Comments & Commentary on Women in Pop Culture

30 Rock Given Full Season Pick-up

2006-12-04T09:29:00.000-05:00

I find 30 Rock very cute. it's by no means great, but it has moments. Alec Baldwin is great and I appreciate that Tina Fey looks like a real human being, not a painted doll like most actresses on TV. Good to NBC for giving this show a chance to grow.

Lifetime picks up Army Wives

2006-12-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue) and Catherine Bell (JAG) will star in the drama about women living on an army base.

From Variety:
"Wives" will follow the struggles, dreams and friendships of a diverse group of women -- and one man -- whose military spouses and families live on an active Army post.

"At its heart, 'Army Wives' is the story of how people keep going in spite of war," Lifetime entertainment prexy Susanne Daniels said.

Sounds a bit familiar to The Unit. We'll see.

Allison Janney in Sitcom

2006-12-01T09:43:00.000-05:00

The guys who created Two and a Half Men are working on putting together a sitcom for Allison Janney at CBS. Premise is that Janney will be a "successful woman who's re-examining the relationships in her life." (Variety)

Premise sounds a bit thin -- but we are excited to see Janney back on TV.

Is Pink Powerful?

2006-12-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

Kansas State has an interesting piece on how women have taken typical girly pink and reclaimed it as a power color.

Stereotypical feminine color becomes large part of pop culture

Can it be True? Glenn Close in a TV pilot

2006-11-30T09:23:00.000-05:00

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting today that Close signed to star in a TV pilot (that was written for her) for the FX Network about a high-powered woman lawyer set in NY.

The creators are Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman (better known as Mr. Debra Messing).

Meryl Streep is the Busiest Actress in Hollywood

2006-11-30T09:08:00.000-05:00

Meryl Streep just keep on getting work- its actually impressive how much work she's been doing. Variety reports today that she is joing the Reese Witherspoon-Jake Gylenhaal, Rendition

"Streep will portray a government official who approves the transfer -- the so-called rendition -- to a Middle East country of a suspect in a suicide bombing."

She has other project on tap including: Paramount Vantage's Dirty Tricks as Watergate figure Martha Mitchell and alongside Tom Cruise and Robert Redford in Lions for Lambs at United Artists.

U.S. Soccer Team

2006-11-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Women's soccer team just qualified for the 2007 World Cup by beating rival Canada 2-1 in overtime. It was a great game. This team is very different than the team of the past and they are very eciting and young. Bodes well for the future of US soccer.

check out this story: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/sports/20061128/c6soccer28.art.htm

New Show Tonight- My Boys

2006-11-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

TBS is launching a new show about a female sportswriter tonight at 10pm. It's getting pretty good reviews. The star is the woman who played the ditzt girl in last year's Must Love dogs starring John Cusak and Diane Lane. Her name is Jordana Spiro.

I'm actually looking forward to it.

Here are some reviews:
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-sitcoms28nov28,0,323450.story?track=tothtml

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/11/28/my_boys_plays_games_with_gender_cliches/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Living+%2F+Arts+News

Entertainment Weekly Gives Advice About Women in Hollywood

2006-10-04T15:02:00.000-05:00

Finally, the mainstream media begins to address the pathetic lack of movies for and about women. As EW said at the end- DO BETTER!

Hollywood vs. Women
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1540660_1_0_,00.html

My Story on the New TV Season

2006-10-04T10:23:00.000-05:00

My favorite time of year is the end of September beginning of October. The weather is still warm and the new TV season gets underway. This year I took a look at some of the new shows specifically ones that feature women as leads and or are created by women.

Here it is: Women Creators Take Their Shot
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/recent_exclusives.html

I want to thanks Jenny Bicks, creator of Men in Trees for answering my questions. Watch that show!

Helen Mirren Rocks

2006-08-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

August 29, 2006

I've always loved Helen Mirren but she exceeded all my expectations at the Emmy Awards when she won for the brilliant HBO Film Elizabeth I. Here's what she said:

"Without the writing we can't do it, especially us women, every one of these great performances by these great actresses in this category were revealed to us by some wonderful writing.

Women are 50% of the world's population, maybe more. And I know there are many more brilliant performances by women of all ages and all races waiting to be revealed by some great writing, so let's look forward to that."

From The Guardian

The New Yorker is starting to piss me off

2006-08-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

I just read - or skimmed is more like it cause it is so boring- the New Yorker dated August 21. This is the second time this summer that none of the main features in the magazine are written by women.

Unacceptable.

Kudos to Washington Week- August 21

2006-08-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

I don't watch Washington Week anymore on Friday nights on PBS, I listen to the podcast. Yesterday I was listening to the show from Friday night and realized that al the guests were women! So that means that with Gwen Ifill the host, there were five women at once on a news cast. That's got to be a record.

Desperate Housewives promo- August 21

2006-08-21T09:25:00.000-05:00

I was walking on the street yesterday and walked past a laundromat and saw an incredibly offensive poster plugging the new season of Desperate Housewives. The lead women were in a laundromat totally sexed up and the tag line was "Time to Come Clean."

There was one man in the picture- he was bent over with his head in either a washing machine or a dryer with his ass crack basically hanging out AND Eva Longoria who was perched on top of the washer had her foot on him.

I couldn't stop thinking about that poster all day. It totally goes against everything that show is supposed to stand for- the women looked like sex kittens instead of the fully developed complicated women they supposedly are on the show.

Shame on ABC for that promo. I really found it offensive and believe that it will not appeal at all to women.

Who made that ad? Guy or girl? I wonder...

Mel Gibson

2006-08-02T09:55:00.000-05:00

August 2
I've hated Mel Gibson for a while. He always comes off as so moralisitic. His father is a public Holocausr denier- etc etc. He totally blew it forever when he got drunk (how unChristian of him), got pulled over and then blamed the jews (who made him a millionaire) for all the problems of the world.

This gave Hollywood Jews (don't think we don't know that you are all Jewish no matter how much you want us to forget) an opportunity to stand up for themselves, and other jews especially those dying in Lebanon for them to have the opportunity to make movies in Hollywood.

But Hollywood Jews are again silent, just like they were in the Holocause and in the McCarthy period.

Get some backbone! Here's a good LA Times piece about the silence of the Jews. Props out to Amy Pascal for being the only studio chief to be critical of Mel.

Where is Steven Speilberg? In the Hamptons? Does he not get the Times or have a TV there?

The shame is that so few say 'shame'

My internet connection hell

2006-07-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

I am going through hell and am wondering if anyone else is in the same place as me. I upgraded my earthlink dsl to earthlink through time warner cable back on January. All was fine for 5 months until my modem fried, it took Time Warner 5 days to get to my house to replace the modem.

It has been a nightmare since then. They have replaced my modem several times, been in the backyard climbing the pole, been on the roof checking the line and nothing, my modem keeps recycling sometimes twice a day sometimes every 5 minutes.

I also moved my phone service to vonage to save money and my vonage is useless because my modem keeps going out.

Time Warner (by the way you all suck and are useless) can't help me anymore so I decided to get a dsl on a different phone line in my house through earthlink.

The stuff came in the mail, I hooked it up and voila no dsl service. I had a technician in my house yesterday and he said the problem is not here but at the main office.

Suffice it to say earthlink (I have been a loyal customer for 10 years) sucks just like Time Warner. Every time I call customer service I get a useless person in India who has no idea how to help me and when I ask to be transferred to a supervisor I get someone else who can't help me.

And these guys had the nerve to already bill me when my service is not working and I can't reach anyone to give them shit about it becasue the wait to talk to someone was 20 minutes.

I emailed the ceo of earthlink earlier this week and have heard nothing back.

Help me get some satisfaction. If anyone reads this and has any idea what I should do, email me at: melsil@earthlink.net

New piece on Women in Hollywood

2006-07-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Here is my newest piece which appeared July 25 on the Women's Media center site and will soon appear on Alternet

WMC Exclusive: In Hollywood, Perception of Equality Doesn't Make it Real by Melissa Silverstein

July 25
With summer movie season upon us, a potential blockbuster opens each weekend on as many screens as possible throughout the local multiplex. By Sunday morning Hollywood executives know if they've got a hit or a flop. The choice this summer-Mission Impossible III, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean II-are highly reminiscent of summers past: boy-centric action films directed by men.

The sad truth is the trend is not new. But it occurs at a time when the film and media communities seem to believe that women in record numbers are powerful decision makers in Hollywood. This perception began 18 months ago when a New York Times article, heralding Hollywood's New Old Girls' Network, declared that women "have finally buried the notion that Hollywood is a man's world."

But the reality today does not meet the perception. When that article was published in April 2005, women ran production at four of the six major Hollywood studios. Within the last week, the number fell to two and each of those women reports to a male boss.

Gender disparity runs rampant throughout the Hollywood studio system. Martha Lauzen from San Diego State University has tracked women working behind the scenes in top grossing films for several years. The 2005 statistics are out and the news is grim. Lauzen’s The Celluloid Ceiling reports that "women comprised 17% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films.” The percentage was the same in 1998.

Looking only at directors, the most creative position in Hollywood, the numbers are humbling: women were at 7% in 2005, up from the year before but down from an all-time high of 11% in 2000. Other measurements confirm Lauzen’s research. The Director’s Guild reports only 13% women among its 7,400 directing members. Variety stats list just three women directors of 2005’s top 100 grossing movies. Angela Robinson comes in at number 38 with a remake of Herbie Fully Loaded, Nora Ephron at 42 with Bewitched and Clare Kilner at 88 with The Wedding Date.

Why are there not more women directing movies? To begin with Hollywood remains a business of relationships, and the male executives are comfortable with male directors. "Male competency is assumed,” says Lauzen. “Female competency is frequently if not always questioned." According to Nikki Finke, columnist from LA Weekly and Deadline Hollywood blogger, if women have “one movie that doesn't perform they are punished more harshly." Remember Penny Marshall? She was a huge directing star after Big and A League of Their Own. She hasn't directed a film since Riding in Cars with Boys in 2001. Mimi Leder, plucked by Steven Spielberg from the TV set of ER, directed the action movies Deep Impact and The Peacemaker. But she hasn't directed on the big screen since Pay it Forward in 2000.

How could a community that prides itself on its liberalism and progressivism fail so miserably in this area? At the top film schools UCLA and NYU, women and men study film in roughly equal numbers. Are women not tough enough to handle the all-consuming role of director, or unwilling to sacrifice for the chance? Martha Lauzen says she knows many directors, who happen to be women, who would say, “I have a husband and kids, but if I can get that job I'll work that out."

Perhaps women do not even want to direct the monster budget, boy-focused films that seem to be Hollywood’s favorite product. Probably no director would turn down a job, but look at Nancy Meyers, whom Nikki Finke calls "the most successful woman director working today." Able to tap into the "zeitgeist" with stories that resonate with women, Meyers worked for years as screenwriter on Father of the Bride and other films her husband directed. Her success reached another level when she directed What Women Want and continued with Something’s Gotta Give, the 2003 film starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson which she wrote and directed. Her film The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, is slated for release later this year.

But without incentive to change, the status quo will remain in Hollywood, especially at a time when the studios are contracting. “Sometimes I think being labeled sexist in that community is not seen as negative but a badge of honor," says Martha Lauzen. Maybe Hollywood can learn from political women who have made concerted efforts to build a pipeline of candidates. Perhaps a consortium of women opening an independent studio, suggests Nikki Finke. One thing is clear from Lauzen's research: Hollywood’s women support each other when given the chance. "In both TV and film, when women are in a position to hire others they hire women at a greater rate then do men."

If ever there is a true "Old Girls Network," women could make films just as good—or as bad—as their fellow male directors. For now, Hollywood should stop pretending that women have power and actually work to get them some.

The Celluloid Ceiling

Another Sexist Sports Comment

2006-07-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

So is Danica patrick that thretening to the male drivers that they need to make disgusting sexist comments about her being succcessful if its "that time of the month."

Idiot. His mother - the owner of his car- should kick his ass!

Here is the AP piece

Driver: 'Time of month' could help Danica in NASCAR

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A fellow IRL driver says Danica Patrick has what it takes to succeed if she switches to the paint-swapping world of NASCAR and she's plenty aggressive in open-wheel racing when it's "the right time of the month."

Ed Carpenter, who trails Patrick by four slots in the IRL IndyCar Series' points race, made the comment when asked how Patrick might handle NASCAR racing during a radio appearance to promote Saturday night's Firestone Indy 200.

"I think Danica's pretty aggressive in our cars," Carpenter said Wednesday on WGFX-FM in Nashville.

"I mean, you know especially if you catch her at the right time of the month, she might be trading plenty of paint out there," he said. "But I think she'll hold her own. Who's she's going to drive for is hard to say. I don't think she's leaving, so we'll see."

Carpenter later told The Associated Press he didn't mean to be disrespectful of Patrick by using a female stereotype.

He said he was trying to make the point that Patrick is competitive and already proven as a capable driver. He predicts she'll stay in the IndyCar Series.

"It's obvious when you're around her, she's very competitive," he said in a telephone interview afterward. "I think she has goals that she hasn't accomplished yet in the IRL Indy cars. That's going to want to make her stay."

Patrick, a presenter at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on Wednesday night, didn't take offense when informed of Carpenter's comments.

"That sounds like a good joke to me, it's pretty funny to me," she said backstage. "No big deal. Ed is a really nice guy. There's no drama there. I think it's funny. I'm glad he's showing some personality."

There has been wide speculation that Patrick will switch leagues after her IRL contract ends this season. Her father was a guest of Roush Racing at Chicagoland Speedway for the Nextel Cup race last weekend.

Carpenter, who is married, drives for a team owned by his mother and her husband, Tony George -- chief executive officer of the Indy Racing League.

Patrick, who won three poles and was rookie of the year in 2005, ranks 12th in points this year, best on the Rahal-Letterman team.

"She's kind of leading the way for her team and putting up the best results for her team. She's going to get shoved around over there just because she's a girl, but I think she's going to be able to hold her own -- if she even goes over there," Carpenter said.

God Love the British

2006-07-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

July 13, 2006

Found this story on my jaunt through the web this morning- from Reuters

"Wear nice pants" [meaning underpants] - police tell women drinkers

LONDON (Reuters) - Women going on boozy nights out have been warned by police to "wear nice pants" in case they fall down drunk in the street.

A Suffolk police safety campaign magazine shows pictures of young women slumped on the ground next to messages urging them: "If you've got it, don't flaunt it".

"If you fall over or pass out, remember your skirt or dress may ride up," the magazine says. "You could show off more than you intended -- for all our sakes, please make sure you're wearing nice pants and that you've recently had a wax."

Readers are also told to stick with friends, book a taxi home and watch the amount they drink.

Police said the Safe! magazine's gossipy, tongue-in-cheek style was designed to alert young women to the dangers they could face if they get drunk during a night out.

"We need to raise their awareness of potential problems," said Chief Superintendent David McDonnell. "They become more vulnerable whilst under the influence of alcohol.

Zidane- Golden Boot Award?

2006-07-10T13:01:00.000-05:00

I watched the World Cup with a bit of insane religiosity. I love soccer. But what Zidane did yesterday was horrible and inexcusable, and then for the journalists to name him the best player is a travesty.

I bet that a lot of people around the world (I know there were 2 in my house) hadn't watched any of the games except for the final. It was a cultural event not to be missed. That means that many people's only remembrance of this world cup will be zidane's head butt. Then the press goes ahead and rewards his behavior with the most prestigious award in soccer. Shameful.

Again, boys will be boys behavior is tolerated and exaulted and the role models for sports are men who cannot keep their cool in the heat of the moment.

Is it no surprise that the game has deteriorated into a folly of whistles with a little kicking in between each stop for a foul.

Women play soccer without all the crazy fouls. Maybe the guys should watch the women play -- they fight hard yet are not taking people down on a constant basis.

Women do go to the movies

2006-07-10T11:14:00.000-05:00

last weekend during the July 4th holiday weekend I went to see The Devil Wears Prada. Suffice it to say a lot of other people wanted to see that movie too- it took us two times (and ordering in advance even in Pittsfield, MA) to see the great Meryl Streep in another amazing role.

I still can't get over her voice.

Just remember when all the bullshit pundits say that women don't go to the movies that we do and we will go see movies that ARE GOOD!

Devil came in second place over the holiday weekend raking in almost 4o million dollars with an audience that was 79 percent female and 61 percent over 25.

Yeah for all of us over 25!

Women's soccer

2006-06-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

While the world is so focused on men's soccer and the World Cup, the NJ Star-Ledger has an interesting story on what happened to women's soccer in the US. Check it out!

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1151296520252140.xml&coll=1

Basketball and Babies

2006-06-12T08:04:00.000-05:00

Here's an article I write that was posted on the Women's Media Center website on June 9

Basketball and Babies
A new documentary opening this weekend highlights a growing issue for women's sports - what happens when you get pregnant?

The WNBA celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer, and with 14 teams, the league’s doubters have been silenced. But each season fans wonder about the absence of a stalwart player or two normally on each team's roster. Retirement? Injury? No, not necessarily. The missing players - stars like DeMya Walker and Marie Ferdinand - may be pregnant or have recently given birth, one of the realities of the WNBA and other women’s professional leagues. Seeing athletes play out their post partum weight loss on national TV offers an up-close view of what it takes to get back into game shape. Houston Comets star Sheryl Swoopes is proof it can be done. She has been named MVP a record three times since having her son Jordan 10 years ago.

The athletes of the WNBA are the best of the best, and their league has a supportive pregnancy policy. Not every athlete is so lucky. Take Darnellia Russell, a high school player in a new documentary about a girls’ basketball team from Seattle that opens this weekend in NY and LA and in other cities over the summer.

In The Heart of the Game, directed by Ward Serrill, the Roosevelt High Roughriders are stuck in the losing column until tax professor and novice coach Bill Resler walks into their lives. He gives them permission to be competitive and ruthless on the court allowing the team to thrive. When Darnellia enrolls and walks into the gym, Coach Resler, a father of daughters, smells her talent. The team’s wins pile up, even with Darnellia playing most of her junior year pregnant without knowing it.

Darnellia gave birth to her daughter Trekayla in December 2002. When she tried to return to the team as a senior, she had too few academic credits to play because of missed school during her pregnancy. She made up the credits yet still was denied eligibility under Washington state rules that govern high school athletics - her pregnancy was not a “hardship,” a designation that would allow her to make up the credits and qualify. Darnellia had hoped, through an athletic scholarship, to fulfill her dream of becoming the first in her family to go to college. She had letters of interest from a number of schools before she got pregnant. After the baby the interest pretty much disappeared, and with it, Darnellia's dreams of a college education and maybe even the WNBA.

Women's basketball has come a long way since the first game at Smith College on March 21, 1893—with a major boost from Title IX passage in 1972. It's no news flash that young women accidentally get pregnant, and Title IX regulations would seem to offer students some protection. They state that recipients of federal funds “must treat disabilities related to pregnancy the same way as any other temporary disability in any medical or hospital benefit, service, plan or policy which they offer to students. . . . Following this leave, the student must be reinstated to her original status." Yet no uniform policy at either the school or professional level protects a pregnant athlete’s rights. The resulting insecurity, especially for athletes on scholarship, can cause women to hide their pregnancies or have an abortion. Of course, the guys who get women pregnant suffer no repercussions, financial or otherwise.

