Books

Faith Childs: Five Book Briefs

By Faith Childs
When I am very busy, I read voraciously. Lately I’ve been devouring books. Lucky for me that each one was a complete pleasure, worth the effort. Many of the books were brief. In no particular order they are: City of Thieves by David Benioff (seen above). Slick writing and excellent storytelling propel this novel, which at first glance is narrated…
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Fashion & Beauty · Film & Television

Review: Valentino, The Last Emperor

By Faith Childs
Matt Tyrnauer’s film, Valentino, The Last Emperor is a guilty pleasure: a gem, the perfect confection for this economically straitened era.  If you love haute couture or even if your interest in fashion is more casual, see this film. Valentino Garavani is the ultimate coutourier, in a class with Balenciaga and St. Laurent.  From childhood he knew that he wanted…
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News

Fairness deferred is now in the Senate’s hands.

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs On Friday, the House of Representatives passed two bills of importance to women. The Paycheck Fairness Act requires employers to pay equal wages to men and women who perform the same job unless there is a rational reason for the pay disparity. Also passed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which overturns the 2007 Supreme Court…
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Film & Television · Music

Cadillac Records–Singing Voices For Change

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs Cadillac Records, Darnell Martin’s new film, is a retelling of the Chess Records saga. The film chronicles the rise of McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters, whose journey from Mississippi sharecropper to Chicago blues legend forms the spine of the film. The blues — race music, as it was then known,  performed largely by black musicians and  often…
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Film & Television

We’ll miss you, Paul Newman

By Faith Childs
Who among us didn’t do our share of swooning over Paul Newman?  As a young girl growing up in the late 50s and 60s, I swooned aplenty.  No one was cooler than Paul Newman, not Steve McQueen, nor Sean Connery, or any of the other movie stars who seemed to take themselves far too seriously, tried too hard to be…
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Arts & Culture

Financial Markets in Turmoil: Culture Marches On

By Faith Childs
Despite the financial meltdown of the past week, the ensuing bankruptcy of major brokerage houses, the government bailout of threatened financial behemoths, and continuing chaos in the capital markets while the government decides what solution to the problem will work best, there is so much to savor, and ample reason not to despair. Mind you, I’m not having a “Let…
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Books · Technology

The Amazon Kindle Rocks!

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs | bio Right out of its book-shaped box, the Amazon Kindle works. Slide the power switch on the back to the "on" position, and you are "kindling," in the words of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, who takes credit for naming the reading device after twigs and bits of loose wood used to ignite a…
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News · Politics

Benazir Bhutto: 1953 – 2007

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs | bio The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who had recently returned home to Pakistan after an almost decade-long exile, serves as a brutal reminder of the instability of her troubled country. Benazir Bhutto Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, was the target of a sniper and suicide bomber at a political rally, where attendance was sparse,…
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Lifestyle

From the Trenches: Face to Face with an Old and Persistent Attitude

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs | bio Inasmuch as we at Women’s Voices for Change are in the mind-changing business — trying to get women and others to think differently about menopause and menopausal women — I offer a report from the trenches of a different aspect of the mind-changing business. WVFC Board Member Faith Childs It was for me yet another…
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Politics

Conference of Candidates’ Spouses: Women as Architects of Change?

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs | bio It may be that Maria Shriver, former journalist, author and self-described "general assignment first lady," was correct when she asserted yesterday at a conference of candidates’ spouses in California that the "days of the ceremonial first lady" are bygone. According to Shriver, who is married to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, spouses "have a role to…
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General Medical · Health

The Black Women’s Health Study

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs | bio The Black Women’s Health Study, the largest epidemiologic study to date of black women’s health, is being conducted by Boston University School of Medicine in conjunction with Howard University College of Medicine. Initiated in 1995, the purpose of the study is to examine a large cohort of African American women for the effects of a…
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Books

Summer Reading: A Different Approach

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs Conventional wisdom holds that we take to the lake house, beach or mountains with a pile of summer reading — light fare designed to entertain, to provide an escape from our normal existence. Beach reading, it’s called. The summer months are perfect for indulging in the guilty pleasure of plunging headlong into “la literature de gare,” as…
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Lifestyle

The Permanence of Change

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs Winter’s approach is a reminder of the impermanence of everything, of the constancy of change. Shorter days, darkness at five o’clock. Root vegetables and foods that fortify help to stave off the worst of the season as rosé yields to red wine, brandy and spirits, and Trollope replaces beach reading in preparation for the long haul. Accustomed…
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Menopause

What I Know For Certain: The Best Years of My Life

By Faith Childs
by Faith Childs An admission: I quaked just a bit when I joined with two bold women last year to serve as one the principals of Women’s Voices for Change. It was one thing to be part of a larger group which was concerned about changing the image of menopause. En masse, I was sure, our voices would be heard,…
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