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| WOMEN TODAY |
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 USNews
Work of Their Own 2-24-03
In 1952, the year she was born, barely 30 percent of women held a job. Now, they make up nearly half the U.S. labor force--an estimated 41 million wage earners. Like her, 6.2 million women own companies, contributing nearly $2.4 trillion to the economy. Others have stormed even the most stubborn male bastions, whether trucking or tech. That has transformed everything from the nation's labor laws to its notion of the family. "The speed of the change is astonishing," says Lynn Weiner, a dean at Chicago's Roosevelt University, who has written about the history of the female labor force.
NYTimes
Wal-Mart Faces Lawsuit Over Sex Discrimination 2-16-03
An ambitious discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest employer, accuses it of favoring men over women in promotions and pay.
The plaintiffs' lawyers want the lawsuit to include all 700,000 women who worked at Wal-Mart from 1996 to 2001, which would make it by far the largest employment discrimination class action in American history. The lawyers plan to file their motion for class certification in April.
The lawsuit, filed in 2001 in federal court in San Francisco, focuses largely on one statistic compiled by plaintiffs' experts: in 2001, the suit claims, women made up 65 percent of Wal-Mart's hourly employees but only 33 percent of its managers.
Washington Times
The price for Pryce: Leader not reliable conservativ e vote 2-16-03
Rep. Deborah Pryce, Ohio Republican and new chairman of the House Republican Conference, stands as a stark counterpart to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.
While the similar timing of their promotions to party leadership positions this year is coincidental, Republicans — still searching to make inroads to the so-called suburban "soccer mom" vote — must be pleased with the timing of their choice.
Newsweek
Now, the Big Squeeze 2-24-03
The corset, that icon of over-the-top femininity, is squeezing its way back into the wardrobes of women seeking a quick fix for a less-than-perfect figure. And not just as underwear. Body-conscious women are lacing up for formal occasions, to go out clubbing—even pairing up corsets with jeans for an expedition to the mall. Designers like Versace, Ungaro, Dolce & Gabbana and Ralph Lauren have seized on the trend, turning out corset dresses and tops in rich brocades, satin and lace. “Once a customer gets inside one,” says Steven Ho, an executive at Barneys, “she instantly has a very defined, very regal and very flattering shape.”
Washington Times
Republicans plan partial-birth ban, creation of jobs 2-15-03
Banning partial-birth abortions, a prescription-drug benefit and job creation are among the legislative priorities for Senate Republicans, who yesterday laid out their "Top Ten" goals for this congressional session.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, stressed the importance of a partial-birth abortion ban, which was introduced in the Senate yesterday.
LATimes
Bush AIDS Relief Eases Abortion Rules 2-15-03
In a major policy shift, President Bush has decided to allow social service agencies in Africa and the Caribbean to receive U.S. funds under his $15-billion emergency AIDS relief plan even if they promote family planning and provide abortions, White House officials said Friday night.
The only restriction will be that the agencies must use the money for treating people with AIDS, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity.
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WOMEN
INTERNATIONAL |
BBC News
The cost of domestic violence 2-16-03
Most women encounter domestic violence on their televisions, sensationalised in a police drama or a soap opera.
An alarming one in four, however, will experience it for real, suggests Home Office research.
Dawn, aged 41, who has suffered abuse from two husbands, is one of those statistics.
BBC News
Malaysisan wives 'should check pants' 2-14-03
The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Selangor is urging local women to take their dirty laundry to the authorities.
He is asking wives who suspect their husbands of visiting prostitutes to present it as evidence to the police, so they can use the information to organise raids and catch the men red-handed.
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| THINKING
OUT LOUD |
NYTimes
Unspeakable Conversations 2-16-03
By Harriet McBryde Johnson 2-16-03
He insists he doesn't want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.
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| WOMEN'S HEALTH |
Washington Post
Body's First Defense May Be Root of Diseases 2-16-03
According to a theory that has been steadily gaining ground in recent years, the immune system reaction commonly known as inflammation has a troublesome tendency to go awry. While inflammation's familiar manifestations, such as the redness of an infected cut or a raw sore throat, are unpleasant, the reaction is crucial to survival. It unleashes powerful immune cells, enzymes and other chemicals to fend off viruses, bacteria and other invaders, and to coax wounds to heal.
BBC News
Artificial light linked to breast cancer 2-15-03
Researchers in the United States say women in the developed world may have a higher chance of getting breast cancer because they are exposed to more artificial light.
Their findings presented to the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver suggest shift-workers may be particularly at risk.
Scientific American
Restoring Aging Bones 3-02
Osteoporosis afflicts about 10 million Americans, especially women past menopause. Fully half of all postmenopausal women will incur an osteoporosis-related fracture during their lives. Fortunately, the outlook for people with osteoporosis has never been better. Drugs are now available that can restore lost bone and thereby greatly reduce the risk of additional breaks. Furthermore, recent insights into the cellular and molecular bases of osteoporosis have generated exciting ideas for new and even more effective therapies.