Stepping into the void, Elizabeth Sorensen, a nurse and the faculty athletics representative at Wright State University, has become an authority on athletes and pregnancy. She created a policy for Wright State, and is now trying to build momentum for a comprehensive, proactive policy that focuses on an athlete’s well being. In 2003, she submitted her policy to the NCAA, but the collegiate athletic governing body has not taken up the issue. The women's community is taking notice, however. The Women's Sports Foundation is about to release its own position paper on athletic competition and pregnancy, and the National Women's Law Center has also begun to consider the issue.

No one pretends that it's easy to return to play at the same level after a pregnancy. But for WNBA players, basketball is their job. Although a league veteran, Allison Feaster was still nervous when she got pregnant: "I was really concerned about just announcing my pregnancy and how it would affect my ability to stay in my job. I’d say put the pressure on the lawmakers to do their part so that we are protected.”

Darnellia Russell would love the opportunity to show a school that she has come back from her pregnancy. She is waiting for the phone to ring with a college coach giving her that chance.

A Bit of History As We Celebrate The Final Four

2006-04-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

I'm back- I had been editing another website for the last several months, so I've been delinquent in my postings...

Here is a piece I wrote that puts the 25th anniversary of the NCAA Final Four in historical perspective.

******

The NCAA has been celebrating the 25th anniversary of the women’s college basketball tournament over the last several months leading up to the April 4 championship game. During televised games on ESPN,(which is televising all games of the tournament) the network has been counting down the top 25 moments in the history of the championships. Looking at those moments a person could think that organized women’s basketball didn’t exist prior to 25 years ago when only the final game was televised.

But that is not the case. There were women’s championships in basketball and 19 other women's sports run by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) an organization that was virtually run out of existence by the NCAA when it decided to create women’s championships to parallel the mens. That the NCAA wanted to be involved in women’s sports at all -- let alone run them-- is ironic because less than a decade earlier the NCAA was dead set against the expansion of women’s sports in the wake of the passage of Title IX.

When Title IX was passed in 1972 the NCAA along with many other organizations were at first indifferent because they didn’t believe it would effect them -- it was just a little law created to increase women’s opportunities in education. When it quickly became clear that Title IX would effect athletics, the NCAA began to diligently work its members and its political capital to derail Title IX making sure it would not have any detrimental effects of men’s sports especially -- especially the sacred cow of football.

The birth of the second wave of the women's movement and the civil rights movement created a climate for change, and women's sports advocates took advantage of the changing times and created AIAW in 1970 to organize and run women’s championships in a variety of sports. In 1970 it was easy for women to have control because women’s sports just didn’t matter to the male sports world. At that time most schools had a separate men’s and women’s athletic departments and the women’s department had little money, no scholarships and were treated poorly if they got any attention at all.

AIAW was a huge success and by 1979 it had almost 1,000 school as members. The organization was so successful that it negotiated a TV contract with NBC to televise its championships beginning in 1979 for 1 million dollars.

While the NCAA never was supportive of women’s sports, it saw the AIAW TV contract as a sign that they could make money off of women's sports, and in 1979 voted to offer championships for Division 2 and 3; and then in 1980 voted to offer championships in Division 1. That was beginning of the end of AIAW. The NCAA decimated AIAW by offering financial incentives for schools to join the NCAA, and AIAW could not compete. To add insult to injury, the decision makers in the athletic departments were now mostly men as one of the unforeseen and most disturbing consequences of Title IX was the merging of the men’s and women’s athletic departments. As more opportunities were opened for student athletes, women administrators and coaches lost their autonomy and many of them their positions when the departments merged. Member schools quickly switched to the NCAA and once the best teams were lost, the TV contract was pulled and the AIAW was virtually out of business.

So as you watch the great players in the final four this weekend and the announcer counts down the top moments of the history of the championship, just remember the women of AIAW whose hard work made these championships possible.

Questions, comments email me at melsil@earthlink.net

Sexual Harrassment and the Olympics

2006-01-02T21:19:00.000-05:00

Gearing up to the 2006 Olympics and interesting story has emerged about the women's skeleton team. To be honest, I have no clue what skeleton is- something like luge which is another sport I know nothing about -- but the coach of the team Tim Nardiello has been accused of sexual harassment. Turns out that he had been accused previously but no investigation was opened.

The idiot, Matt Roy who ran the skeleton federation in 2002 when the first accusation surfaced said today in the NY Times,

"I think, I assume, we treated it seriously and looked into it..."

Gee thanks. I think, I assume he's an idiot.

Some of the comments Nardiello is accused of saying include:

"athletes' legs should not be spread apart, 'unless I am between them,' and suggesting that athletes should picture their sleds as their 'naked boyfriend.'"

He is also accused of barging into the female athletes rooms while they were dressing.

When the story first broke the coach still had his job, but now he has been suspended. Stay tuned.

Skeleton Coach Was Admonished in 2002
Coach Suspended Amid Accusations

The NY Times and women

2006-01-02T21:00:00.000-05:00

I'm changing the idea of this blog. Since I am editing news each day at Women's Media Center this site will be more focused on things that need further comment mostly related to women's politics, pop culture and sports.

So to start us off, the NY Times last week had some really great articles on women, especially women in Africa. I noticed that none of them had any dates so they were held until a time when they could run. So, I guess that means that the only time substantive stories about women can run in the NY Times is the week when everyone is on vacation and no one is reading the Times.

Interesting tidbits for December 1, 2005

2005-12-01T09:46:00.000-05:00

The Supreme Court heard its first abortion case in five years yesterday. The paper's today are all focused on the case and Judge Alito's work to overturn Roe.

Some of the coverage:
Washington Post: Roberts Seeks Middle Ground
Slate: Nibbling Away at Roe v. Wade
The NY Times: For New Court, Abortion Case Takes Old Path
The NY Times: Alito File Shows Strategy to Curb Abortion Ruling

Kansas City Star: “The industry people wonder how come all these women are
going to this movie. Well, hello. What are their choices? If 90 percent of
movies are made for 14-year-old boys, when you finally offer something for
the old babes, they will respond.”
Like Elizabeth in Movie, Women Find Lots to Love

The LA Times: "I want to honor who transgender women really are, which are
women," says Huffman, on her role in "Transamerica."
Talking With: Felicity Huffman

What We Need to Know Today - November 14

2005-11-14T08:46:00.000-05:00

The Supreme Court Update
So what's the deal with Judge Alito? we all know he's conservative yet he can say he's respectful of precedent and then everyone steps back and says he's not going to overturn Roe v. Wade. wake up people. This is what he said in meetings yesterday.

From last week in Washington Post:
"In private meetings with senators who support abortion rights, Alito has said the Supreme Court should be quite wary of reversing decisions that have been repeatedly upheld, according to the senators who said it was clear that the context was abortion.

"He basically said . . . that Roe was precedent on which people -- a lot of people -- relied, and been precedent now for decades and therefore deserved great respect," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) told reporters after meeting with Alito yesterday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had a similar conversation about an hour later with Alito, who has made clear that he personally opposes abortion.

"I asked him whether it made a difference to him if he disagreed with the initial decision but it had been reaffirmed several times since then," Collins told reporters. "I was obviously referring to Roe in that question. He assured me that he has tremendous respect for precedent and that his approach is to not overturn cases due to a disagreement with how they were originally decided."

Albright's Secret: Brooch Diplomacy
As a rare woman in the male-dominated diplomatic world, former United Nations Ambassador and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came to the posts during the Clinton years with a different approach--and wardrobe. And, she tells us, that gave her a new weapon in America's diplomatic battles: her trademark jeweled brooches. The Dame of Foggy Bottom reveals that her secret jewelry box diplomacy was sparked by a little comment made by the deposed Iraqi tyrant while Albright was ambassador to the United Nations. "Saddam Hussein called me a snake," she says. The next time she was on television, she wore a snake pin to show off her new status.

"So then," she says, "I thought it would be fun to send messages with my pins." Word spread fast in the diplomatic community. "When people would say, 'How do you feel?' I'd say, 'Read my pin.' " Butterflies meant happy, bees angry. Some were sarcastic, as with the huge bug she wore to meet a Russian diplomat after a Kremlin recording device was found at the U.N. At another meeting with Russians to talk about the antiballistic missile treaty, she wore an arrow, prompting then Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to ask, "Is that one of your interceptors?" Albright's clever answer: "Yes, and we know how to make them very small." There's much more to the story. Albright tells us she's planning a book on her brooches.

Katha Pollitt kicks a little Maureen Dowd ass in the Nation.
KATHA POLLITT

Movie News
It looks as if there may be extra time for Bend it Like Beckham. The Sun (from England) reports that Gurinder Chadha, who directed the British footballing hit, is making a sequel to the 2003 film. Apparently she also has signed up the film's stars, Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra, to reprise their roles.

Joan Allen is to star with Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates in a new road movie, Bonneville. The film is about a widow who goes on a trip to deliver her deceased husband's ashes to her daughter.

5 minutes with...Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal- mother of Jake and Maggie and awesome screeniwriter in her own right. From NY Daily News: Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

I'm a big fan of Sarah Silverman. Her movie- Jesus is Magic, based on her stand-up opened Friday. Learn a little more about her. From the NY Times: Sarah Silverman

Paramount beat out several bidding studios for Stop-Loss, a drama to be directed by Kimberly Peirce about the controversial statute now used by the U.S. Defense Dept. to extend soldiers' combat time. Peirce, who has not directed a movie since Boys Don't Cry in 1999 but has been linked to many, sparked to the subject when her own brother returned from a year of duty in Fallujah and was quickly called back.

Scarlett Johansson is in talks to topline the Weinstein Co.'s bigscreen adaptation of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus' bestselling tome The Nanny Diaries.

Diane Keaton is in negotiations to play Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder's mother in Mama's Boy for Warner Independent Pictures.

TV News
I've been talking about the disaster of Desperate Housewives for the entire fall. The show basically sucks. Here's some confirmation. HOUSEWIVES NEEDS MAKEOVER

Sports
Kim NG has just interviewed to be the Genral Manager of the LA Dodgers. if she gets the gig, she would be the first female general manager in baseball.
Kim Ng

What We Need to Know Today - November 8

2005-11-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

I know I've been remiss in blogging lately. That's because I'm editing a site so you can check out my work on there. Check out The Women's Media Center

News
Brat pack hits middle age. Remember St. Elmo's Fire, that brilliant movie that was so damn good in high school? (The top film will always be Fast Times at Ridgemont High.) Well it seems that those of us in that age bracket are about to have our midlife crisis. I don't know about you but I'm on my third crisis.
It's midlife crisis time for the Brat Pack

Buffy is a feminist
"'Think about Rosa Parks,' Sarah Michelle Gellar intoned to Lowdown the other night at the DKNY Jeans party. "There was a woman who did so much for other women. And nowadays, women are famous for the way they wear their hair. Or designers they wear. Or who they date."

Hmmmm. Can't imagine who she's talking about.

Buffy continued: 'Someone like Rosa Parks reminds you that fighting for women's causes is the most important thing we can do.'

The 28-year-old Gellar was chatting away in a VIP banquette at Hiro, playing host to the festivities - benefiting the nonprofit Step Up Women's Network."

Commnder in Chief updates
Polly Bergen has joined the cast of ABC's Commander in Chief, playing the mother of President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis). Bergen, who herself played the first female U.S. president in the 1964 feature Kisses for My President, will join the skein with the Thanksgiving episode, airing Nov. 29.

Alternet has a good piece on Commander in Chief
A Woman in Command

More TV News
WB has ordered a script for a new primetime soap called The Body Politic from Touchstone Television, and is set in the nation's capital, according to Variety. The project is written by Bill Robinson and Jason Rothenberg, produced ands directed by Peter Horton. Unlike other dramas set in Washington, in and around the political scene, this show will concentrate on a young woman arriving in Washington for the first time and her impressions of the less that politically correct side of town.

Film News
Sela Ward has signed on to star opposite Kevin Costner in The Guardian for Touchstone Pictures, Beacon Pictures and A School Prods.

Sports News
You must check out Dave Zirin's article in The Nation about how everyone missed the Sheryl Swoopes coming out opportunity.
Sheryl Swoopes: Out of the Closet--and Ignored

FYI
From the AP: The difference between the sexes has long been a rich source of humor. Now, it turns out, humor is one of the differences. Maybe we laugh more because we know if we stopped laghing we would just cry forever at how fucked up everything is?
Women get more joy out of humor

What We Need to Know Today- October 24, 2005

2005-10-24T02:23:00.000-05:00

News
For those of us keeping track -- As of Saturday, the count of dead soldiers in the Iraq war stood at 1,996.

It's getting really nasty between Judith Miller and the NYTimes. Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing piece on Saturday and the public editor had a piece on Sunday. Judith responds to the public editor piece and to me she is getting more and more defensive and shrill.
JUDITH MILLER IS LOSING IT

Condoleeza Rice continues to get signals all over the place about running for office. She says she's not running- for now.
From the NY Times: CONDOLEEZA RICE

All things equal? Women are getting arrested and incarcerated in increasing numbers.
WOMEN IN PRISON

Harriet Miers is so screwed. She is slowly eroding the minimal support she had after some visits to Senators on Capitol Hill. Someone close the Senator Specter said this: "All Specter is hearing from colleagues on both sides is that they're getting nothing from Harriet but vague generalities and how wonderful the President is." Yuck and double yuck.
From Time: HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS

Film
Professor Martha Lauzen does a yearly analysis of the amount of women working in front and behind the scenes of all of the prime time TV shows. Here is the latest report.
BOXED IN

Diane Keaton, is a big star, but if she were a guy she's be monstrous. Who is Diane Keaton? From the NY Times Magazine: ANOTHER WOMAN

Sounds delicious and wierd: Susan Sarandon will play Doris Duke to Ralph Fiennes' Bernard Lafferty — the flamboyant butler who drank himself to death after inheriting most of Duke's money — in "Bernard and Doris," which starts shooting next week under the direction of Bob Balaban.

TV
Human Trafficking, Lifetime's mini-series on the trafficking of women premieres tonight on Lifetime TV.
A review from the NY Times: SELLING SEX, THAT RENEWABLE RESOURCE

Nathan Templeton that nasty Speaker of the House on Commander in Chief will soon be getting a wife who, dare I say, might be more liberal?
CHIEF RIVAL LOTS TWIST

Sport
The US National team played its final game of 2005 looking much better than they did last week. They pretty much decimated Mexico 3-0 with two goals by Abby Wamback and one by Kristine Lilly who now has 299 caps (games) on the books!

What We Need to Know Today- October 20, 2005

2005-10-20T01:57:00.000-05:00

News
Harriet Miers, who is supposed to be miss efficient and miss organized, has her law license suspended in Texas and DC and her questionnaire that all Supreme Court nominees fill out rejected for being "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting."
From the NY Times: HARRIET MIERS CAN'T ANSWER THE QUESTIONNAIRE PROPERLY

The Return of the Sponge
From the Village Voice: IS HE SPONGEWORTHY

Gender Gap in college grows- 57% of college students are women.
From USA Today: WOMEN ARE MORE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Film
It's Shirley MacLaine's year. She will receive this year's career achievement award at the upcoming ShowEast confab; has In Her Shoes out now, and Rumor Has It is coming in December.

Dakota Fanning just keeps making those movies. She stars in Dreamer a movie about a girl and her horse out Friday.
From the Seattle Post Intelligencer: DAKOTA FANNING IS THE BUSIEST GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD

Courteney Cox has signed on to star in an untitled comedy for Paramount Pictures. The story centers on a Southern socialite whose daughter's transformation from little princess to street hip-hop dancer at first shatters her world, then gives the two common ground.

Claire Danes stars in Shopgirl based on the novel by Steve Martin opening Friday.
From USA Today: CLAIRE DANES

TV
Commander in Chief the new ABC drama starring Geena Davis has been given a full season pickup.

Books
Books no woman's library should be without
From the Village Voice: OUR BODIES, OUR BOOKS

Sport
Time Magazine has a great piece on Candace Parker the new basketball phenom who dunks regularly and was the only player -- man or woman -- to win the high school player of the year for two years. She's playing for Tennessee and the season kicks off next month. Can't wait.
READY FOR LIFT-OFF

What We Need to Know Today- October 19, 2005

2005-10-19T01:10:00.000-05:00

News
More Judy Miller fallout
Editor and Publisher: JUDY MILLER FALLOUT AT THE NY TIMES
Fishbowl NY: A ROUNDUP OF JUDY MILLER POSTS

Sarah Silverman is one of the funniest chicks in the world. The New Yorker does a well deserved profile on her.
QUIET DEPRAVITY

Film
Tilda Swinton will star as a forensic psychologist opposite Amber Tamblyn's murder suspect in the indie feature "Stephanie Daley."

TV
For fans of Alias the good news is that Vaughn may not be dead. Michael Vartan was seen on the set shooting this week. Stay tuned for more information.

There is justice: ABC's Grey's Anatomy (18.3 million) has been steadily growing over the past three weeks even as Sunday lead-in Desperate Housewives (25.8 million) has declined. The gap between the shows has narrowed by 2 million since the season's start.

Barbra Streisand's early TV special will be available on DVD for the first time in November. "My Name is Barbra," "Color Me Barbra," "A Happening in Central Park," "Belle of Fourteenth Street," and "Barbra Streisand...and Other Musical Instruments" will all find their way to disc and a number of the specials will be broadcast on PBS stations in December. The DVDs will make many Streisand performances that have not been seen since their original broadcasts available to the public.

Books
Julie Powell took Julia Child's recipes and first put them on a blog and now into a hit book- Julie and Julia 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.
MSNBC: CHANNELING JULIA CHILD ONE RECEIPE AT A TIME

Sport
Roger Federer's part-time coach Tony Roche has agreed to help Indian rising star Sania Mirza on a short-term basis. Roche will work with the 18-year-old for three weeks over Christmas, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Music
Just cause I love her- "When Joni Mitchell arrived in Los Angeles from Canada in 1968, she landed in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Barney Hoskyns tells how the hipsters who all hung out together in Laurel Canyon fell both for Mitchell and her music - and turned Sixties rock on its head..."
read the rest from The Guardian: LADY OF THE CANYON

What We Need to Know Today- October 18, 2005

2005-10-18T00:21:00.000-05:00

News
Conservatives were assured that Harriet Miers would overturn Roe v. Wade if confirmed.
From CBS News: ABORTION AT CENTER OF MIERS DEBATE

Maria Shriver, in an effort to look like she is actually doing something, created the Minerva awards named after the the Roman Goddess of Wisdom and Justice. The award is given to "California women whose indisputable humanitarian qualifications demonstrate the enduring power of great acts of service." In its second year the recipients are: Former First Lady Betty Ford; sports advocate and former Olympian Anita L. DeFrantz; Sister Jennie Lechtenberg and poet and humanitarian, Janice Mirikitani.

