And it reveals a lot about women in the Middle Ages.
In total, there are 140 recipes or prescriptions in the anthology; most are medicinal but some are of a more domestic nature, giving instructions on how to make sealing wax, quince preserve and a broth thickener. The recipes all incorporate elements that were considered appropriate for women's activities, Weldon said.
From the Telegraph:Sara Jane Moore, the woman who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, has said that she believed the US would change only through a violent revolution.
Moore, who spent 32 years in prison for firing a shot that missed the president's head by several feet, admitted in an interview that she now realises that her actions were "wrong ... a serious error".
At the time, the 45-year-old divorced mother had become immersed in leftist groups in California that fed her feeling of alienation.
t was during the long years in jail, six of which were spent in solitary confinement, that she "gradually ... began to realise that I had let myself be used. ... I definitely think that it was wrong. I think I was misled. I think I was mistaken. I think I made a serious error."
From the Telegraph:Church leaders turned the Virgin Mary from being a "serious, official, imperial" figure into a normal "mum" to widen Christianity's appeal, according to a leading medieval historian.
Speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales, Mary Rubin, the author of Mother of God – A History of the Virgin Mary, said the transformation took place in the 11th and 12th century, with images of her knitting and cooking.
But the church became so worried about people worshipping Mary rather than Christ that rosaries were introduced in the late middle ages to "create a way of praying to Mary that is more monitored," she added.
From CNW Group:.... a statement by the Honourable Helena Guergis, Minister of State (Status of Women), on on Bill C-8: Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act
From the Times of India:A Dalit woman as Lok Sabha Speaker! Indian democracy will cross yet another milestone with the Congress leadership deciding to nominate Meira Kumar for the post.
The surprise decision, which would mark the breaching of a glass ceiling besides boosting the empowerment message, came after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi pitched for Kumar to preside over the 15th Lok Sabha. She argued that the choice would facilitate the difficult task of enacting the women's quota in the legislature besides making a statement on the partys commitment to social empowerment.
The decision, far removed from the rumours doing the rounds, came at a meeting of the Congress core committee on Saturday afternoon.
AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said, Congress would be creating a historical milestone by opting for the first dalit woman Speaker. In the past also, Congress chose the first woman PM, youngest PM, first woman President.
From Syracuse:In most of the Muslim world, while women have served as informal spiritual leaders, official positions of religious power have been the preserve of men. But now in Turkey, hundreds of women preachers, known as vaizes, are working in state-run mosques, and women have also been appointed to lead Turks making the pilgrimage to Mecca. In Egypt, Al-Azhar University has approved the printing and distribution of the first Koranic interpretation written by a woman. From India to Syria, women are becoming muftis, authorized to issue fatwas, or religious decisions.
The women spend much of their time at the mosque, giving lectures to women, taking questions and offering counseling on personal problems. They also often visit hospitals and prisons. Sometimes they appear on television and radio programs and take calls from listeners.
Prerequisites for admission to the murshida program include an honors bachelor's degree and memorization of at least half of the Koran. The 45-week training includes courses in psychology, law, history, communication and religion-the same coursework an imam goes through.