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DESIGN STUDIO |
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Metropolis
Carbon Fiber Future 2-03
Although the materials seem well suited for architecture--in tension, carbon fiber is five times stronger than steel--their use in buildings has been rare. Testa, though, is convinced that composites will radically transform architecture during the next decade or two. His carbon skyscraper, which he likes to describe as a "woven building," is designed to be not just less muscle-bound than the skyscrapers in which Americans work today but also more beautiful, environmentally friendly, and cheap to build.
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STYLE.COM
Vogue and W online
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| CREATORS
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NYTimes
They Make Me a Designer Again 2-16-03
What does it mean, for the embryonic generation in my class, to be an American fashion designer anymore? The question constantly raised in fashion circles, and repeated as the latest round of New York collections were shown in Bryant Park last week, is who, pray tell, will be the next Calvin (age 60), the next Ralph (63) or the next Donna (54)? This holy trinity is swung around constantly like Greek Orthodox incense. The Big Three are flanked at American fashion's last supper by the somewhat lesser saints of Bill Blass (whose line lives on, though he doesn't), Carolina Herrera (63) and Oscar de la Renta (70). Who, the industry demands, will save us?
LATimes
Retro is so yesterday 2-14-03
Marc Jacobs' signature collection may have been steeped in 1960s futurism, but by the time Jacobs presented his lower-priced Marc line at the Lexington Avenue Armory on Tuesday, Twiggy had left the building. Instead, the designer stuck with the rock 'n' roll high school look that has made Marc a better seller than his primary line. There were wool pullovers with trompe l'oeil corsets incorporated into the weave, lumberjack-plaid peacoats and cheetah-print corduroy pants. Taxicab yellow-and-black-checked miniskirts were worn with white opaque tights, and there were enough candy-colored, low-heeled pumps with perforated toes, bows and buckles to keep gals' mouths watering and Jacobs eating well for months to come.
Style.com
Fall 2003: Donna Karan
With her boss (LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, in a rare U.S. appearance) and a fresh crop of company executives sitting in the front row, Karan sent out a sensuous, assertive collection that included references to her own groundbreaking designs of two decades ago. Wool jersey—a fabric to which Karan laid claim from the start of her career—started the show, made into cat suits and skintight dresses inset with silver rings made by her old friend Robert Lee Morris. Karan has famously shed weight on a raw-foods-and-yoga regime, and her renewed love of a long, lean figure was evident. She put emphasis on the midriff, tailoring jackets like corsets to hug the body, wrapping coats and dresses with shiny black leather obis and cutting pants high and tight on the waist.
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AMERICAN
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Guardian UK
One million. And still they came 2-16-03
It was the biggest public demonstration ever held in Britain, surpassing every one of the organisers' wildest expectations and Tony Blair's worst fears, and it will be remembered for the bleak bitterness of the day and the colourful warmth of feeling in the extraordinary crowds. Organisers claimed that more than 1.5 million had turned out; even the police agreed to 750,000 and rising.
Washington Times
Protests for peace 2-16-03
Washington Post
Millions Worldwide Protest Iraq War 2-16-03
NYTimes
Antiwar Marches Reveal Gulf Between Leaders and People 2-16-03
The drive toward war with Iraq has produced many divisions along the way — between the United States and Europe, and within Europe itself. But, on Saturday, as millions across this divided continent marched to demand peace, a further, sharp rift opened up — not across continents, but within nations, between ruler and ruled.
Significantly, the biggest demonstrations on Saturday were reported from those European nations whose governments sided with the United States against France and Germany in an open letter two weeks ago.
Newsweek
Our Bodies, Our Fears 2-24-03
. . . The recent barrage of bad news—nukes in North Korea, snipers in Maryland, a failing economy, an imminent war, a threat of domestic terror—has left this privileged nation feeling unusually vulnerable and uncharacteristically anxious. Gas masks and biohazard suits are selling as briskly as duct tape and plastic sheeting. Winter vacations are on hold. Psychotherapists are working overtime. And even people who soldiered on after 9-11 are now blinking. . .
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PBS
FRONTLINE
serious tv journalism
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Newsweek
A Nation Bound by Faith 2-24-03
When it comes to matters of might and right, Americans look to the heavens in a way that bewilders much of the rest of the world—especially Europe. A majority of Americans say religion shapes their lives, and it clearly shapes politics. Regular churchgoers are far more likely to vote Republican than Democratic, according to polls, and it’s well known that the religious right is the Bush administration’s political base. The president himself sometimes sounds like the nation’s commander in the pulpit. His State of the Union address last month repeatedly invoked divine power, declaring confidence in “the loving God behind all of life and all of history.” “May He guide us now,” George W. Bush beseeched.
Time
Why the SUV is all the Rage 2-24-03
At first blush, then, the SUV war looks like a fight between two groups of élites—the overeducated vs. the overcompensated, the Whole Foods crowd vs. the Outback Steakhouse crowd, New York Times people vs. Wall Street Journal people. Keith Bradsher, a Times reporter, wrote High and Mighty, a book published in September that calls SUVs "the world's most dangerous vehicles." Recently columnist David Brooks attacked Bradsher in the Journal for his "broad generalizations about people's souls on the basis of what car they drive."