Judy Miller saga continued:
Even though she was out of legal jeopardy, Judith Miller worked with her attorney to write the piece that appeared in the NYTimes this past Sunday. Guess she was rusty from the 85 days in jail. The criticism continues on and on and on.
LA Times: NY TIMES STORY ON LEAK RAISES QUESTIONS

Happy birthday to Emily's List- the PAC that raises money for democratic, pro-choice women candidates threw itself a 20th birthday party in Washington yesterday.
From the Washington Post: EMILY'S LIST CELBRATES CLOUT AS IT TURNS 20

In another showing of right wing small mindedness, James Dobson has urged people (which people I don't know) to boycott the American Girl doll because the company gives money to Girls Inc. an organization that supports the empowerment of girls across the country. Every time I think Dobson has jumped the shark he just jumps higher.
From the Progressive: FEMINISTS IN THE NURSERY

Newsweek has a whole package this week on women's leadership- do we lead differently than men? Again, my usual answer- well, duh.
HOW WOMEN LEAD

Film
Kirsten Dunst has signed on to play Marla Ruzicka in a film about the 28-year-old American relief worker who was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber.

TV
It's the fourth episode tonight of Commander in Chief which is by the way the most watched new show of the season and critics are still writing about the show.
From the Chicago Sun Times- A NEW LOOK AT GENDER POLITICS

Candace Bushnell's new book Lipstick Jungle will be optioned by NBC and produced by Sex and the City creator Darren Star.

Theatre
Wonderful casting- Eileen Atkins, British actress extraordinaire, will take over the lead role in Doubt in early January when Cherry Jones leaves to begin rehearsing The Faith Healer.

Sports
Michelle Wie was disqualified from her first pro tournament after a reporter told officials that she did something incorrect during a penalty drop after she shot her ball into the brush. She lost out on about 50,000. Did the reporter do the right thing to involve himself in the story?
From USA Today: WRITER DEFENDS REPORTING WIE

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

News
Should there be a woman's seat on the Supreme Court
THE WOMAN'S SEAT

The Judy Miller stories. Oy vez. This is tough stuff. The NYTimes had a very nasty story about her trials and tribulations yesterday and the second day quarterbaking continues. Will she quit? Will she be fired? All I know is that she is taking a leave of absence, will proably sign a book contract, if she hasn't already, and will most probably never return to the Times where she was afraid to enter after her incarceration. Upon her return, she said she felt vulnerable and was nervous to go back into the news room. It seems to me and I know nothing except what I read, that she made her own bed even calling herself "miss run amok", by refusing to work with editors and returned to a beat covering Iraq after she was removed for writing crappy stories on the WMD that didn't exist.
Here are some pieces to read.
THE JUDY CHRONICLES
MORE ON JUDY
EVEN MORE ON JUDY

Books
Dee Dee Myers, former Clinton spokesperson and West Wing writer is writing a book Why Women Should Rule the World. The book will be published by William Morrow in time for the 2008 election.

Film
Emma Thompson has just finished work on her second screenplay- Nanny McPhee which opens in the US later this year. There was a ten year period between her first screenplay the Oscar winning adaption of Sense and Sensibility and her current work in which she also stars. Can't wait to see Emma back on screen even if she is a scary looking nanny.
THOMPSON EXPLAINS TEN YEAR WRITING GAP

Director Niki Caro took her new film North Country, based on the first class action sexual harrassment lawsuit, to the place where the harassment occured, the Minnesota Iron Range for a premiere.
NORTH COUNTRY PREMIERES ON THE IRON RANGE

FilmFour has bought the Zadie Smith novel On Beauty, with Alison Owen and Scott Rudin producing.

TV
Lifetime has created a niche with their movies and campaigns that actually mean something. meredith Wagner is the woman behind these campaigns.
LIFETIME'S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE

DVD
Saving Face
Dutiful daughter Wil (Michelle Krusied) sidesteps her mother's (Joan Chen) attempts to marry her off in Alice Wu's romantic comedy set in New York. At 28, Wil's the old maid of her traditional Chinese family, so there's no way she can tell them about her budding romance with Vivian (Lynn Chen). But there's no avoiding mom's meddling matchmaking when she shows up on Wil's doorstep looking for a place to stay. (from netflix)

Mad Hot Ballroom
Ballroom dancing goes from lame to cool for a group of New York City public school kids in this insightful documentary. The film follows a group of 11-year-olds as they learn to dance old-school styles including the merengue, rumba, tango, foxtrot and swing. Candid interviews capture the kids' initial reluctance at learning ballroom dance and their transformation into serious competitors determined to win a citywide competition. (from netflix)

Theatre
Rosemary Squire is co-founder of the Ambassador Theatre Group and one of the leading women working in British theatre.
MAKING THEATRE WORK AT THE BOX OFFICE

Sports
The US Women's National team tied Australia in a match they are very lucky they didn't lose. Australia played very aggressively and the US was a step behind and flat on almost every play. The US is going to have ahard time being comptetive in the next World Cup and Olympics if there is not a strong financial investment in training the team on a regular basis.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

News
A judge in Missouri ordered that a pregnant woman be driven from her jail cell to get an abortion even though the state won't pay for it.
THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE- EVEN FROM JAIL

Karen Hughes is going on the road again this time to Malaysia and Indonesia. Can't wait for another disaster.
KAREN HUGHES

Even in Sweden, men and women's crime reports are treated differently with women getting the short end of the stick.
CRIME REPORTING DISCRIMINATION IN SWEDEN

A public official in England wants all men who have sex with girls and women who have been forced into prostitution charged with rape.
SEX WITH TRAFFICKED WOMEN IS RAPE

Condoleeza Rice has emphatically declared that she has no desire to run for president or any other office.
CONDI WON'T RUN

Movies
Why Jodie Foster is so successful at what she does.
JODIE FOSTER

Isabelle Huppert is having quite a month- a film retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art; her US stage debut at BAM as well as a photography exhibit. I'm exhausted just writing about it.
ISABELLE HUPPERT IS EVERYWHERE THIS MONTH

Charlize Theron takes on sexual harrassment in the new film North Country opening Friday. The film is loosely based on the first class action sexual harrassment lawsuit.
CHARLIZE THERON

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

News
Tiina Rosenberg, one of the founders of Sweden's feminist party which launched in April of 2005 has quit citing homophobia and media pressures. TIINA ROSENBERG

Judith Miller has been cleared of contempt charges in the Valerie Plame case after spending 85 days in jail. Now maybe she can tell the whole story.

Vivian Malone Jones, one of two black students whose effort to enroll at the University of Alabama led to George Wallace's infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" in 1963, died Thursday. She was 63.

A woman in the UK was raped after smoking a "spiked" cigarette. Terrific now they can slip roofies in your cigarettes. Just another reason to quit smoking.
A ROOFIE CIGARETTE

Monica Roa has been working to change the abortion law in Columbia. She has received death threats but refuses to back down. She has been fighting the Church in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, but also is fighting US foreign policy that prevents people from talking about abortion for fear of losing foreign aid.
MONICA ROA

Film
I highly highly recommend In Her Shoes. I saw it the other day and thought it was extremely well done. I'm not a big fan of Cameron Diaz but she really took her acting to another level in this film. Toni Collettte, was amazing as usual, and Shirley McLaine was understated as the long lost grandma. This is not just a light chick flick film. It's about love and loss and is very moving. As I left I was thinking, this is one of those films that when it is on cable I would watch it over and over again. It's just plain good drama.

Other films opening this weekend: Nine Lives- a look into the everyday lives of nine women by Rodrigo García. Film stars Glenn Close, Amy Brenneman, Dakota Fanning, Elpidia Carrillo, Robin Wright Penn, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Sissy Spacek and others. This delicious cast just makes me want to see it.
NINE LIVES

TV
Marta Kauffman, one of the creators of Friends, has taken up the mantle on the WB's Related, a one hour drama about four sisters.
MARTA KAUFFMAN

Madeleine Albright will appear as herself on the October 25th episode (8pm WB) of the Gilmore Girls to help the ongoing negotiations between Lorelai and Rory.

Books
Susan Estrich is out with a new book making the case for a Hillary Clinton presidency.
THE CASE FOR HILLARY

Women on the Edge, a new colelction of essays by female writers in California consists of "women who have very brave voices and women who have a very daring view."
WOMEN ON THE EDGE

Sports
Catherine Tubb is the first female president of the Cambridge University boxing club. Halfway through her PhD in Organic chemistry Tubb said: “I can die happy knowing I’ve done my bit for feminism now."
CATHERINE TUBB

The US Women's National Team plays its last two games of the year over the next several weeks. The first is this Sunday, October 16 6pm on ESPN2 vs Australia and the second is Sunday, October 23rd at 1pm on ESPN2 vs. Mexico. Tune in!

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club in Britain, has formally abandoned its ban on women competing in the Open Championship. Maybe Hootie Johnson and those who control the Masters in the US will finally get the picture.

Penn State is looking into allegations that Rene Portland, the women's basketball coach, made discriminatory allegation about one of her player's sexual orientation.
PENN STATE LOOKS INTO ALLEGATIONS

The short list for the Fifa Player of the year includes just a couple of US women: Shannon Boxx and Christie Welsh but they have no chance of winning. The European women are much stronger with Birgit Prinz of Germany and Kelly Smith of England in the running.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

News
Women in Africa are on the forefront of taking on some powerful leadership positions in several countries. One is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank official and grandmother of six, is a front-runner in the race to head this small West African nation.
THE RISE OF AFRICA'S WOMEN POLITICIANS

So is all the stuff about Harriet Miers sexist? Or is the Bush machine just using the sexist card as a way to temper down conversations related to her competence?
HARRIET MIERS

Ellie Smeal of the Feminist Majority and Senator Barbara Mikluski thinks that Harriet Miers is being subjected to a double standard.
SEXIST OR NOT?

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says 99% of maternal deaths are preventable yet every minute a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes. How is this possible? Women's health is a global issue- addressing this issue will save lives and will reduce poverty.
IMPROVING WOMEN'S HEALTH WILL STEM POVERTY

Film
How the North Country writer found the story and what it takes to make a movie script.
NORTH COUNTRY

Sports
Another WNBA has been taken over by a male coach. The Phoenix Mercury hired Paul Westhead a former NBA and college coach.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

News
Germany has a new chancellor and its a girl! Angela Merkel was named Chancellor after several weeks of negotiations making her the first East German and the first woman to run Germany.
ANGELA MERKEL
More on the biography of Angela Merkel
MERKEL 2

Uncertainty about Harriet Mier's political beliefs specifically related to choice (give me a break- she's a Bush crony- she's anti) have given both sides of the issue some food for thought.
HARRIET MIERS

Anna Burger, a longtime union activist, has been named chairwoman of the new breakaway labor coalition - Change to Win Federation.
ANNA BURGER

From Slate- Condi, Hillary and Angelina- are politicians celebs and are celebs becoming politicians?
POLITICIANS AS CELEBS AND VICE VERSA

Condi Rice is taking a trip into Afhganistan. Hope she handles her trip better than Karen Hughes did.
RICE LOOKS TO BROADEN US RELATIONSHIPS

Elizabeth Nicole Jacobson, the first female U.S. airman killed in action in Iraq, was laid to rest Sunday in Pompano Beach, Florida. How come today is the first time I'm even reading about this?
FIRST FEMALE AIRPERSON KILLED IN IRAQ IS BURIED

Bush's team are now playing the gender card for the attacks against Harriet Miers. it's not that she is unqualified because she has no constitutional law experience, its that people are sexist. They've enlisted the First Lady in the fight.
FIRST LADY STANDS UP FOR HARRIET

Film
Susan Sarandon just continues to impress as a woman of a certain age in Hollywood. She rocks. She her this weekend as Orlando Bloom's mom in Elizabethtown.
SUSAN SARANDON

TV
Two weeks into the run of Commander in Chief, the question is whether a woman on TV will have any effect on future presidential tickets. The answer is- who the hell knows. Only time will tell.
MADAME PRESIDENT

Cynthia Nixon will guest on Fox's House in December.

For the last week or so I've been thinking about how bad Desperate Housewives sucks. It's still the number 1 show and I watched it this past weekend and it just sucked hot air. It's off the Tivo list if one more week stinks. At least I'm not alone. Here are some other opinions. On a positive note, Grey's Anatomy totally rocks!
HOUSEWIVES IS GETTING BAD
HOUSEWIVES IS GETTING REALLY BAD

Mags
Rodale will mark the official launch of Women's Health with its November/December issue, on newsstands Oct. 18. The magazine will publish ten times yearly and have a 400,000 rate base and a $4.99 cover price.

Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, got hit by a tofu pie by anti-fur activisits at a fashion show is Paris this past weekend.

Sports
Miranda McOsker, a 15 year old football player at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, CA entered the game on Friday night after the 2nd string quarterback was injured and threw three touchdown passes.

Maria Sharapova who adopted America at age 7 wants to play Fed Cup for her home country of Russia.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-10T09:40:00.000-05:00

News
Rania al-Baz, the Saudi TV presenter who was beaten senseless by her husband last year escaped to Paris for a conference on women's rights after she was prevented from leaving the country.
RANIA AL-BAZ

Angela Merkel has been named Chancellor of Germany following several weeks of coalition discussions since neither the Social Democrats or the Christian Democrats received enough votes to create their own government.
ANGELA MERKEL

Ten Women including Senator Hillary Clinton and Maya Lin were inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls this weekend.
WOMEN'S HALL OF FAME

Joe Klein on why Hillary Clinton should remain a Senator and not run for President.
HILLARY SHOULD REMAIN IN THE SENATE

Women in Afhganistan are stepping up to the plate and running for office all across the country.
WOMEN'S WORK

Movies
Glenn Close, who awesome on The Shield this past year and who was robbed of an Emmy, has been on a binge of independent filmmaking lately.
GLENN CLOSE

I've always been a bit in awe and facinated by Tilda Swinton. She is so different from American actresses and each of her performances are exciting and completely different.
TILDA SWINTON

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

News
Feminist Activist, Malalai Joya has become one of the first people to be elected to the new Parliment in Afhganistan.
MALALAI JOYA

Dr. Frank Davidoff has become the second official to resign from the FDA over the controversy over making emergency contraception available over the counter.
DR, FRANK DAVIDOFF

Girls in Uganda who can prove they are virgins are being offered scholarships to college at no cost. This is antoher tactic of the Bush administration trying to spread its abstinence program around the world. Let's blame the girls for getting raped and let's not continue to educate them about sexually transmitted diseases so if they are alive by college then they can go for free. Fucked up shit.
PROVE YOUR VIRGINITY, GET COLLEGE FOR FREE

Ellen Goodman weighs in on Harriet Miers.
ELLEN GOODMAN

Movies
Opening this weekend.
In Her Shoes - starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley McLaine- can't get any better than that. Jennifer Weiner, the author of the novel the film is based upon is happy with the cast and the film. Not many authors say that.
IN HER SHOES

TV
The Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl Concert, a kind of American Idol, is the title of a TV show from China that attracted 400 million viewers. The winner is was the 21 year old Li Yuchun who has become the most famous woman in China virtually overnight.
A POP IDOL FOR CHINA

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

News
Why won't NOW support a pro-choice female candidate running for City Council in Boston?
PATRICIA WHITE'S TROUBLE WITH NOW

MOLLY IVINS ON HARRET MIERS

Why does the media continue to declare work and family a woman's problem?
RAW STORY- A WOMAN'S PROBLEM

George Will took it hard at Harriet Miers.
"If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists." Ouch.

Just a rich working mom! Karen Hughes took in $450,000 between her appointment as Undersecretary of State and her swearing in. From Time:
"The bulk of Hughes's income before her appointment, about $1 million, comes from paid speeches to business and other groups, usually for $50,000 per appearance. The remainder comes from a $750,000 advance for her 2004 memoir, titled "Ten Minutes from Normal," and $45,000 in consulting fees for work on Bush's 2004 re-election campaign."

Film
Jennifer Lopez is starring in a film that focuses on the 400 missing women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
BORDERTOWN STARRING JENNIFER LOPEZ

TV
The changing world of pregnancy for women on TV.
PREGNANCY ON ALIAS

ABC's "Commander in Chief" attracted even more viewers than its debut last week, with an audience of 16.66 million.

Rachael Ray, host of the Food Network series, 30-Minute Meals, $40 a Day, Inside Dish, and Tasty travels, will host a daily syndicated talk show beginning in the fall of 2006.

Books
Doris Kearns Goodwin is back in the saddle with the upcoming release of her new book on Abraham Lincoln.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN'S SECOND ACT

A review of Kayla Williams' Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

News
Harriet Miers is a born again Christian who is anti-choice. Don't think because she has no record, she has no opinions.
MIERS IS ANTI-CHOICE

Some school girls in Togo were sent home to have their hair cut because playing with their hair prevented them from concentrating. What?
CUT YOUR HAIR!

Jennifer Gonnerman of the Village Voice looks at self-mutilation inside the Bedford Hills prison.
TANISHA'S SCARS

Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of an Afghan women's rights magazine was jailed after a presidential adviser accused him of publishing un-Islamic material -- including an article critical of the practice of punishing adultery with 100 lashes.

Judy Miller went on the air last night with Lou Dobbs at CNN in her first post jail interview. Here is a transcript.
JUDY MILLER ON LOU DOBBS

Books
Jennifer Weiner is a bona-fide star writer. Her second book, In Her Shoes, will open this weekend with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette in the leads and her fourth book, Goodnight Nobody, was just released and is already a best-seller. I am so jealous.
JENNIFER WEINER RULES

TV
Its been 10 years since the awesome BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and now the same writer Andrew Davies is adapted Sense and Sensibility for broadcast in two years. Why do we have to wait so long?

Sports
15 year old golfer Michelle Wie turned pro today. She immediately is a millionaire with the endorsements she has lined up with Sony and Nike. She's also going the Serena Williams route by signing with the Hollywood agency William Morris.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-03T23:40:00.000-05:00

News
Harriet Miers, the new nominee for the supreme Court is described as a pit bull in size six shoes. Yuck. Harsh. Who is this chick who is described as the President's work wife? Another mediocre Bush lackey promoted up the ladder for loyalty rather than ability.

Quote from Senate Judiciary Committee member Dianne Feinstein from today's LA Times: "She's a woman, she's clearly bright, she's very intelligent, and she clearly knows the issues because she's been involved in them for years," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said at a San Francisco news conference. "Now what her values are and where she will stand in this very conservative court, we don't know. And that's what we have to take a look at."

The only thing that's giving me a little hope is that the folks on the right seem much more upset about this than those on the left- so far.
Here's a quote from Bill Kristol: "I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized."

What abortion people think about Miers.
ABORTION AND MIERS

Slate's Emily Bazelon on Miers.
LET DOWN LADY

Women in China can now get out of crappy marriages with cheating husbands with more ease now that the stigma of divorce has been eliminated.
WOMEN IN CHINA SEEK DIVORCES

Books
I can't remember seeing as big a roll out (except for Harry Potter) for a book than I have seen over the last several weeks for the new Joan Didion book, The Year of Magical Thinking, her memoir about the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne and the severe illness of her daughter. I have not read much of her work but this one looks facinating.
REENTERING HER LIFE

You knew it was in the works- recently released from the slammer New York Times reporter Judy Miller has landed a $1.2 million book deal with Simon & Schuster to be edited by uber-editor Alice Mayhew.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-10-03T20:10:00.000-05:00

News
President Bush has nominated Harriet Meirs, the White House Counsel who has never been a judge, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Great, now she has no record for anyone to scrutinize. We are so screwed.

Nadia Yassine, a leading Moroccan activist is facing trial and possibly five years in jail for insulting the monarchy by saying prefer a republican system to Morocco's hereditary monarchy.
NADINE YASSINE

Get ready for the Afhgan Oprah. Farzana Samimi is hosting a show called Banu which means woman in the Dari language. She has teamed up with Kabul-based psychiatrist, Mohammed Yasin Babrak, to talk about the "psychological and social problems" of women.
BANU

The time is right for a woman president- interview with Marie Wilson, President of The White House Project.
MARIE WILSON

More on Karen Hughes' disastorous trip last week.
FOREIGN WOMEN REFUSE TO IGNORE WAR

Film
Jodie Foster kicks ass again! Flightplan held off a number of films opening this past weekend to retain the top spot with 15 million in ticket sales.
LEARN MORE ABOUT JODIE

Books
BERYL BAINBRIDGE on why she writes.

Cathleen Black, President of Hearst Magazines, is shopping a management memoir.

TV
Melissa Etheridge is moving to TV. She's developing a sitcom with ABC about "what my life might have been like had I not left to find my fame and fortune, and stayed in Kansas and became a teacher and been gay and dealt with life there.

Did You know?
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary newest edition has added the word chick-flick.

2005-09-30T10:36:00.000-05:00

News
Hawa Sy the first female taxi driver in Senegal wants to encourage other women to become more independent.
HAWA SY

Karen Hughes completed her "listening tour" of Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Turkey and learned that even audiences hand picked by the White House still have issues with US foreign policy. At least her tin ear doesn't deviate from the rest of the adminstration's tin ears.
KAREN HUGHES HAS A TIN EAR
Slate offers more commentary on why Hughes is such a bad diplomat.
KAREN HUGHES- STAY HOME!

Ellen Goodman
THE DOWNSIDE OF EQUALITY

Judith Miller, reporter from The NYTimes who spent her summer in jail, was released after agreeing to testify before the Grand Jury. Her testimony was made possible after a waiver from her source, Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

The new and changing world of sexual harrassment.
SEXUAL HARRASSMENT

Katha Pollitt on the continuing controversy over the NYTimes story on a new generation of overeducated and underemployed women
KATHA POLLITT

Dahlia Lithwick from Slate has written some of the best commentary on the Supreme Court this summer. She hits the nail on the head again.
PICK A CHICK!

Movies
Julianne Moore stars in Jane Anderson's The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio about 1950s woman with 10 kids who entered jingle contests to support her family.
USA Today says " Moore is exceptional as Evelyn Ryan, one of the more stalwart and inspiring characters in recent movies. Her portrayal has depth, nuance, humor, warmth and, above all, intelligence."

Theatre
Cherry Jones continues to secure her role as the best dramatic actress of her generation by signing on to the revival of Brain Friel's Faith Healer with Ralph Feinnes and Ian McDiarmid.

Five-time Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman will be honored on Monday, October 10th at the 6th Annual Elan Awards an event celebrating choreography by producing new works by selected choreographers.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

News
Karen Hughes got her ass kicked again on her "let's export American democracy tour" this time in Turkey.
KAREN HUGHES IN TURKEY

Many young women in Africa who try to deliver babies at home run into difficulties that could be avoided by Caesarean sections. These women lose their babies, are shunned by their communities and need surgery to repair the damage.
BIRTHING INJURY FOR AFRICAN WOMEN

Portugal is holding a referendum this year on whether to make abortion legal in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
PORTUGESE REFERENDUM ON ABORTION

Married women are more likely to have sexual problems than married men or single women a UK study suggests.
SEX PROBLEMS FOR SMUG MARRIEDS

Federal Judge Constance Baker Motley who at one time represented Martin Luther King Jr. was died at 84.

Film
Renee Zellweger will topline Miss Potter, a biopic about Beatrix Potter. The film explores the life of the author of such beloved children's books as The Tale of Peter Rabbit and her struggle for independence in Victorian England.

Kate Winslet is in final negotiations to join Cameron Diaz in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday for Columbia Pictures. Holiday, which also is written and produced by Meyers, centers on an American woman (Diaz) with man troubles who crosses paths with a British villager (Winslet) with similar problems.

TV
Things went really well for ABC's Commander in Chief in its debut outing on Tuesday night. Not only did it win its timeslot with a lot of competition, but it was the most watched show of the night even beating Law & Order- SVU, but it got beaten by House in the all important 18-49 demo. The total viewers were approximately 16.37 million.
THELMA FOR PRESIDENT (this is a Salon article - so the drill is that you join or watch an ad)

Alias kicks off its fifth season tonight in another new timeslot; 8pm on ABC- with Jennifer Garner's real life pregnancy bring written into the show. Can't wait.

Books
Ann Beattie has been named the winner of the annual $30,000 Rea Award for the Short Story.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

News
Three army officers in Nepal have been found guilty of torturing a 15-year-old girl to death. They got six month prison terms (they have already served the time) and have to pay a paltry $1500 compensation to her family.
ARMY OFFICERS CONVICTED OF TORTURE

Sandra O'Reilly was the victim of two separate gang rapes in one night in July 2002 in the resort country of Mauritius. Sandra said: "It wasn't easy to bring the rapists to justice, but I knew that it was important not only for me, but for all women."
SANDRA O'REILLY

Dorothy Aken'Ova the founder of the International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, is teaching sex education in Nigeria in hopes to reduce domestic violence against women.
DOROTHY AKEN'OVA

Pakistani women continue to speak out about rape in light of President Musharef's remarks.
WOMEN SPEAK OUT

Anna Nicole Smith's case about whether her husband promised her millions of dollars upon his death (he was about 60 years older than her when they got hitched) will be heard by the Supreme Court. Great use of their time.

Girls are being used to fulfill drug debts in Afhganistan.
GIRLS USED AS PAYMENT FOR DEBTS

Is abortion politics endangering the Democrats?
PARTY OF CHOICE

Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes tells the Saudis that they need to get into the 21st century and give women the right to drive and other rights, yet the women in the audience were not particularly receptive to Hughes' Americancentric depiction of what freedom is.
HUGHES IN SAUDI ARABIA

Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood on wha tto expect from the Roberts Court.
GLORIA FELDT

Movies
Flight attendants are protesting their depiction in the new Jodie Foster film Flightplan.
FLIGHT ATTENDANTS ARE MAD

TV
More on Commander in Chief which premiered last night on ABC.
COMMANDER IN CHIEF- WILL IT EFFECT THE 2008 RACE?

If you have Tivo and you are watching Lost tonight at 9; use your other tuner to record one of my faves- Veronica Mars also at 9pm on UPN.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

News
A leading TV journalist, May Chidiac, from Beirut was critically injured when a carbomb blew up her car on Sunday, September 25.
JOURNALIST CRITICALLY INJURED

73 year old legendary singer Miriam Makeba is beginning a farewell world tour after a 50 year performing career.
MIRIAM MAKEBA

Women in Pakistan who allege rape must have 4 "pious" male witnesses to the assault or the vicitm is likely to be accused of adultery. 60% of the women are in jail is due to these controversial "Hudood laws". Rapes in Pakistan have started to get some attention in recent weeks. Here are some interviews with Pakistani women about the current situation in Pakistan.
RAPE IN PAKISTAN

Movies
Women rule- Jodie Foster's Flightplan was #1 at the box office this past weekend grossing over 24 million dollars. That's two weekends in a row (last weekend Reese Witherspoon's Just Like Heaven was #1) that women have topped the box office.

Uberpublicist Pat Kingsley, who is both revered and feared was actually the subject of an interview on the ocassion of her company opening a London office. Learn a little, very little, about one of the owrlds most famous flacks.
PAT KINGSLEY

TV
Commander in Chief- the new ABC show that premieres tomorrow night at 9pm, is helping organizations like the White House Project gain visibility for its mission- to put a woman in the White House.
A WOMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE
People around the country are hosting house parties to welcome the first woman president into their home.
HOUSE PARTIES

Rosie Perez has signed a one year holding deal with Fox which is hoping to create a comedy vehicle for the actress.

Stockard Channing takes on comedy this season in Out of Practice with Henry Winkler. She will still make occasional appearances on The West Wing, but don't on seeing too much of her . On the premiere of The West Wing last night her name and photo disappeared from the opening credits.
STOCKARD CHANNING

Music
Fiona Apple is back after 5 years with a new album.
FIONA APPLE

Theatre
Oprah Winfrey is investing 1 million dollars towards the capitalization of the new Broadway musical The Color Purple. We should all remember that is was the film of the Color Purple that made Oprah more than a talk show host, she was truly extraordinary in that film. It only makes sense that she would invest in this. I'm actually shocked that this is her first foray into producing. Maybe she could revolutionize theatre like she has revolutionized books.

The playwright Deb Margolin ("Three Seconds in the Key") is the recipient of the 2005 Kesselring Prize for playwriting, which includes $15,000. The National Arts Club presents the annual honor, now in its 25th year, to an emerging American playwright. The prize's honorable mention, $5,000 , will go to Tanya Barfield ("Blue Door"). Both awards will be presented on Nov. 20 at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan. Previous recipients of the prize, named in honor of the playwright Joseph Kesselring ("Arsenic and Old Lace") include Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Nicky Silver and Jose Rivera.

FYI
Left handed women are more prone to premenopausal women. More discrimination against us lefties.
BREAST CANCER RISK FOR LEFTIES

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-22T23:30:00.000-05:00

News
Continuing saga of the NYTimes article from earlier in the week on whether elite, educated young women want to work outside the home after the have kids (this is a gross generalization of the article, but it is the gist). Gelf Magazine has an interesting update on the story about how women at Yale who received the survey thought it was too long and flawed so they declined to answer.
IVY LEAGUE MOMS

Here's a quote from one of the young women interviewed about her reaction to the story (don't know which one.- courtesy of media bistro fishbowl)

"It saddens me that I am portrayed as an insensitive and unambitious person in the article, and really did not know that Louise was only going to quote those of us who wanted to stay at home if/when we had kids. She in fact did interview my other suitemates who answered the survey as either not wanting to have children at all, or would continue working as a mother. I am somewhat shocked that she did not include ANY of their ideas or views in the article."

There have been many reports of rapes in the New Orleans Superdome in the Katrina aftermath yet after one minor story in the NYTimes it has disappeared from coverage.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN DURING THE HURRICANE

Judge John Roberts is one step closer to being Chief Justice John Roberts when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for his nomination to the Court. Three weasel, men who people call liberal but not anymore, Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold (Russ- what the fuck man?), and Patrick Leahy voted for his nomination. His nomination will be voted on by the Senate next week.
Ellen Goodman asks where is John Roberts heart.
ELLEN GOODMAN

Film
A conversation with one of the greatest actresses around- Catherine Deneuve
CATHERINE DENEUVE
Deneuve has recently published a memoir - Close Up and Personal - available in Europe.

TV
Commander in Chief starring Geena Davis as the first female president premieres Tuesday at 9pm on ABC. WATCH IT! Geena hosted an inaugural ball for a premiere.
COMMANDER IN CHIEF

The show that everyone watches but nobody knows why they watch it or like it- Desperate Housewives returns on Sunday night at 9pm on ABC.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Personally, I'm more excited for the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy which is created by an African American woman.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-21T23:54:00.000-05:00

The effect of war, particularly the Iran-Iraq war on women and families is highlighted in this BBC story.
WOMEN'S WAR STORIES

Rania al-Baz, a Saudi TV presenter was brutally beaten and disfigured by her husband. She allowed photos of her injuries to be shown and put a face on domestic violence in Saudia Arabia.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN SAUDIA ARABIA

Dear President Bush, Justice Ginsburg has a list of qualified women who could join her on the Supreme Court. Give her a call.
WOMEN SUPREME COURT OPTIONS

FYI
Women wash their hands after going to the bathroom. 25% of guys leave the bathroom without washing. Yuck.
WASH YOUR HANDS!

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-21T08:40:00.000-05:00

News
Educating Indian women about AIDS in a culture that does not discuss sex and where many women have not even heard of the disease is a very difficult prospect.
WOMEN AND AIDS IN INDIA

Melissa Etheridge is cancer free, in love and awesome and about to release a greatest hits album (I am so buying it) which has two new songs on it.
MELISSA ETHERIDGE

Books
Zadie Smith has written another best-seller. Her On Beauty was recently shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is getting a lot of play here. Frank Rich wrote a review of it in the NYTimes book review.
ZADIE SMITH

Feminist TV writer Jill Soloway from Six Feet Under has a new book of personal comic essays out entitled Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants: Based on a True Story. Can't go wrong when one of the chapters is entitled "Why Jews Go to the Bathroom with the Door Open." I'm buying it- I bet 10 bucks she's from Long Island.
JILL SOLOWAY

Movies
Jodie Foster's new film Flightplan opens on Friday. An interesting point is that Jodie's character was actually written for a male actor. Peter Dowling, the film's screewriter says it best:
"I think one of the most amazing things about that kind of situation when it starts off, as a man, it has a tendency not be to written as a victim, because a male star doesn't want to be seen as a victim, whereas a lot of these female-driven thrillers ... well it's a woman in peril, that's the way people come at her, so I think it is good that she is a very proactive, strong woman."

So we should change all the scripts with guy characters to girl characters and we'll have proactive women and not victims. Note to Hollywood.

Sports
WNBA
The Sacramento Monarchs won the city of Sacramento its first ever championship trophy by defeating the Connecticut Sun 3-1 in the WNBA Finals. It was a great series, Connecticut had its chances but with the injury to Lindsey Whalen the team could not handle Sacramento's defense. Before the knee and ankle problems Lindsey would be threat to penetrate the lane on every possession which created challenges for the defense. Without her penetrating ability, Sacramento's stifling defense was able to hold tight. Congrats to them. Can't wait until next May for the 10th anniversary season. I can't believe its 10 years.

16 years old golfer Michelle Wie could be going pro as early as this weekend. If she would have been a pro this past season she would have earned $640,870 based on her tournament records. Ouch.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

News
I am very disturbed by the front page NYTimes article on young women deciding to choose raising their families over working. First thing, the women's movement was about choice; if a woman want to stay home - ok, but give me a break.

This article was just so snotty, so upper class and so white. It just made me cringe. I'm actually having heart palpitations right now. So basically we're going to have an entire generation of women who are supereducated but choose to use that education in the private sphere rather than the public sphere. There is really something wrong here. Why is this so pervasive? Is it really pervasive? Is it only at Yale and Harvard? What does this say about our culture? Help me out here. Email me at melsil@earthlink.net with your thoughts.
OVEREDUCATED AND UNDEREMPLOYED BY CHOICE

What are the chances of Bush nominating a woman to take Justice O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court? Here are some potential nominees from women watching the process.
WOMEN FOR SUPREME COURT

Two women, a Palestinian and an Israeli one who lost her sister and one who lost her son to the conflict have joined forces to promote peace. They have met with soldiers about the enter the army and have taken their peace brigade on the road meeting with officials in the UK. Go girls!
WORKING FOR PEACE

TV
S. Epatha Merkerson who plays Lt. Van Buren on Law & Order won an Emmy for her role in Lackawanna Blues. This is a woman who has put in her dues. Love her so much.
S. EPATHA MERKERSON

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-19T08:50:00.000-05:00

News
The Bush adminstration cares so much about women that it appointed Norris Alderson a veterinary expert as acting head of its office of women's health. So now a vet knows more about women health than say a woman's health expert. Unbelievable.

Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark won a third term in office in New Zealand elections over the weekend; in Germany Angela Merkel did not receive enough votes to form a coalition government in Germany.

Pakistan has opened more Madrassa schools for girls but these schools only test girls on the rules of Islam and instead of creating a more open environment for learning. Women's activists are concerned that girls are being stymied in their education.
GIRLS EDCUATION IN PAKISTAN

Women in Nepal have finally been released from the cowshed- literally. During the periods women were forced to stay in cowsheds. The Supreme Court in Nepal outlawed this practice over the weekend.
NEPALESE WOMEN RELEASED FROM COWSHED

Mosou women run the family structure in the Chinese tourist hamlet of Lugu Lake. Women determine the family line and only women have the right to inherit. Additionally, there are no typical marriages just "walking marriages" where men come to the women's home at night but leave in the morning. Maybe we should all learn from this.
MOSOU WOMEN

ABC radio is lanching a channel geared towards talk radio for women.
WOMEN'S RADIO

Movies
Women directors are few and far between in Hollywood. This year's Toronto Film Festival featured 4 films directed by women in its Gala (high profile) section. North Country by Niki Caro starring Charlize Theron; Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page, with Gretchen Mol; and Phyllis Nagy's Mrs. Harris, featuring Annette Bening and Deepa Mehta's Water.
WOMEN DIRECTORS

Women's power at the box office was evident this weekend. Reese Witherspoon's new romantic comedy Just Like Heaven topped the box office with 77% of those purchasing tickets for the flick women over 25.

TV
The TV season officially opens tonight and the disturbing trend about many of the shows is the gruesome intense level of violence against women in dramas. Is it because TV networks are trying to lure young men into their shows? Do people really believe that young men will only watch shows that mutilate, rape and degrade women?
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN TV

Sports
Sania Mirza is back in India looking for her second WTA title and her first since making it to the fourth round of the US Open. Security is tight because a Muslim group threatened to stop her from playing in the attire she wears which they deem as inappropriate for a Muslim woman.
They should be kissing her feet since she is a young woman with strong beliefs and is painting a very pretty picture of Islam.
SANIA MIRZA

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-16T03:10:00.000-05:00

News
The Massachusetts Legislature has overrode Governor Mitt Romney's veto to expand access to emergency contraception.
EC ON MA

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stuck his foot in his mouth when he said that rape victims are "money grubbers" who want visas to emigrate. Lovely thoughts from a chief of state. He must retract and apologize immediately.
MUSHARRAF STICKS FOOT IN MOUTH

Elections are being held in New Zealand on Saturday. Prime Minister Helen Clark is being challenged vigorously by Don Brash.
ELECTIONS IN NEW ZEALAND

Elections are also being held in Germany. Challenger Angela Merkel is pushing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder all the way to the close. She seems like a pretty tough cookie- conservative, a bit like margaret Thatcher.
ELECTIONS IN GERMANY

Meet twenty-four-year-old Sabrina Sagheb, the youngest woman to stand in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections on September 18, 2005. A photographer followed her as she campaigned.
SABRINA SAGHEB

The US has imported another thing to Iraq- softball.
SOFTBALL IN IRAQ

A Report from the CDC says more women — particularly those in their late teens and 20s — are experimenting with bisexuality or at least feel more comfortable reporting same-sex encounters.
BISEXUAL WOMEN

The FDA and ideologogy. How Plan B keeps getting derailed- new column by Ellen Goodman
ELLEN GOODMAN

Film
Opening today- Proof - starring Gweneyth Paltrow and Hope Davis, Jake Gyllenhall and Anthony Hopkins. Screenplay is by David Auburn based on his Pulitzer Prize winning play and Rebecca Miller. Directed by John Madden who did Shakepeare in Love with Paltrow.
PROOF

The Devil Wears Prada loosely based on Anna Wintour of Vogue starts shooting in NY on Monday with Meryl Streep in the lead. Can't wait sounds delicious.

Miramax just acquired rights to a documentary about a girls high school basketball team that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. The film by Ward Serrill "started as a one-year project about how girls approach sports in a more team-oriented way than boys, wound up chronicling the rise of a remarkable team and the compelling story of now-19-year-old Darnellia Russell, the team's star player." (LA TIMES) I am so there for this one.