Boston Globe
Lucky Day 2-16-03
For Lears, the American taste for gambling is just one part of a much deeper ''culture of chance,'' as he terms it, whose long history he traces over the course of this book. Beginning his narrative before the first Europeans set foot on American soil and taking us up to the present day, Lears peers into places other scholars have ignored or overlooked. This is a book populated by conjurers and con men and card sharps, faro players and numbers runners and gamblers of all sorts. We learn about hoodoo and voodoo, the power of charms, amulets, and sacred bundles, Native American luck rituals, forms of African-American divination, and the American attachment to the casting of lots-which was once seriously proposed in the early 19th century as a method for selecting the president.
Washington Times
Abstinence message favored, poll finds 2-15-03
When Americans hear the "exact wording" of sex-education messages, they reject ones that teach safe-sex techniques and support those that promote abstinence and marriage, says a new Zogby International poll released by a coalition of traditional-values groups.
Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood, said the Zogby results were manipulated. The poll showed that 58 percent or "most of the parents surveyed believe it is important for adolescents to have 'good knowledge of condoms/contraceptives and their use,' " she said.
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Newsweek
A Great Divide 2-24-03
How did the magnificent alliance between democratic Europe and the United States—what has generally been known as The West—reach this sorry state of affairs? Public diplomacy, or the lack of it, is obviously part of the problem. “During the cold war, the U.S. spent considerable effort trying to sway the opinion not only of distant partners but U.S. allies in Europe,” says Rachel Bronson of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Bush administration has often taken Europe for granted or, worse, treated it with contempt.
But is there a more fundamental problem? Is the chasm not only of policy, but of fundamental values, fundamental beliefs?
Time
The State of our Defense 2-24-03
While the Administration demonstrated again last week its determination to remind Americans of the dangers of terrorism, it has done far less to prepare the country for actually defending against it. While the White House's suggestion that Americans defend themselves against chemical or biological attacks with duct tape and plastic sheeting was dismissed by many for its naivete, it laid bare a sobering truth: the U.S. still doesn't have a credible and comprehensive system in place to cope with such attacks. "We're not building the means to respond well," says Stephen Flynn, a homeland-security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And when we have that next terrorist incident, there will be hell to pay, because the American people will be in disbelief about how little has been done."
NYTimes
U.S. to Seek Tests to Show That Iraq Resists Disarming 2-16-03
"Within days you will have a decision by the United States on an early resolution at the United Nations," an official said. Meanwhile, he added, United Nations weapons inspectors were preparing a set of "benchmark" tests for Iraq that could also be presented this week, perhaps formally by the United States or other Security Council members.
BBC News
Nato scrutinises compromise plan 2-16-03
Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said his country was prepared to end its veto - which alongside those of France and Germany have plunged Nato into its worst crisis since the end of the Cold War.
Mr Verhofstadt said Brussels wanted Nato to make it clear that aid to Turkey was of a defensive nature and not a first step to involve the alliance in a possible Iraq war.
Washington Times
U.S., Britain rework draft on Iraqi arms 2-16-03
The United States and Britain, rattled by an outpouring of anti-war sentiment, began reworking a draft resolution yesterday to authorize force against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the final product may be a softer text that doesn't explicitly call for war.
Boston Globe
This time, US readies a lightning strike in Gulf 2-16-03
The United States will concentrate less than in 1991 on destroying regular military units, many of which are expected to stay out of the fray, the sources say. The military said it will also try to avoid the widespread destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, which will need to be rebuilt after the war.
Instead, US war planners are aiming to disarm potentially catastrophic Iraqi weapons, to seize key cities, and to neutralize the instruments and centers of power, including the elite Republican Guard and Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The specialists call this the "Baghdad first" or "inside-out"
approach, billed as a lightening-paced assault that the Pentagon hopes will daze Iraq into quick submission.
NYTimes
When the Enemy Is a Liberator 2-16-03
Almost to a man, these Iraqis said they wanted the Iraqi dictator removed. Better still, they said — and it was a point made again and again — they wanted him dead. The men, some in their teens, some in their 50's, told of grotesque repression, of relatives and friends tortured, raped and murdered or, as often, arrested and "disappeared."
But their hatred of Mr. Hussein had an equally potent counterpoint: for them, the country that would rid them of their leader was not at all a bastion of freedom, dispatching its legions across the seas to defend liberty, but a greedy, menacing imperial power.
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ABC News
'Bin Laden' Tape Claims Plot Vs. Muslims 2-16-03
In the full tape recording, a raspy voice said to belong to bin Laden says the United States' goal in waging war against Iraq is to change the regional map to benefit Israel.
"It is clear that the preparations to attack Iraq are part of a series of attacks prepared for nations of the region including Syria, Iran, Egypt and Sudan," the voice said.
"The aim of the Crusaders' campaign is to prepare the atmosphere for the establishment of the so-called greater Israel state, which includes great parts of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and large portions of (Saudi Arabia)," it said.
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