TV
If you don't watch Arrested Development when it starts its third season on Mondy at 8pm on Fox I can no longer speak to you. It is the funniest most subversive show on mainstream TV today. Jessica Walter is up for an Emmy this weekend at the whacked out family matriarch, Lucille Bluth.
JESSICA WALTER

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-13T23:12:00.000-05:00

Please excuse the lack of posts over the last several days- too much work but i am back in gear with so much news.

Roberts Hearing
The hearings began on Monday with the opening statements from all the Senators. I watched a bit of the statements and John Roberts just stared - no blinking, nothing. It looked like he had glued his eyelids open.

9:30 on Tuesday morning, Senator Specter opened the hearings with a direct hit on abortion. When asked about overturning Roe v. Wade Roberts answered: "I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent" but he added "there are situations when that's a price that has to be paid." He is so blowing hot air around.

Roberts did say he believed there was a right to privacy is the consitution and in another instance said "I have a daughter for whom I will insist at every turn she has equal citizenship rights with her brother." Does that bode well for Title IX? i think more hot air.

He declined to answer questions 21 times yesterday.
ROBERTS HEARING
ROBERTS HEARING 2

Women's rights and violence against women especially rape are at the top of the agenda in Pakistan at a two day conference on women's rights that has brought people from all over the country to discuss this topic.
WOMEN IN PAKISTAN

A woman in the Indian state of Chattisgarh has been forced to plough a field harnessed alongside a bull. The move was ordered by village elders who said she had angered the rain god by breaking a taboo on women touching ploughs, thus risking a drought.
WOMAN HARNESSED TO TILL

Conservative leaning young women are challenging the hold progressives namely NOW have over campus based groups. The Network of Enlightened Women, NEW, affiliated with the Independent Women's Forum and other right wing women's groups are striving to be an alternative for conservative minded women on campus. BLAH BLAH BLAH- give me a break. They are just another shill funded by the right wingers.
YOUNG CONSERVATIVE WOMEN

Germaine Greer on aging
GERMAINE GREER

Film
Women took center stage at the Toronto Film Festival. Both Gwyneth Paltrow and Charlize Theron have new films coming out that are creating a lot of buzz. Paltrow stars in Proof (opening Friday in the US) where she plays the daughter of a brilliant mathematician mourning his death. Theron plays the lead character in North Country, a fictionalized version of the first major sexual harrassment suit. The film is directed by Niki Caro who directed the brilliant Whale Rider. Film opens October 21.

Sissy Spacek plays Theron's mother and said the film was like a throwback to a more issue-driven time in Hollywood. “It's like Silkwood and Norma Rae. It's hard to get these films made, so really salute the studio.” (from USA Today)
PALTROW AND THERON STAR IN FILMS

Nancy Drew is finally coming to the big screen. I used to love the TV show when I was a kid- Pamela Sue Martin- I think that's her name was a great Nancy Drew. Emma Roberts, Julia's niece will play the detective.

Shirley Temple black will receive the Screen Actor's Guild Lifetime acheivement award at their annual awards ceremony in January.

TV
Judy Davis will star in a 2006 movie on Lifetime Television based on true events of mother-and-son grifters Sante and Kenneth Kimes. I worship Judy Davis- why doesn't she do more and pick better projects?

Melissa Etheridge, now cancer free, will host and executive produce - Women Rock which will air on Lifetime on october 18.

The new TV season is kicking off this week and one show that I thoroughly enjoyed was Fox's Bones. Based on Kathy Reich's best selling crime dramas, Emily Deschanel stars as Temperance Brennan a forensic athropologist who solves crimes. This show really respected the character's intelligence- who costumes and makeup were very understated and it made the character much more realistic. Her dialogue is witty and the supporting characters were also very interesting. Excited for week 2.

Mags
Jane Fonda at 67 beats out a 23 year old model to be on the cover of Good Housekeeping.
JANE FONDA AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Sports
Sania Mirza, the first Indian woman to reach the 4th round of the US Open is pummelled by Muslim clerics for her attire in competitions believing that she will corrupt young women. How about thinking how much she is empowering young women?
SANIA MIRZA

The WNBA finals begin tonight and my favorite player, Lindsey Whalen of the Connecticut Sun is hurting. She broke a bone in her knee in the last round and doesn't look like she will be playing in the first two games. This will really, really hurt Connecticut. She is the engine that makes the team run. Sacramento was missing their point guard, Ticha Penicheiro in the last round but Kara Lawson and Kristin Haynie were able to step up big time. Both played good minutes during the season and Lawson has a leadership quality to her so that she innately knows when she needs to step up and lead her team.

Jen Derevjanik, the backup point guard for Connecticut, is too defensive minded and doesn't look for her shot so I think it will be a hard road for Connecticut without Whalen.

Theatre
oscar winner Cate Blanchett is the latest actress turned director. She will direct Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska next year in Sydney.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

News
School fees prevent girls around the world from being educated.
SCHOOL FEES

President Musharraf of Pakistan doesn't understand why he's getting criticism over his country's treatment of women. Maybe its because as a rule rapists don't get put in jail and women and still being stoned in the streets? Just a thought.
PAKISTAN AND WOMEN

Tina Turner, Suzanne Farrell and Julie Harris join Robert Redford and Tony Bennett as this year's Kennedy Center honorees.

Books
Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover again- this time in middle class America. Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream is the follow-up book to the best-seller Nickel and Dimed.
BARBARA EHRENREICH

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-06T08:51:00.000-05:00

News
Who is John Roberts asks Ellen Goodman?
ELLEN GOODMAN

The Philippines' Congress has formally rejected an opposition attempt to impeach President Gloria Arroyo.
GLORIA ARROYO

Women in Iraq are so screwed by the new constitution- continued
KATHA POLLITT

Film
Stockard Channing is making her directorial debut. The West Wing star is set to start shooting an adaptation of fellow New Yorker Alix Strauss' novel The Joy of Funerals next spring.

TV
Margo Jefferson on the return of the shrew to our TV screens.
MARGO JEFFERSON

I can't help but feel the irony as I watched an episode of The West Wing marathon on TV yesterday. It was the episode from two seasons ago where a Supreme Court justice dies and the Bartlet administration makes the decision to nominate Glenn Close's liberal character as the new Chief Justice and William Fitchner's conservative character as an associate justice after they got the current liberal chief justice to resign.

I remember when I initally saw the episode I was salivating over Close's character- pro choice, pro woman...and it was even more exciting to watch it yesterday again. I felt happy for a brief moment and then remembered that I was watching fiction and not the reality we are living.

Sports
I spent some time watching the US Open this past weekend. One of the sensations of this tournament has been Sania Mirza of India. She is the first Indian woman to play at this level and the first Muslim woman on the tour. At 18, she is confident, wears highly provocative t-shirts with different sayings and quiets her muslim critics when they challenge her about wearing the short tennis outfits. She is the player who has improved the most this year, and if she fixes her second serve will be an excellent player. She is so popular in India that she has to travel with bodyguards.

The WNBA enters into the conference finals this Thursday with last year's champ Seattle Storm on the sidelines. They got trounced by the Houston Comets on their home floor two games in a row, and the final game was a sad and scary blowout. Houston played better and deserved to win.

The commentators keep talking about the MVP candidates as Tamika Catchings (long shot); Lauren Jackson and Sheryl Swoopes (probably, the winner), yet they never mention Lindsey Whalen the point guard of the Connecticut Sun. She has been excellent all through the season, keeps getting better and stronger, yet is still overlooked.

Carrie Graf's contract as coach of the Phoenix Mercury was not renewed as her team narrowly missed the playoof for the second year in a row. I'm sure that they will hire a man to coach this team, leaving only 3 women coaches in the league. Phoenix supposedly talked to Geno Auriemma of the Connecticut Huskies. This move would reunite him with this former star player Diana Taurasi, but there is not way tihs is going to happen. Auriemma makes 4.8 million a year at Connecticut and there is no way an WNBA team could pay that.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-09-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Compilation from the week

We are so screwed! President Bush shifted Judge Roberts nomination to Chief Justic after the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist.
JUDGE ROBERTS

Susan Wood, Food and Drug Administration's women's health office resigned Wednesday over the FDA's continued stalling over making emergency contraception available over the counter.
FDA & EC
FDA & EC 2

Ambassador Nancy Soderberg weighs in why women matter in the Iraqi constitution. I can't believe we are still having this conversation.
NANCY SODERBERG

The Lipstick President- Maureen Dowd looks at Geena Davis as a President on ABC and what does this bode for a real woman President?
MAUREEN DOWD

Former CNN anchor, Judy Woodruff will teach at Harvard this fall.
JUDY WOODRUFF

TV
OSCAR winner Charlize Theron will join Arrested Development for six episodes this fall. I love this show. It is hysterical and subversive.

Showtime and Lifetime will simulcast the date rape drama Speak tonight, September 5 at 9pm.
Both Networks To Air Public Service Announcement From RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network)

Movies
After a summer of crappy movies I want to recommend The Constant Gardener based on the John Le Carre novel starring Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. It's about how big pharmaceutical companies exploit poor people around the world to make money. Great thriller, great cast.

Learn a little about Mary Badham who played Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird in 1961. She's taken some time off between roles and now has
MARY BADHAM

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-29T08:57:00.000-05:00

This is a slightly leaner version- trying to have some down time this week

Topic of the Day
China for the first time has outlawed sexual harrassment and domestic violence and established gender equality as a national policy.
CHINA POLICY ON GENDER EQUITY

News
Another obstacle to women running for office in Afghanistan is lack of access to funds to make campaign materials to let people know they are running. Men control the finances and are not eager to give women money that would possibly have them not only work outside the home, but be a part of the government.
AFHGAN ELECTIONS

The FDA once again put off its decision as to whether emergency contraception should be available over the counter. This government is unbelievable. It gets scarier each day. But if you really need the morning after pill just hop a place to these states and pick it up- no prescription necessary. Alaska; California; Hawaii; Maine; New Hampshire; New Mexico; Washington.
EC
EC 2

Not only can women not get emergency contraception, its getting worse and worse for getting abortions in states throughout the country. The battle is on and the antis are passing many different measures to restrict abortions.
ABORTION AT THE STATE LEVEL

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, a twenty year veteran of army procurement was recently demoted because she criticized a several 2003 decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which has garnered more than $10 billion for work in Iraq. Whistleblower anyone?
BUNNATINE GREENHOUSE

It's been the summer of the mothers for the Iraq war.
MOTHERS AGAINST IRAQ WAR

Where are we with women's rights in the new Iraqi constitution? What are people dying for?
WHAT ARE OUR WOMEN FIGHTING FOR?

Women who want to take accutane for acne now have to sign a pledge saying they are not pregnant and will not get pregnant on the drug.
ACCUTANE

DVD
Just in time for the lazy labor day weekend, the first season of Roseanne is out on DVD for the first time.

Sports
The WNBA begins playoffs this week. One team that was eliminated is the Washington Mystics. They have a big fan in new owner, Sheila Johnson- the only female owner in the WNBA.
SHEILA JOHNSON

The US Open starts today. Chances are people will be more focused on the celebs and fashion rather than the tennis. For the first time in a long time, there is no real favorite on the women's side.
WHO WILL WIN?
US OPEN

Good News
Comedian Laura Solon has become only the second woman in 25 years to win the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award in England.
LAURA SOLON
She's already being courted for TV jobs.
DON'T LET IT GET TO YOUR HEAD

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

Topic of the Day
Happy Women's Equality Day. This is the day women got the right to be full citizens of this democracy in 1920. Thank you to Bella Abzug for getting this date officially recognized.

News
The Sri Lankan Supreme Court has ruled that President Chandrika Kumaratunga's term ends in December creating national elections.
SRI LANKA ELECTIONS

The FDA has put off again a ruling on whether emergency contraception should be available over the counter- weasels!
MORNING AFTER PILL

Rebecca Traister of Salon has another great in-depth piece about the long summer of how the pro-choice movement has dealt with the Roberts nomination.
PRO CHOICERS AND ROBERTS

Shocker
Hostile attitudes and inappropriate treatment of women persist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and at the Naval Academy.
POOR TREATMENT OF WOMEN AT MILITARY ACADEMIES

Books
11,100 women now serve in Iraq - or about 8% of the total US force. At least 37 have been killed and more than 300 wounded. Kayla Williams, a former military intelligence officer has written, I Love My Rifle More Than You, a book describing life for women in the military.
KAYLA WILLIAMS

TV
Former WB programming chief Susanne Daniels has been appointed president, entertainment, Lifetime Entertainment Services. A 20-year TV veteran, Daniels was responsible for developing such WB hits as Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek. In her new role, Daniels will be responsible for all programming on Lifetime Television and Lifetime Movie Network, as well as Lifetime Real Women. She will be based in Los Angeles.

Gillian Anderson (aka Scully from the X-Files) resurfaces in London. Give this woman her own TV series.
GILLIAN ANDERSON

Sports
Cammi Granato, the face of US women's hockey and former team captain has been left off a pre-Olympic team roster effectively ending her international hockey career.

Dan Hughes, the coach of the WNBA San Antonio Silver Stars, the team with the second worst record in the league, has been promoted to coach and general manager. So, the WNBA is another place where men can fail and still get a promotion.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-25T10:31:00.000-05:00

Topic of the Day
Muslim women in Southern India are beginning a revolution. They have created a female jamat (community of elders), traditionally an all male body, to adjudicate community issues. Their goal is to have an all female mosque.
FEMALE MOSQUE

Women's Rights in Iraq
The heat in Texas must be getting to George Bush cause he keeps insisting that Iraqi women will have basic fundamental rights in the new constitution.

This comes from the bi-partisan Congressional Iraqi Women's Caucus leaders Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, and Kay Granger, R-Texas.
They "warned the president that rolling back the rights of any group in Iraq would threaten the country's long-term stability and its ability to become a functioning democracy. If the document remains unchanged, it holds the potential for codifying discrimination against women as well as limiting fundamental human rights for all Iraqis in a manner that may threaten the growth of democracy and freedom in Iraq.''

Why don't we care more about this? I don't think there has been enough outcry on this situation.
IRAQI WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Supreme Court Update
Senator Dianne Feinstein is still planning on stepping up to the plate in the hearings next month.
“As the only woman on the committee, I have an additional role to play: representing the views and concerns of 145 million American women during this hearing process,” Feinstein said. “It is my hope that Judge Roberts would play a role similar to Justice O'Connor's … and bring with him a voice defined by temperance and open-mindedness.”
FEINSTEIN ON ROBERTS
FEINSTEIN ON ROBERTS #2

Don't Miss
In honor of Women's Equality Day (which is tomorrow), Ellen Goodman hands out her sexism awards for the year. Great column.
ELLEN GOODMAN

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-24T13:52:00.000-05:00

Highlight for today
Check out Gloria Steinem's new piece on NPR - A Balance Between Nature and Nurture.
GLORIA STEINEM

Supreme Court Update
The Roberts hearings will not only be about Roe v. Wade at the federal level. The conversation will also be about laws that are bubbling up at the circuit level and what those cases will mean for Roe v Wade.
ROBERTS

In a study to be released today by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers have determined that fetuses are not able to feel pain until the third trimester. This is guaranteed to make the antis go crazy.
FETAL PAIN

TV
The women (and men) of Desperate Housewives are cashing in on Madison Avenue by appearing in ad campaigns for a variety of items. Take it while yuo can get it- who know when the bubble will burst?
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES CASHING IN

Sports
Beth Mowins becomes the second woman (after Pam Ward) to call play-by-play for college footaball games. She will be calling Western Athletic Conference games this fall on ESPNU.

Books
Carly Fiorina, former CEOof Hewlett-Packard, has signed a deal to write a book for Penguin Group to be published in autumn 2006. Penguin said the book will combine a memoir of Fiorina's career so far with her views on a variety of issues, including what makes a leader, how women can thrive in business and how technology will continue to reshape the world.

Myla Goldberg author of Bee Season (a great book - which is coming out as a movie later this year with Ricahrd Gere and Juliet Binoche- I'm so frightened of this casting) has written a new book, Wickett's Remedy, that takes place during the 1918 Influenza outbreak in Boston.
MYLA GOLDBERG

More on Andrea Mitchell's new book. She's getting some damn good press. A piece in both Time and Newsweek- usually never happens.
ANDREA MITCHELL

Theatre
Eve Ensler is taking her latest show The Good Body on tour to cities across the US and Canada. For info and tickets: THE GOOD BODY

Great idea
Hairstylists are being trained to recognize the signs of domestic violence to help their clients get out of abusive relationships..
STOP ABUSE

2005-08-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

Lesbian parents have the same rights and responsibilities towards their children in the event of a break-up, California's highest court has ruled.
LESBIAN PARENTS

A Phillipines Congress is due to take up impeachment proceedings against President Gloria Arroyo this week. She is charged with corruption and electoral fraud.
GLORIA ARROYO

Dianne Feinstein is gearing up to ask John Roberts significant questions on is abortion record when the hearings begin next week. According to Feinstein, the confirmation process is a "big, big deal."
FEINSTEIN

Sports
More on the lack of women coaches in the WNBA
Ann Donovan, coach of the Seattle Storm, the first woman WNBA coach to reach 100 wins says:
“There’s been little respect given to female coaches in this league,” Donovan said. “The opportunities, when in doubt, have gone to a male or an NBA guy – some with (coaching) experience, some without. To have been given an opportunity also is a responsibility. I don’t take it lightly. The big picture is the more opportunity women have in this league, the more success women will have.”
WNBA COACHES

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

Topic of the Day
So I was watching the end of Meet the Press yesterday. Tim Russert is off on vacation and David Gregory subbed. The last panel focused on the Iraqi Constiution and Reuel Marc Gerecht who is the Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute had a doozy to say about the importance of women's rights in the creation of the Iraqi constitution.

"I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective."

Women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy? Aren't women's rights essential to the creation of a democracy? What the fuck is he talking about and how did this idiot get on Meet the Press?

Supreme Court Watch
Last week's document dump has revealed some more disturbing news about our new justice to be.
"John Roberts scoffed at the notion of elevating Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to chief justice as a way to close a political gender gap, calling it a 'crass political consideration.'

Why is it always the quiet white guys who always inflict the most damage.
ROBERTS

It hasn't gotten any better for women and girls in Afghanistan. According to a new UN Population Fund report nearly half of all marriages in Afghanistan are thought to involve girls under age 16. The report also states that girls as young as six years old are married off by their families and traded to resolve conflicts between tribal families.

Women will for the first time be deployed on the front lines in the Australian army, but not in direct combat. So they can get close to the battlefield, just not on it.

WOMEN IN COMBAT

Ellen Goodman on the most visible peace activist, Cindy Sheehan.

ELLEN GOODMAN

MAGS
More Magazine, targeted to women in their 40s has grown from its launch subscriber base of 320,000 in 1998 to 1.1 million today. I'm almost 40 and I read More, the stories are so much more worthy of my time than the other women's mags like Glamour and Self.
MORE MAGAZINE

Sports
Latasha Byears was a dominant physical inside presence during her years on the Sacramento Monarchs and LA Sparks, but an accusation of sexual assualt (she was never arrested or charged) that lingered for two years ended her career in the WNBA. One of the taboo issues related to her firing and that has made her poison for other teams is her sexuality.

The WNBA, which has a huge lesbian audience, still tries to keep the lesbian players in the closet. Its interesting to note that at the same time Byears was cut by the Sparks, the same organization supported another player accused of sexual assualt- Kobe Bryant.
LATASHA BYEARS

A rare major study of sports sections in American newpapers, was released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, concluding that they are a "passive and reactive space, one dominated by game previews and recaps with little room for enterprise reportage."

It also finds very little coverage of women's sports, few women sources, and very few female sports writers. Female athletes were the main figures in stories only 5% of the time, female teams only 3% (compared to 33% for men's teams).

The study of more than 2,000 articles in 16 newspapers of varying sizes last year found that 88% of the stories revolved around “planned events” with 70% of that total related to actual games. Newsroom-initiated stories or enterprise pieces made up only 10% of the total, and this lack extends to all papers, big and small, right up to USA Today and The New York Times.

It also found that the big three sports (baseball, basketball and football) made up a full 65% of the stories covered on the front pages. Sports “issues” made up less than 4% of stories.
BOX SCORES AND BYLINES

Shocker
Women still face bias in science.
SCIENCE BIAS

2005-08-19T09:26:00.000-05:00

Former Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam has died. She was 55. She was instrumental in developing the Good Friday Agreement.
MO MOWLAM

Supreme Court Watch
No shocker here but Judge John Roberts wrote opinions against advancing women's rights and roles while he was a lawyer for the White House in the 80s.

"In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were 'highly objectionable'; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of 'comparable worth' -- was 'staggeringly pernicious' and 'anti-capitalist.'"
ROBERTS

More from Susan Estrich on Roberts
SUSAN ESTRICH

Does the new Dove ad really show "real" women?
DOVE

Unbelievable
A woman who was married to a sailor needed an abortion in 2002 because her fetus had no brain. The insurer refused to pay and after suing a judge ordered the payment for the procedure. The government, OUR GOVERNMENT!, sued the woman to get the money back saying that Federal law prohibits payment for abortions except "where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term." A regulation putting the law into effect specifically excludes payments for situations involving "fetal abnormalities" and mentions anencephaly- which this woman had.

A three judge panel ruled that the Navy did not have to pay so now this woman has to pay back the government. I think we should all chip in. I'll try to get more details.
ABORTION

It's gotten wild and crazy in Sweden with Ireen von Wachenfeldt, a former government official who is one of Sweden's best-known feminists calling men animals.
SWEDEN

From Today's NY Times
"THE world knows that Africans bear the brunt of the AIDS pandemic and that nearly two-thirds of the people infected with H.I.V. live here. The disease is devastating households and crippling economies across the continent. Though data show that girls and women are far more vulnerable to infection than men, we have yet to summon the courage and the political will to empower and protect them."
AIDS IN AFRICA

Theatre
One of the legends in theatre, Marian Seldes, is opening tonight in Terrence McNally's new play, Dedication of the Stuff of Dreams. She turns 77 next week.
MARIAN SELDES

Chita Rivera is bringing her show "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life" to the Schoenfeld Theater on Broadway for an opening on Dec. 11, after previews beginning Nov. 23. With a ast of 11, this celebration of Ms. Rivera's life and career will have a book by Terrence McNally and direction and choreography by Graciela Daniele.

Sports
Seattle Storm's Anne Donovan became the first female coach in the WNBA to reach 100 wins with a win last night over Minnesota.

A new recruit to the WNBA.
LOVING THE WNBA

Shay Doron is a breakout basketball star at the University of Maryland. She was just named one of the 25 best female college basketball players and recently played for the US in the Maccabiah Games in Israel and earlier in the summer for her native Israel in another tournament.
SHAY DORON

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

Women in combat related positions (cause we can't fight) don't have a higher stress level than men a new study shows.
WOMEN IN COMBAT

How Cindy Sheehan has gone from a grieving mom to peace icon in under 2 weeks. I smell a movie of the week and a book contract. In 11 days, Cindy Sheehan has been mentioned 20,585 times in television news broadcasts.
CINDY SHEEHAN

Books
NBC Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell has written a memoir entitled Talking Back. She talked to Time.
ANDREA MITCHELL

Movies
Rachel McAdams who made a big splash last year in The Notebook is the "it" girl of the summer with Wedding Crashers and this week's Red Eye.
RACHEL MCADAMS

TV
Janeane Garofalo will have a three-episode arc on NBC's The West Wing.
Thesp-activist plays a controversial media strategist hired by Democratic presidential candidate Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits). Her first seg is slated to air Oct. 2.

In a early look at fall TV, AP has a story that lists Commander in Chief as a possible hit.
Commander-in-Chief bears certain similarities to The West Wing: For instance, both are dramas about a U.S. president. But ABC’s commander in chief is neither a Democrat nor a male — she’s an Independent and a woman. Elected vice president, Mackenzie Allen becomes chief executive upon the death of the man who made her his running mate as a ploy to win female voters. Now can she weather foes in Washington plotting her downfall — particularly the sly Speaker of the House (Donald Sutherland), who wanted her to step aside so he could claim the Oval Office? With Geena Davis as the very presidential President Allen, this show seems electable as a hit."

Also on the list is Bones- a drama about a female forensic anthropolgist.

WNBA
The LA Sparks promoted Joe Bryant (Kobe's dad) after only three weeks as an assitant coach, to be the coach of the team after they didn't "officially" fire Henry Bibby. Give me a break, the guy was canned cause a team with that much talent just sucks.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-17T09:15:00.000-05:00

TEXT

Cindy Sheehan's vigil in Crawford, Texas is forcning the left to get back into an anti-war stance.
SHEEHAN AND THE WAR

The left wants Democratic Senators to get some backbone regarding the Roberts nomination. Will there be voter backlash for some Senators who refuse to stand up against Roberts?
THE LEFT AND ROBERTS

"All Illinois pharmacies that carry contraceptives must fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill after legislators Tuesday backed making permanent a temporary order by Gov. Rod Blagojevich." Score one for the midwest.
MORNING AFTER PILL

Advertisers are starting to use everyday regular women in ads, not just supermodels. It seems that regular working women in ads resonates more than supermodels. Are these people just beyond dumb?
ADS

According the the Guardian - "L'Oréal was yesterday told to withdraw a multimillion-pound television advertising campaign starring the model Claudia Schiffer after the advertising watchdog found it could not back up the claims made for creams to combat cellulite and wrinkles." So can I get my money back for all the makeup and other crap I've bought over the years? Who do I send the bill to?

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-16T12:40:00.000-05:00

The world is just going to hell in a hand basket- from today's Independent in London
Veteran BBC News Anchor Michael Buerk has complained that "almost all the big jobs in broadcasting [are] held by women," and that men have been reduced to "sperm donors."
MICHAEL BUERK

Women are the victims of the "New Iraq."
WOMEN OF THE NEW IRAQ

Kate Michaelman talks about the Roberts nomination.
MICHAELMAN

Anna Quindlen's column this week talks about the importance of female role models like Eileen Collins and Sandra Day O'Connor.
QUINDLEN

Things are looking up- not! The percentage of women syndicated columnists has gone up frm 24.4% to 25.5% in the last five months.
WOMEN COLUMNISTS

I haven't commented on the NARAL ad debacle because it is too damn depressing. I'm gonna let everyone else blow hard on this one.
Joan Vennochi

Science
Women who regularly take acetaminophen, ibuprofen or similar painkillers have as much as double the normal risk of developing high blood pressure
WOMEN AND PAINKILLERS

TV
I have a bone to pick with the NYTimes. In yesterday's Arts notes section Kate Aurthur wrote a piece on cable TV ratings. In describing The Closer which has gotten high ratings, she wrote, "The police drama in which Kyra Sedgwick, plays a detective who is also a compulsive eater, brought in 6.13 million viewers and was the most watched show of the week."

Here's my problem, if you have actually watched the show you would know that they have toned down her eating issue. And if this was a show that starred a man, they would never have written about her eating at all. They would have written that she is a detective who specializes in getting confessions. Right?

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

Nina Bernstein writes in today's NYTimes about the hidden world of women immigrants. "Women make up 44 percent of the nation's low-wage immigrant work force, and worldwide, studies show, more and more women are migrating for work."
WOMEN WORKERS

Dahlia Litwick in Slate about how judges have become doctors in making decisions on who can and can't get abortions.
LITWICK

Time Magazine has a list of the 25 most influential Hispanics in America. Women on the list include: talk show host Cristina Saralegui; chick lit writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez; actress Jennifer Lopez; museum director Mari Carmen Ramirez; health care activisit Aida Giachello; actress Salma Hayek; and CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Sara Martinez Tucker.
TIME MAGAZINE

Wish this weren't a big deal- but it still is
The first woman and minority has been appointed executive chef at The White House.
After a six month search, they gave the job to one of the assistant chef's Cristeta Comerford.

The 42-year-old Comerford is form the Phillipines and has been an assistant chef at the White House for 10 years.

Dove soap has a wildy unconventional ad campaign out now that features "real" women meaning not unbearably skinny women. In Today's NYTimes, Jessica siegel applauds that campaign and asks Dove to come clean on its anti-cellulite creams which in her opinion, just don't work. PS- is it me or has it been a while since there was a woman's by-line on the op-ed page of the Times?
DOVE

TV
Check out Oscar winning documentary Born Into Brothels August 16 at 7 on Cinemax

"Photojournalist Zana Briski handed children of Calcutta prostitutes cameras so they could capture the world as they see it—but as this surprisingly hopeful, Academy Award– winning documentary depicts, she found herself knee-deep in their lives, fighting to make space for their potential."

Ellen Degeneres returns as the host of the Emmy Awards to be broadcast on September 18th.

Books
Women's bookstores are disappearing from the landscape save for a few stalwarts.
WOMEN'S BOOKSTORES

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Watch
Gloria Feldt, former head of Planned Parenthood Federation weighs in with a thoughtful piece on John Roberts via Alternet. The headline: "Am I saying that John Roberts condones violence? No -- but I am saying that when he had a chance to explicitly oppose the rising tide of abortion clinic bombings, he did not."
GLORIA FELDT

Politics
From our Indian feminist friends - The Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill was finally agreed to in the Cabinet on 4 August 2005. Lobbying efforts are on to get the bill tabled in the parliament in the current session.

The battle for same sex marriage has begun in Britain. A lesbian couple who were married in Canada in 2003 want a legal declaration of the validity of their marriage.
SAME SEX MARRIAGE IN THE UK

Katha Pollitt talks to the head of Feminists for Life
KATHA POLLITT

Six months on Condoleeza Rice from Slate.
SLATE ON RICE

Unbelievable
From the LA Times - "Elysa J. Yanowitz, a regional sales manager for L'Oreal USA Inc., said her boss ordered her to fire a female sales associate with a strong performance record because the dark-skinned employee was not attractive enough." He wanted somebody "hot." Yanowitz sued and the CA Supreme Court ruled Thursday that workers were protected from having to perform duties that violate the state's anti-discimination laws.
DISCRIMINATION

Movies
Women's roles in film have been at best lacking. Here's a good analysis of the four categories of women's films (chick flick; earnest social commentary; cancer weepie; and action figure- great categorization) and ten that stand out.
WOMEN IN FILM

Ziyi Zhang is on the cusp of being a big big star. Look for her at the end of the year in Memoirs of a Geisha.
ZIYI ZHANG

Science
Early period not a key to obesity later in life.
MENSTRUATION

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-10T22:48:00.000-05:00

Politics
Bob Woodward predicts a Hillary Clinton vs. Dick Cheney 2008 presidential race.
CLINTON VS.CHENEY?

Maureen Dowd on Bush, Cindy Sheehan and his two hour workouts.
MAUREEN DOWD

They can do this in Norway, but I doubt they could do it here.
from Today's Guardian
"Last year, the Norwegian parliament passed a bill forcing private firms to have at least 40% women on their boards. Companies had until July to boost participation of their own accord. If the numbers are insufficient, which the state will decide by August 15, sanctions will be applied and they won't just be a slap on the wrist."

Ansgar Gabrielsen proposed the law when he was trade and industry secretary. He is currently the health secretary and had this great quote.

"To me, the law was not about getting equality between the sexes, it was about the fact that diversity is a value in itself, that it creates wealth," he said.

"From my time in the business world, I saw how board members were picked: they come from the same small circle of people. They go hunting and fishing together, they're friends." GREAT QUOTE!
WOMEN DIRECTORS IN NORWAY

Each Wednesday former World War II sex slaves protest in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea. The women want the Japanese government to acknowledge what happened to them and offer compensation for their rape and torture. Sounds reasonable to me.
SEX SLAVES FIGHT BACK

Don't you love it when irony bites you in the ass?
Mona Lisa Smile a movie starring Julia Roberts set in a 1950s women's college whose character encouraged the girls to seek out life's options beyond just getting married and having kids, seems to have discriminated against the female musicians who worked on the film's score. The EEOC decided the case yesterday in favor of the musicians. Pathetic.

File this under I can't believe people like this exist.
From the Associated Press
"A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

'The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her,'the judge said. He confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before his arrest. He told investigators that his wife had been nagging him to come back to bed."

TV
I've always loved Lauren Ambrose who plays Claire Fisher on the HBO drama Six Feet Under (which has been so great these last two weeks.) As the show wraps up its fifth and final season Amborse spoke with Salon. (Remember you must get a site pass to view the whole article)
LAUREN AMBROSE

Movies
Glamour Magazine has teamed up with Moxie films to create several shorts from essays submitted by Glamour's readers. The director's include: Gwenyth Paltrow; Mary Wigomore; Jenny Bicks, (Sex and the City); the director Trudy Styler (you know- Sting's wife); Rosario Dawson and Debi Mazar.

The set of films will eventually be shown in 25 markets starting in October, and a DVD containing them will also be inserted into the December issue of Glamour.

Glamour will donate money to FilmAid which will use the money for women in refugee camps in Kenya.

From today's NYTimes
"The brand is about the empowerment of women," Leslie Russo, Glamour's associate publisher said of the magazine's involvement in the project. "Today, with the culture being so celebrity-obsessed, how do we extend that message? How do we support the telling of real women's stories in Hollywood?"

Gwenyth Paltrow seems to me to have a healthy perspective on Hollywood. "The men in Hollywood make it hard for women. I really believe that. What it means is that it's kind of like the old-boy industries. It's mostly run by men."

"Still, Ms. Paltrow insisted, 'it takes women to write short films about women or features about women.'"

"'There's no reason why," she said, "if there's 'Wedding Crashers' for boys, there can't be something really funny yet intelligent for women, that has something to say for women.'"

Meryl Poster, former head of prodcution at Miramax, who is involved in the project has a shame on you quote in the story: "'Women aren't directing films in large numbers, she said, because it's an all-encompassing job that is not often compatible with the complexity of women's lives.'" Bad quote, Meryl.
WOMEN MAKING MOVIES

If you're in Dallas between now and August 28th, the Women's Museum is showing an exhibition on Suffrage where you can dress up as a suffragette and see screenings of Iron Jawed Angels.
SUFFRAGE EXHIBIT

Books
Judith Rossner, author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, had died. She was 70.

Hilarious Amy Borkowsky has a new book out Statements: True Tales of Life, Love, and Credit Card Bills, (Chamberlain Bros. 2005) which goes through a decade a credit card statements to give a take on a single girls life.
AMY BORKOWSKY

Bebe Moore Campbell's latest book, 72 Hour Hold, is a story of a divorced mother dealing with her bi-polar daughter.
BEBE MOORE CAMPBELL

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Politics
Republican prosecutor Jeanine Pirro will seek the nomination to challenge NY Senator Hillary Clinton in 2006. The press is going to make this into a girlfight- guaranteed.

More on Cindy Sheehan and her vigil to get an audience with GWBush
From yesterday's Daily Kos
"Cindy Sheehan phoned me from Texas a few minutes ago to say that she's been informed that beginning Thursday, she and her companions will be considered a threat to national security and will be arrested. Coincidentally, Thursday is the day that Rice and Rumsfeld visit the ranch, and Friday is a fundraiser event for the haves and the have mores. Cindy said that she and others plan to be arrested."
MEET WITH CINDY
Joan Vennochi has an editorial in today's Boston Globe about Cindy Sheehan.
JOAN VENNOCHI
ALTERNET ON SHEEHAN

Magazines
A funny rant on the patheticness of women's magazines and how pathetic they are.
WOMEN'S MAGS

Brandon Holley, founding editor of Elle Girl, has been named editor of Jane.

Sexism in the Orchestra World- really?
One area where women are still lagging (there are so many others) is in learning-- and even applying to learn-- to become conductors. There are very few women at the top tier and last month when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra appointed Marin Alsop as its new musical director, a torrent of sexist issues were released.
ORCHESTRA

Movies
Great Cast- Gwenyth Paltrow, Meryl Streep and Annette Bening will star in "Dirty Tricks" a movie about Watergate.

Teen actress Evan Rachel Wood thinks that adults should allow kids to explore their sexuality is a responsible way. Smart girl. She opens in Pretty Persuasion on Friday in limited release.
EVAN RACHEL WOOD

Theatre
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has been tapped to pen the new Ray Charles project heading to Broadway.

DVD
Pick of the week- Off the Map - by director Campbell Scott and starring Joan Allen.
Netflix description- "A coming-of-age tale about an 11-year-old girl, Bo (Valentina d'Angelis), who spends the summer of 1974 watching her father (Sam Elliott) battle a bout of depression that proves to be crippling. Bo's parents (Joan Allen plays her mother) moved to New Mexico to escape the stresses of the big city (as part of a 1960s-'70s exodus that saw similar moves across the country) and now find they're being investigated by the government for tax evasion."

Sports
100 meter Olympic Silver medalist Lauryn Williams, won the gold medal in the same race at the World Championships this weekend in Helsinki.

Women Coaches in the WNBA
The slow and steady decline of women in the ranks of coaches in the WNBA continues. Former Charlotte Hornets player Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues takes over for Trudy Lacey as coach of the Charlotte Sting. He has no previous coaching experience. The Sting are the worst team in the League, yet there are several women who have been head coaches and are now assistants around the League who are much more qualified for the job. Question- would a woman professional player with no coaching experience get a job as head coach in the NBA? Fat Chance.

The trend of former male players taking over women's team will continue next season - Dave Cowen's was named head coach of the expansion Chicago team.

This trend is disturbing yet predicatable. Once women's coaching jobs become more lucrative, the men think, huh, I could do that. It's been moving that way in the college ranks since right after the passage of Title IX when the women's and men's athletic departments were combined.
WNBA COACHES

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-08T08:54:00.000-05:00

Politics
Another Hillary is a centrist article- even I'm starting to believe it.
HILLARY CLINTON

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq has camped out near the "Western White House" in Crawford, Texas. She will stay until she has an audience with President Bush to tell him how wrongsided his politices are. You go Girl!
CINDY SHEEHAN
CINDY SHEEHAN #2

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has her first post court assignment -- chairing a national civics lesson sponsored by the American Bar Association. The Civics lesson co-chaired by Bill Bradley will hopefully educate Americans about the three branches of government - things most American can't identify. Don't you think it would be better to focus on the fact that people are graduating from high school thinking that the three branches of government are republican, democrat and independent? Makes me want to cry. We are so frickin dumb.
CIVICS

Time Magazine's current piece on Condoleeza Rice's six month anniversary as Secretary of State. How can she gets us out of Iraq? Does she give a shit?
CONDI RICE

More on networks and cable covering only missing white girls
MISSING

Science
Screening works! Breast Cancer deaths are down because tumors found are smaller. Have you gotten your mammogram this year?
BREAST CANCER

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Does the press pay more attention to missing white girls? duh

Dateline NBC, takes on the same topic tonight. "What's Missing," which examines why disappearances of minority women aren't covered extensively (much less obsessively) in the media, unlike the cases of white women such as Natalee Holloway and Laci Peterson. The program follows the family of Tamika Huston, of Spartanburg, S.C., which had had difficulty garnering media coverage of her suspicious disappearance.

PRESS COVERAGE

SPORTS
Sue Gunter, one of the most revered women's basketball coaches in the country died at 66. She took LSU to the NCAA tournament 14 times.

TV
ABC News senior correspondent Carole Simpson and longtime CNN journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault will both be inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame at the organization's 30th anniversary convention this week.

FILM
Six underappreciated and excellent actresses according to Jon Bonné on MSNBC. He has good taste.
6 ACTRESSES

Newsweek has an article on Evan Rachel Wood from Thirteen and my favorite cancelled TV show Once and Again. She will be a big star- guaranteed.
EVAN RACHEL WOOD

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-04T08:50:00.000-05:00

Kudos to the Boston Globe. Today, 3 out of 4 op-ed columns were written by women. I wish I agreed with all of them.

A little hope for Roberts? LA Times reports that he provided pro-bono legal advice on the landmark gay rights case Romer vs. Evans, which struck down a voter-approved 1992 Colorado initiative that would have allowed employers and landlords to exclude gays from jobs and housing. Seems Roberts also forgot to include this work on his questionnaire that Senate Judiciary committee members submitted.
ROBERTS

Mo Mowlam, former Northern Ireland Secretary and member of Parliment who helped push through the Good Friday agreement is critically ill in a London hospital.
MOWLAM

Women in Dubai- getting into the workplace
DUBAI

The Glass Ceiling is just starting to crack- celebrating 50 years of the Financial Women's Association of San Francisco
GLASS CEILING

POP CULTURE
Salma Hayek will star in Paradise, the four-hour telepic adaptation of the Toni Morrison novel for Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films and ABC.

Mary Louise Parker who was so awesome on The West Wing finally gets her own series as a pot-selling mom on Showtime's Weeds. Buzz is good. Starts Sunday night.
PARKER

Interview with Marin Alsop- new conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the rocky road to acceptance.
ALSOP

Rosie O'Donnell is expected to join the cast of Fiddler on The Roof on Broadway as Golde right after Labor Day. Makes me laugh to have two of the biggest homos on the planet Harvey Firestein and O'Donnell playing Tevye and Golde. Zero Mostel would love it!

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

You gotta love the BBC- they are spending all week talking to women in traditional male jobs. Today, Sandra Aguebor Edokpayi, Nigeria's first female mechanic.
BBC

Say What?
A guy has been appointed chair of the women's studies department at the University of Washington. Seems that no women wanted the job.
NPR (Day to Day- NPR audio story)

Next week Wal-mart will argue that the landmark class-action gender discrimination lawsuit filed against the company should no longer be classified as a class action suit. They contend that because it applies to so many people it would open up other companies to an avalance of lawsuits. Well, yeah, isn't that the point?
WAL-MART

TV
Oprah's next TV movie for ABC will be Paradise by Toni Morrison.

SPECIAL WNBA ANALYSIS
I've been ruminating for over a week on some issues related to the WNBA- specifically The Detroit Shock. I watch basically every WNBA game that is available on TV. I don't know if it's just scheduling issues but the Shock has been on at least 4 broadcasts in the last 2 weeks. One of the attractions to the Shock is its coach- Bill Laimbeer, a former professional basketball player with the Detroit Pistons.

I am all for getting people interested in the League, but my problem is the intense focus on the coach during these games. There are stories about him, features on him, news about him- the sportcasters seem obsessed with him. They are obsessed because he is very vocal and has a tendency to act like a petulant child and it seems that we cannot enjoy sports without someone acting like an idiot.

Enough about Bill Laimbeer! He was known as one of the "Bad Boys" when he was in Detroit. His bad attitude has certainly rubbed off of his team. The women on his team even posed for a picture under the heading of "bad girls." Competition is one thing, but a bad attitude- which the Shock has, is another.

They have the most fouls in the league and two weeks ago they got beaten by 40 points! Get over yourselves! Swagger is one thing but Elaine Powell, their point guard, got suspended for five games for elbowing an opponent in the face.

I worry that the women's game is becoming too much like the men's game. Lisa Leslie of the LA Sparks seems to get into tiffs on a regular basis- recently, she pushed Sheryl Swoopes of Houston in the back after a play.

Personally, the reason why I like women's sports is because they are competetive, exciting and DIFFERENT from the men's game.

My last rant about the Shock is over the trades they recently made. Earlier in the season they got Plenette Pierson (from Phoenix) for just a draft pick and another player which Phoenix then releases and Detroit resigned. This week they got Katie Smith, arguably the best shooter in the game, for 2 role players and another draft pick. What is up with this? The talent on this team is out of control. They had the best bench to begin with and now with Smith...Is someone else watching this besides me? There is something screwy going on here. If anyone know what's going on, pleas tell me.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-08-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

POLITICS
Dianne Feinstein is the only woman on the Senate Juiciary Committee who will be questioning Judge John Roberts on his nomination to the Supreme Court.
FEINSTEIN

Ron Brownstein at the LA Times analyzes Hillary Clinton's new role with the DLC. Can this work out for anyone?
BROWNSTEIN

In keeping with the typical presidential flip flop in order to appease conservatives- George Pataki, Governor of NY, will veto the bill that will allow women to buy emergency contraception without a prescription. Pathetic!
EC VETO

The Pro-Choice Movement and the Roberts Nomination
CHOICE AND ROBERTS

Ellen Goodman's latest column on whether we can read anything into John Robert's views by his wife's views- she thinks not
GOODMAN

MAGS
How to be a best-selling author and the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan- life as Kate White
KATE WHITE

These girls rock at science
GIRLS AND SCIENCE

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-29T17:52:00.000-05:00

Politics
Women in Afhganistan who are attempting to run for office are under fire.
AFHGAN WOMEN

Seven of the Senate Democratic women stood up and said they want John Roberts to answer questions on privacy, gay and lesbian rights and other important issues. They created a website ASK ROBERTS to allow citizens to send in the questions they want asked.

The papers released about Roberts show that when he was lawyer in the Reagan administration he wrote an opinion urging the administration not to appeal the ruling that basically stopped Title IX in its tracks in the 80s.

"A 1982 Roberts memo urged the Justice Department not to appeal a federal court ruling limiting Title IX's reach into all programs at a university that received federal funds.

The memo said 'under Title IX, federal investigators cannot rummage willy- nilly through institutions, but can go only as far as the federal funds go.'"
DEM WOMEN

Great, so we will lose Roe and Title IX. Things just keep getting better.

Is Hillary electable?
HILLARY

Susan Estrich on the two Johns- Bolton and Roberts
ESTRICH

TV
Lifetime has some lighthearted fare started this weekend. A six hour mini-series Beach Girl starring Rob Lowe and Julia Ormand premieres Sunday night at 8pm.

Theatre
Patti Pupone will return to Broadway this fall in a new production of Sweeney Todd.

Julia Roberts will make her Broadway debut next spring in Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

Politics
Catholics for a Free Choice has a report on Pope Ratiznger's first 100 days. Suffice it to say, he ain't been progressive.
POPE

China was picked its first women to go into space.
SPACE

A very interesting post by Arianna Huffington regarding the jailbird Judith Miller. Huffington posits that one of the theories going on around The NY Times is that Miller did not reveal her source because she was actually the one who started inquiring about Joseph Wilson, and then learned his wife was a CIA agent. Wilson, you will remember wrote the infamous piece in The NY Times in July 2003 about his trip to Niger and the WMD stuff was bullshit. Miller carried the Bush team's water on the WMD issue and helped get this war started. VERY INTERESTING ARIANNA- her most thoughtful post yet.
HUFFINGTON

Films
One movie I'm excited about is Must Love Dogs opening this weekend starring Diane Lane and John Cusack. It's about a newly-divorced woman re-entering the dating scene. Personally, I've had a crush on John Cusack since my teens (I am a huge fan of Say Anything) and seeing Gary David Goldberg (Family Ties creator) working again is good news. But its Diane Lane who will make or break this movie. Finally, a movie for adults. Go see it this weekend- the first weekend is what makes or break a film in today's world.
MUST LOVE DOGS

TV
This TV season is one of the most exciting for me in recent years. ABC will premiere its drama Commander in Chief about the first woman president played by Geena Davis. Each summer before the start of the season the TV critics go to Hollywood to learn about the new shows. At the session related to Commander in Chief about the first woman President starring Geena Davis will focus more on "east wing" activities rather than "west wing" activities.

So, let me get this- a show about a President of the US will not be a political show? Give me a break. If Commander in Chief starred a man it would be a political show. I'm high on this show having seen the pilot but I want to caution ABC not to sell women short and think we can't handle politics.
COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Lisa de Moraes from The Washington Post also weighs in:
"While "West Wing" deals with specific political issues that are "rather arcane," "Commander-in-Chief" will deal with such issues as how to get the First Kids to school, how to take the First Kids trick-or-treating, how state dinners are run from A to Z -- a lot of East Wing stuff, Lurie explained.

That's probably because while Red Lips (please don't tell me this is her secret service name) is president of the United States she's also a mother and "if there's one thing history has taught us," it's that while women can become prime ministers or heads of Fortune 500 companies, they almost always remain the primary caregivers of their children, he (Rod Lurie, the creator) said."

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

Politics
Councilwoman Donna Frye, a Democrat, environmental activist and surf shop owner will face former Police Chief Jerry Sanders in a mayoral runoff election this fall. Frye got 43% of the vote. She needed 50% to prevent a runoff. Talk about your atypical candidate.
FRYE

Women in India continue organizing under extremely difficult conditions.
INDIA

USA Today has an editorial by Laura Vanderkam (never heard of her before) saying that even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, few states would actually ban abortions. Ms. Vanderkam- before you write an editorial about this hot button issue, I urge you to get a clue. You might have your statistics right but Row is so much more than statistics. You have to take into account the political environment and the fact that this is about women's rights to self determination which is exactly what the right wing freaks want people to forget about.

I'm not even linking to this piece cause I don't want to give her more play.

Anne Applebaum on Karen Hughes' appointment to Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy
APPLEBAUM

Hillary Clinton is criticized by the left for her speech before the Democratic Leadership Council (a centrist group)
CLINTON

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said in an interview that a Supreme Court Justice was not bound to precedent in Roe v. Wade "if you believe it's wrong."
"In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Gonzales said the legal right to abortion is settled for lower courts but not the Supreme Court, suggesting high-court nominee John Roberts would not be bound by his past statement that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision settled the issue."

This is unacceptable! This logic is frightening! Remember- this man was on the short list for the Supreme Court. Yikes.
GONZALEZ

Good News
RIM the makers of "crackberries" have created the Blackberry Women and Technology Awards. The prizes will not only salute women who create technology but also women who use technology in a creative and successful way. Great idea!
BLACKBERRY AWARDS

Give me a Break
Remember those fembots from The Bionic Women? Well it seems that Japanese scientists have create the 21st century version- a female android. Guess the dating world in Japan is so bad that they need to create robots.
FEMBOTS

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

Politics
Hillary Clinton continues her move to the center - or as I call it the right - in her bid to be our next President. She has been tapped to create the Democratic Leadership Council's "American Dream Initiative" which will define the DLC agenda for 2006 and 2008. Could be the smartest or dumbest thing to do? Who knows?
CLINTON

Dianne Feinstein met with Supreme Court nominee yesterday. "I found him very forthcoming, very pleasant to talk with, very easy to talk with. There are no artifices. He was very direct, and when he couldn't answer a question and . . . felt he shouldn't answer a question, he didn't,'' said Feinstein, a member of the Senate committee that will hold hearings on Robert's nomination in about a month. ``He's very impressive, let there be no doubt." This is such a done deal we should just move on.
Full story form the San Jose Mercury News
FEINSTEIN LOVES ROBERTS

Justice Kennedy is the one to watch on abortion issues.
KENNEDY

According to The Hill, Senate and House Democrats, with the support of Minority Leaders Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are pressing party Chairman Howard Dean to establish an official relationship with Democrats for Life, an anti-abortion-rights group that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has previously shunned. Just wanted to check and see if Nancy Pelosi was still pro-choice, still a woman or weather she has completely sold out!
SELL OUTS

A chapter of Iraq's draft constitution obtained by The Associated Press (today) gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Jane Fonda will be taking to the anti-war movement again this time on a vegetable fueled bus. Look for her tour in March 2006 to protest US military policies in Iraq.

Gov. Mitt Romney of MA has vetoed a bill expanding access to emergency contraception. During his 2002 campaign Romney said that he did support wider access to emergency contraception. Flip flop- guess who's running for president?

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo remains under fire as an impeachment process has been started against her. She made a speech calling for the change in government from a presidential system to a parlimentary system as a way to improve economic progress. "Our political system has now become a hindrance to our national progress."
ARROYO

Justice!
A Nebraska Federal Judge ruled that Union Pacific Railroad discriminated against its female employees by denying them prescription contraceptive coverage in the health plan while paying for Viagra and male pattern baldness drugs. How the hell does this stuff still happen?

The Boys are gonna be pissed
Nine Roman Catholic women (seven Americans a Canadian and a German) were "unofficially" ordained at priests and deacons by three women who were previously "unofficially" ordained. Go girls!
WOMEN PRIESTS

TV
Alias alert! Jennifer Garner's real-life pregnancy will be written into the show.

Film
Jodie Foster is returning to the director's chair for the first time in 10 years with "Sugar Kings," a drama in which she may also star.

The Universal Pictures project centers on a female lawyer, fresh out of law school, who teams with a veteran public-interest attorney to take on a powerful sugar baron on behalf of exploited migrant workers. YEAH!

DVD
Check out The Upside of Anger starring Joan Allen. Allen plays Terry Wolfmeyer, a woman whose husband has just left her and she finds support (and difficulties) with her four daughters, the bottle (she drinks a lot), and Kevin Costner playing another retired ballplayer.

Allen is spectacular but she has gotten way too skinny. The four daughters are played by Erika Christensen, Alicia Witt, Keri Russell and Evan Rachel Wood.

Mags
Jane Pratt is stepping down as editor of Jane effective September 30. She is finishing up the Mag's 1st all naked issue? (why jane?) Great legacy Jane.

Books
From England- women authors are more likely to have bestsellers due to the proliferation of bookclubs and because of this: "Women readers now outnumber men and they tend to seek out writers who know their own world at first hand. Women tend to find a lot of male writers boyish, macho and a little too interested in violence. The believe their books are too dependent on quick thrills."
WOMEN AUTHORS

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

Politics
Ellen Goodman weighs in on the Roberts nomination GOODMAN

Hillary Clinton- a moderate? HILLARY CLINTON

Karen Hughes, the ultimate soccer mom, is about to return to Washington now that her son is going off to college. She had her hearing for her nomination as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs which makes her an ambassador. She will be spinning the Bush agenda around the world and helping to rebuild our image. This frightens me. She is one of the architects of the Bush diplomatic agenda and now we're unleashing her on the world? Not one single democrat attended her hearing on Friday in front on the Senate foreign relations committee. What's up with that? Note to Karen - not to sound catty, but work on the wardrobe- lime green and blue- yuck!

Dianne Feinstein stood up and said yesterday that Karl Rove should lose his security clearance temporarily while the Grand Jury is still investigating the Valerie Plame affair. And by the way- Judith Miller is still in jail and Karl Rove is planning his summer vacation.

Wish it Wasn't True
Dennis Hastert has decided to remain in Congress and speaker of tghe House for the duration of Bush's term (that is if he gets re-elected- can someone please do something about that?)

Did you know?
That 29 Iraqi women just graduated from military training? WOMEN SOLDIERS

TV
Desperate Housewives won the best program of the year from the Television Critics Asosciation this weekend.

DVD
Mary Tyler Moore's breakthrough comedy's second season is now available on DVD. Pick up the ultimate single working woman. It all started with her.

Sports
Sheila Johnson is the first woman to own a WNBA franchise. JOHNSON

18 year old Paula Creamer won her second LPGA title Saturday at the Evian Masters, beating fellow teenager Michelle Wie and Lorena Ochoa by eight shots. She has earned 1.1 million in her rookie season (I am so in the wrong business)

The Us Women's National Soccer team beat iceland 3-0 in an exhibitition match. They are 7-0 this season and have not had a goal scored on them.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court update
Just over half of all Americans — and a solid majority of women — want to know John Roberts' position on abortion before the Senate votes on whether to elevate him to the Supreme Court.- AP

More on the nominee's wife and her antichoice escapades.
JANE SULLIVAN

Susan Estrich weighs in on the Roberts nomination.
ESTRICH

The Leak
So now it seems that the document that listed Valerie Plame's name had the letter "S" on it for secret. Gee, guess that wasn't something to gossip about.
Helen Thomas has some thoughts on the situation.
THOMAS

TV
Veronica Mars (an awesome show) will get some extra exposure this summer when big sister network CBS airs 4 repeats of the UPN show. The shows air Friday, July 29 (8 p.m./Ch. 2), and Friday Aug. 5 and 12.

Books
Time Magazine's Galley Girl talks to Sophie Kinsella - one of the most successful "chick lit" authors. CHICK LIT

Sports
The US Women's National soccer team completes its summer games with a Sunday game against Iceland. (See it at 5pm on ESPN2) Christie Welsh is the leading scorer for the team. She is trying to break through and make it to the team that goes to a World Cup or Olympics. The 2007 World Cup is a long way away but she's on the right track. WELSH

I am amazed at the ability of elite women athletes to have children and get back into shape so quickly. Carla Overbeck and Joy Fawcett did it on the US soccer team and now comes Tina Thompson, All-Star from the Houston Comets in the WNBA. She had a baby in May and was just activated last night to play. Wow.

Did you Know?
That Japanese women have the longest life expentancy in the world at 85.59 years.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-21T17:01:00.000-05:00

SUPREME COURT UPDATE
From Sandra Day O'Connor
"I am disappointed, in a sense, to see the percentage of women on our court drop by 50 percent, but I can't be disappointed in the quality of person nominated. He's first rate," she added.

The Wife Factor
More on Jane Roberts, wife of the Supreme Court nominee and her affiliation with Feminists for Life from the LA Times:
"Jane Roberts was a volunteer member of Feminists for Life's board of directors from 1995 to 1999. She has provided legal assistance to the group and been recognized as a contributor who donated from $1,000 to $2,500.

The president of Feminists for Life, Serrin M. Foster, said Roberts maintained her ties by advising the group on how to draw up incorporation and not-for-profit papers."
JANE ROBERTS

Editorials on Roberts by women
MARTHA MINOW

Check Out
Andrea Mitchell, on a trip with Condoleeza Rice to the Sudan, got pulled out of her room by Sudanese bodyguards.
MITCHELL

Movies
Hustle & Flow is arriving in theatres tomorrow. Supposed to be great. Won the audience award at Sundance. Briefly- the film ells the story of a pimp who wants to be a rap singer. Trust me, I know my movies. Terrence Howard is about to become a big star as well as Taraji Henson who I loved on Lifetime's The Division. More on Taraji- HENSON

What We Need to Know Today- addendum

2005-07-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Missed a big one this morning.

The NY Times is reporting that the drafting of the new Iraqi Constitution is rolling back women's rights. So let me understand this clearly. We went to war to make things better for the Iraqi people and now that they have a new government things will be worse for women?

Some information from the story:
"A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance."

"The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament."

IRAQI WOMEN GET SCREWED

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

It's all downhill now
So now its official- we're screwed! John Roberts will be on the Supreme Court for something like 30 years. I just want to barf. Folks this is what happens when good people make very bad decisions when it comes to voting. People wanted George Bush and now they can kiss all of our rights goodbye. Hello Canada.

Another thing I'm pissed about is I started getting emails from pro-choice and progressive groups about a minute after the nominee was announced. And the first thing they do is ask me for money. I get emails from these organizations every day and delete them because they ask me for money every day. On this day- don't ask me for money. Make your case, then I will give you money. And stop sending those emails everyday! Just because you have my address doesn't mean you shold use it every day.

The email that was great was People for the American Way. They handled it perfectly.

Just in
Judge Roberts wife is a member of Feminist for Life.

Who is John Roberts?
From today's Washnigton Post "In 1991, John G. Roberts Jr., then deputy solicitor general in the George H.W. Bush administration, told the Supreme Court that its historic decision supporting a woman's right to an abortion was "wrongly decided and should be overruled." In 2003, when Roberts was up for a judgeship, he played down his earlier statement, explaining that he made the administration's case against Roe v. Wade only because that was his responsibility as its lawyer."
ROBERTS

Check Out
Greta Van Sustern gets good ratings on Fox. Over 1.5 million people have watched this year and more since she started focusing on the Natalee Holloway case -- and she answers emails from viewers. GRETA

Jane Pauley releases her memoir in paperback and talks about her bi-polar disorder.
JANE PAULEY

The saga of Marin Alsop's nomination to the musical directorship of the Baltimore Symphony continues. The Board of Directors approved her appointment yesterday and the members of the Orchestra met her appointment with silence. Go Marin!
ALSOP
ALSOP 2

Sports
Got a call from a source this morning and she was irate! Frank Deford who has a weekly commentary on NPR stepped over the line this week in takling about Michelle Wie wanting to play against the boys on the PGA tour. Usually, Deford is benign but this week he basically said that Michelle Wie wanting to play on the men's tour is going to be the downfall of women's sports. I say, give me a break! Wie will make people more interested in women's athletes and I would venture that she will play on the women's tour and will attract more attention. Some of his quotes from this morning" middleweights can't knock out heavyweights" and "stick to playing against your own kind."

Frank- you owe Michelle and all women and girl athletes an apology. I only hope that you have daughters and they kick your ass tonight!

Danica Patrick is still basking in the attention from the Indy 500. DANICA PATRICK

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-19T15:22:00.000-05:00

Governor Pataki must sign the emergency contraception bill! EC

Check Out
Can Hillary Clinton be the Commander in Chief? HILLARY CLINTON

Will They or Won't They?
The story about whether the Baltimore Symphony will appoint Marin Alsop the first female conducter of a large scale orchestra is still not resolved. Why is so hard? Give me a break. MARIN ALSOP

Wie Watch
Is Michelle Wie going to ruin men's golf? Give me a break? MICHELLE WIE

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-18T08:42:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Watch
Does Laura Bush know more than we do? Laura Bush

Check Out
Ellen Chesler's piece that originally appeared in Ms. Magazine on the 40th anniversary of Griswold. Chesler

Tanya Melich's piece from Women's ENews about the behind the scenes work the Republican Women's Task Force did in 1980 to help boost the Sandra Day O'Connor nomination to the Supreme Court. Melich

Should Roe Go? Katha Pollitt's most recent column from The Nation. Pollitt

Sports
Michelle Wie may not have gotten her invitation to the Masters, but she will be getting the call from marketers. See why she's on the must have list. Wie

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-16T23:20:00.000-05:00

The NYTimes has an editorial today about how women are abused in order to interrogate prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. prisoner abuse

Lifetime just released the results of a survey suggesting that women control the Direct Video Recorders. So forget the crap about guys making the TV watching decisions. DVR control

Why Did it Take So Long?
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is about to make history by offering Marin Alsop the position of Music Director. This would be the first time on of the largest orchestras in America has offered the position to a woman. In keeping with tradition, members of Orchestra were upset that the announcement and said it was " premature" and that "the search should continue" but refused to say why they were upset. Sexist bastards! Just be honest and say you don't want a girl in charge.

Sports
Michelle Wie wants to play against the boys! Why is anyone shocked about this? The LPGA is second rate and Wie can compete against the best which is still the men. Wie

Theatre
Kate Burton is one of those great actresses who has remained loyal to the theatre. Kate Burton

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-14T07:24:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Watch
USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll, showed overwhelming support for putting another woman on the court. Three of four favored appointing a woman to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the high court. Poll

This just goes to show how close politics and pop culture are- From Army Archerd's column in Variety: "I asked Renny Harlin his opinion of Fred Thompson, actor and former Tennessee senator, President Bush's choice to cue his Supreme Court nominee. Harlin had cast Thompson in the role of the head of air traffic control in his "Die Hard 2." "I guess he could play that role," Harlin said. "He is very authoritative -- and also has a great sense of humor. And his acting skills must have also helped him in politics."

Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow returned to the bench less than six months after the murder of her husband and mother by a former litigant whose case she dismissed. Lefkow

Sports
Chrstine Brennan comments on the International Olympic Committee's shortsighted decision to cut softball and baseball from the 2012 games. Brennan

Books
Martha is back. She just got a 2 million deal to write a how-to book on business.

Lifetime has bought rights to Sue Monk Kidd's bestselling book "The Mermaid Chair," the follow-up to her debut novel "The Secret Life of Bees."

TV
Desperate Housewives continued its roll by snagging 15 Emmy nominations. Marcia Cross,
Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman took three of the five nominations for best actress in a comedy series. The other two nominees are: Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond and Jane Kaczmarek from Malcolm In The Middle.

Lead Actress in a Drama Series nominees include: Jennifer Garner in Alias; Mariska Hargitay
in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Patricia Arquette in Medium; Glenn Close
in The Shield and Frances Conroy in Six Feet Under.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-13T10:49:00.000-05:00

Slow day with news dominated by the Karl Rove debacle. Two thoughts- both of the victims in this insanity are women. Judith Miller- in jail; Valerie Plame- cover blown, takes a desk job at the CIA.

Supreme Court Watch
Laura Bush thinks her husband should name another female Justice to replace O'Connor
Laura Bush

The Evolution of Hillary Clinton from today's NYTimes
Hillary Clinton

Sports
LA Times is running a series on a 10-year old girl boxer. Girl Boxer

Michelle Wie made the first cut yesterday at Men's Amateur Public Links championship. This championship determines who will get an invitation to the Masters. Hootie Johnson who got into a catfight with Martha Burk several years ago is going to have a heart attack if she qualifies.

What is the facination with Michelle Wie? Michelle Wie

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-12T06:50:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Watch
Roe stands up at the State level- Thomas Oliphant in today's Boston Globe Thomas Oliphant

Meet Dr. Dora Akunyili from Nigeria. She's waging a one woman fight against counterfeit drugs that are killing people in her country and around the world. Dora Akunyili

What's up with Iowa? Why is the state with the first Presidential caucus one of 2 states (Mississippi being the other) who has never had a woman elected Governor or sent a woman to Congress. Iowa women

Listen to Barbara Boxer on the Nation audio blog. Barbara Boxer

DVD Watch
New Releases this week
Million Dollar Baby- Hillary Swank's second Oscar winning performance is outstanding.

Dawn Anna- I know it sounds hokey and it was a Lifetime movie, but it stars Debra Winger (do you need to know more) as a single mom who gets a debilitating disease and then after recovering is affected by the Columbine shootings.

Books
Kudos to Nora Roberts for publishing her 159th novel. I've never read one but someone sure has because there are 280 million of her books in print.

Next week is the release of The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan. Her sixth novel features a 40-something wife and mother beset by every kind of mid-life crisis.

Sports
Katie Smith of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA is 11 points away from being the first woman to score 5,000 points in professional basketball. Smith is the WNBA's biggest unheard of star. The Lynx are hardly ever featured on TV. Why is that? The games that are featured should be more equitably distributed between all the teams.

Air Taurasi the signature sneaker of Diana Taurasi is now on sale. Air Taurasi is the only women's signature sneaker that Nike has on the market; but don't fret they have many men's signature sneakers.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-11T09:15:00.000-05:00

Supreme Court Watch

O'Connor for chief justice? O'Connor for Chief

Ellen Goodman's latest column on Justice O'Connor Goodman

Susan Estrich's latest column on Roe v Wade Estrich

Overheard
"We've all been bracing for a Supreme Court resignation, and now that it's come, I can feel the chill wind blow," says Kathleen Turner. "Sandra Day O'Connor upheld constitutional protections for women. Now that she's leaving, we can expect Bush to nominate a replacement who is hostile to women's freedoms. I urge everyone to stay involved and let it be known that we have a pro-choice majority in this country." (Daily News)

Maggie Gyllenhaal has learned the hard way that actors, especially women actors, need to keep their mouths shut when it comes to politics- unless of course you are Sean Penn. Maggie Gyllenhaal

Glenn Close has beaten Barbra Streisand for the role of Norma Desmond is the next remake of the classic Sunset Blvd. Close played the role in Los Angeles and New York.

Women's Review of Books which shuttered last December has found a new lease on life. Look for it to return in January. Women's Review of Books

Sports
Hats of to Tiffney Milbrett of the US National Women's Soccer team for becoming the 6th woman to score 100 international goals in competition. The US beat Ukraine 7-0.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-07T23:45:00.000-05:00

It was announced that Oprah Winfrey has been given the National civil rights Museum's highest honor, the National Freedom Award. The ceremony will take place in November.

Books
If you haven't discovered Jennifer Weiner's books yet, get a paperback copy of her first book, Good In Bed and you will fall in love. Her characters are real, funny and not stick thin. Her second book In Her Shoes was bought by Hollywood even before it was published. The film stars Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. It opens in October. Her third book Little Earthquakes is just out in paperback and her 4th book comes out in September. Not bad for a girl who got 24 rejection letters before being published. Jennifer Weiner rules!

Sports
Two months ago, 11 year old Little Leaguer, Katie Brownell was the first girl to pitch a perfect game in baseball. (Girls have been allowed to play in Little League since 1974) She struck out all the batters she faced in a six inning game- that's 18 strikeouts. This week, she donated her uniform shirt, glove and ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Coopertown, NY. YOU GO GIRL.

On the another note the International Olympic Committee voted to cut baseball and softball from the 2012 games- huh?

These teenage girl golfers freak me out a little. They are way too serious and focused. But, they're good. Michelle Wie, the 15 year old phenom, is on track to become the first woman to make a PGA Tour cut since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945.

Abby Wambach is leading the US Women's National team since the departure of Mia Hamm. She will try to keep the US undefeated in Sunday's game against Ukraine (6:30pm EST; ESPN2) Abby Wambach

Movies
I wish that I could recommend any of the movies opening this weekend but they all look dreadful. The films that I have enjoyed this summer are:

Mad Hot Ballroom- a documentary following the ballroom dance competition that is held in New York City schools. Two big thumbs up. Mad Hot Ballroom

Saving Face- directed by Alice Wu- tells the story of a Chinese mother and daughter and how family can let you down at the same time as building you up. Saving Face

Heights- I can never get enough of Glenn Close on screen. In Heights, the film by Chris Terrio she plays the wildly successful actress Diana Lee (she wears a dark straight wig) in a film that covers 24 hours in the lives of several New Yorkers.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-07T07:03:00.000-05:00

O'Connor Watch
NY Times reports that Democrats are encouraging the President to look for the new justice is the same mold as O'Connor. O'Connor

Women at Work
Judith Miller on the NY Times goes to jail for protecting her source (she didn't even write a story) and Matthew Cooper gets off. Miller jailed

The US Mission to the UN is in the capable hands of Anne W. Patterson while the Botlon nomination continues to struggle in Congress. How about dumping Bolton and keeping the woman who has been in charge since January? Anne W. Patterson

Katha Pollit comments on the movement afoot to reframe the abortion debate. reframing abortion

From Today's Salon
Bush's woman troubles

After George W. Bush's most recent press conference, some reporters complained that the president hadn't taken questions from very many female reporters -- "very many," in this case, meaning more than one. The day after the press conference, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was asked, "At the press conference yesterday, approximately 25 percent of the journalists were women, and the president took only one question from a woman reporter. Can you explain this pattern?" McClellan said it was the media's fault; if editors would assign more female reporters to the White House, the president would have the ability to call on more female reporters.

If that answer wasn't exactly a satisfying one, the president didn't help himself much during a stop in Denmark on the way to Scotland Tuesday. Bush apparently wanted to take a question from Reuters, so he shouted out, "Reuters man, Toby." Only it turns out that "Reuters man, Toby" is Tabassum Zakaria, who happens to be a woman. Bush immediately corrected himself, then made matters worse. "Woman -- excuse me, I can see that," he said. "So how long have you been on the presidential beat?" When Zakaria said that she'd been covering the White House since February, Bush told her, "Yes, well, make yourself less scarce."

Sports
The US Women's National soccer team is planning their second of three summer games this Sunday in Portland Oregon. The team is going through a major transition with a new coach and many new players in the post Mia Hamm era. The game is live on July 10 at 6:30pm on ESPN2. US women adjust to post Mia era

Theatre
A new play by Wendy Wasserstein is to open the 21st season of Lincoln Center Theater. With a cast including Charles Durning and Dianne Wiest, the play, "Third," to be directed by Daniel Sullivan, deals with a college professor whose life as an educator, wife, mother and daughter is thrown into disarray after she accuses a student of plagiarism. Previews at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater are to begin on Sept. 29; the official opening date is Oct. 24.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-06T09:21:00.000-05:00

Anna Quindlen weighs in on the controversy over emergency contraception. She writes "Feminist advocates have always suspected that the anti-abortion movement is less motivated by the sanctity of life than by opposition to women's rights." Really? You Think? Plan B

O'Connor Watch
USA Today has an editorial from Tony Mauro about the importance of making sure the nominee is a woman. The one thing I learned from this piece is that the public women's restroom did not open at the same time as the men's room and it took Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor until 1996 to get this fixed. That's just crazy. We all know that women pee way more than men. appoint another woman

Slate gives us a look at a presumptive short list and their stands on Roe v Wade. Slate

Celeb Fact
Angelina Jolie has adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia. Her name is Zahara Marley Jolie.

Sports
The WNBA All-Star game is Saturday at 4pm on ABC. There are many things that bother me about how the players get picked to be on the team, but the most bothersome is the continuing realization that women's sports is just like men's sports. The starters on the team got picked by the fans and it was just a popularity contest. Swin Cash has spent the entire season looking pretty on the bench and played her first game last night. There is no way she should be on the team, yet she is a starter. Come on. The WNBA should step up and pull her at least as a starter.

I don't usually agree with ESPN's Nancy Lieberman about anything but I agree with her on the Lindsey Whalen snub. She's good- really good. Dawn Staley has seen her day, it's Lindsey's turn and she got snubbed. I would venture to say that the entire east starting lineup aside from Tamika Catchings (sorry Becky) is just crap. Ruth Riley shows up to play sometimes and Becky Hammon is just inconsistent. When she plays well, the Liberty win, but when she doesn't play well, they lose.

People in the west handled it better. Here are the lineups.
WNBA All Star Lineup

TidBit of the Day
Two studies related to women appear in The Journal of the American Medical Association. First study says there is no link between low levels of testosterone and sex drive in women. Story in LA Times - sex drive in women

Second study discusses whether Vitamin E helps prevent heart disease and strokes.
Vitamin E.

What We Need to Know Today

2005-07-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

So, today is the first work day after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement. I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be as relaxing a summer as some hoped. If anyone says that the fight over the next justice will not be about women's rights - get a clue. It's time to organize- we just need to figure out a new way to reach people.

Article to read:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0507050188jul05,1,3227323.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Eric Rudolph, the abortion clinic bomber, has written his mother letters from prison and they are highlighted today and tomorrow in USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050705/1a_cover05_dom.art.htm

Tom Cruise's War of the World has made 113 million since it opened last week. The thing that bothered me about this movie is that the leading female character is a 10 year old girl, Dakota Fanning, who spends the entire movie screaming. No movie would ever be made in Hollywood where a woman is the lead and there is no supporting male character. Just doesn't happen.

Check out:
The F Word in today's Salon (you don't need to become a member of Salon anymore- you can look at an ad and get a site pass for the day) >The Article focuses on the use of the word feminism and should "the movement" abandon it in order to get more people to support the issues.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/07/05/f_word/index.html

Sports
Now that men's basketball is over, the women are on NBA TV on a regular basis and ESPN at least once a week. Don't miss these great women athletes. For schedules check out http://www.wnba.com.

Tonight - Diana Taurasi (who has lately been shooting so poorly I'm beginning to think that all the talk about her was just talk) and the Mercury take on the Silver Stars at 8pm on ESPN.

The WNBA All-Star game is Saturday at 4pm on ABC. More on the All-Stars later in the week.

Weird Fact of The Day
Women feel more pain than men. Shocker!
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13888966

Happy 4th

2005-07-04T13:10:00.000-05:00

Things to Know To Be In The Know

Make sure you read Brooke Shields slam on Tom Cruise for knowing more about post-partum depression than women. I personally have lost all confidence in Tom Cruise as a human being - but maybe he is an alien since he seems to want to talk about aliens all the time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/opinion/01shields.html?

TV
I'm in love with Kyra Sedgwick on TNT's summer series The Closer- it airs Monday evenings - 9pm EST. The show did so well that it has already been renewed for a second season after only three episodes. Kyra- married to Kevin Bacon - never quite made it to A level status in Hollywood even though she is much more talented than many of the A List actresses.

DVD
Vera Drake- Mike Leigh's great film about an abortionist in 1950s England got Imelda Staunton an Oscar nomination. It's a typical British film, quiet and small, but it gets its point across without being preachy.

Bride and Prejudice- Director Gurinder Chada's post Bend it Like Beckham film is a remake of Pride and Prejudice done Bollywood style. It's a bit of a mess, but is shot on location in India and is beautiful to look at.

POLITICS
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of almost Vice-President John Edwards, is shopping a proposal to write a memoir. From Publisher's Weekly
"According to the proposal, the book will cover a range of events, including Edwards' life as a military daughter, the death of her son, the 2004 campaign and her recent struggle with breast cancer. While the story will be personal, the larger theme of the book involves the people who've rallied around Edwards. Edwards will write the book herself, say sources."

My personal feeling is that she should run for office. She was the one who came off the best on the campaign trail

_____

Comments? Questions? Thoughts?
email me: melsilv@gmail.com

In The Know

2005-07-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

I am very tired of blogs being so boy focused. Have you noticed that all the bloggers are guys? Well, I've had enough and with some encouragement I am joining the blogosphere.

I am going to focus my blog on things you should know that are going on for and about women: books; films; tv shows; sports anything that's important.

I can't promise to post every day, but I will as often as I can.

Melissa