PBS Panel Excludes Women Journos

Kudos to Alicia Shepard for addressing the fact that women in the media get short-shrift all around: from representation on panels, to bylines, to story sourcing, to the subjects of stories themselves, the number of female faces you'll see has absolutely no correlation to our numbers in the actual world--or even in the behind the scenes in the media. It's a problem that simply won't budge until we have more women in the executive ranks and behind the money in the media. When the day comes that there are as many women signing paychecks (and I mean, ALL the paychecks) as there are men, then we'll have a better shot at seeing something that looks like reality on the page, stage and set. Makes a lady leader want to head to business school, doesn't it?

Weekend Round-up

This past weekend was the kind there should be more of: full of friends, full of food, and peppered by not a little sports action on the television. The best part of the sports bit was that Jess and I got to watch the women of NC State show Duke who's boss, only to have them lose the ACC finals to UNC (the highs...the lows). The NC State coach, Kay Yow, is apparently a real trailblazer (a precursor to Pat Summit, even) and has spent this entire season battling breast cancer while continuing to coach. And when I say "battling" I mean "BATTLING": she's had to be carried off the court in a stretcher after practice, and has been hooked up to an IV in her office--just to be there, just to show a group of girls what determination means. It really was unbelievable to see her sitting there on the bench during that semi-final match, still there, still with them, after all that. As I said to Jess after their win brought Duke's unbeaten record to an end, "Well, how mad can Gail Goestenkors be at that?" Some things are bigger than basketball and from where I sat, this sure looked like one of them.

In other news, here are the articles of note from this past weekend:

The Science Behind God: I'll admit that I haven't had time to finish this one yet, but given that a variant of this debate took up a good portion of a small dinner party's attention on Saturday night, I figure it's a hot topic. Why we believe is at least as important an inquiry as whether we believe, right?

Jeff Wall at MoMA: The New Yorker review of the installation may be middling, but I think this exhibit is still worth seeing, 1) because most folks don't know who Wall is and 2) his work is startling and profound, in a way that stays with you for hours after you actually see the work. I can't even recall how long it's been since I first saw his "After: Invisible Man" piece, and I can still conjure the image in my head in an instant, so deep did it burn into my mind's eye. Well worth the $20 ticket.

Hillary & Barack March on Selma: Is it wrong that seeing Hillary turn up here, on Barack's heels and with Bill at her side, after being "non-committal" for weeks, makes me feel a little queasy? I cannot stand the thought that this is going to devolve into one of those internal wars that leaves everyone on this side bleeding and everyone on the other side laughing at us from the winner's circle, but it looks almost inevitable, doesn't it? (Except for that winner's circle bit--I'm not quite ready to concede that much yet.)

To Do: Spend $1,000 to Breathe Same Air as Barack & Michelle

I won't be shelling out the cash for this particular fundraiser (not because I don't support Barack, but because I am trying to support myself), but if there are any of you out there who are interested in seeing the junior Senator from Illinois and his wife up close, here's your chance. Next Friday, March 9th from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, Barack and Michelle will attend one of their first major fundraising events here in New York, at the Grand Hyatt. If you're interested in learning how to get tickets (minimum donation: $1,000 per person), shoot me an email and I'll let you know more.

And for those who can't swing the price of that ticket, there'll be another event for the Obamas later that evening, where you can catch your glimpse for a more reasonable $100 a head. God bless those community organizing roots!

Health Care for All? Most American Say Yes

Over at the NYT, Robin Toner and Janet Elder are reporting that a new poll shows a majority of Americans support guaranteed health care for all citizens--even if it means increasing taxes today and killing all future tax cuts. 47 million Americans--that's a full 15% of the population--currently have no form of health insurance, and it seems that most of us understand that that's just unacceptable. In fact, in terms of domestic issues, health care issues out rank immigration, tax cuts and "values" on voters lists of concerns with regard to the upcoming election.

So does this give Hillary, with her strong health care background, any kind of edge? That bit is less clear, not least of all because though the poll demonstrates widespread support of coverage for all, Americans remain pretty divided about what that coverage should look like--i.e., whether it should be government sponsored (as the Clinton plan suggested) or managed by private entity. It's that old, Democrat/Republican split again, but still good to see that the issue is at the top of lots of minds, whether those minds run Red or Blue.

Yale's Most Beautiful People: An Oxymoron?

This little nugget triggered a recollection that has certainly been hibernating in the recesses of my brain since the day in May of 1997 that I was graduated from this particular institution: that no matter how dorky a group of people happens to be, they'll always try to find a way to separate the (relatively) pretty from the not so. I can't believe that I completely forgot that the Rumpus published this Most Beautiful People issue, because even if you disdained it, you couldn't help but grab the first copy you could find (to see whether you, or any of your suitemates) had made it. Anyone who can provide me with a copy of 1997's edition wins $20... and if you can provide me with inside information about what any of those BPs are doing now, I'll throw in 5 more.

To Read: "Crisis in the Village" by Robert Franklin

On The Huffington Post today, Jim Wallis blogs about a book just out called Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities. According to the publisher, the book aims to identify,

"the crises resident within three anchor institutions that have played key roles in the black struggle for freedom. Black families face a crisis of commitment evident in the rising rates of father absence, births to unmarried parents, divorce, and domestic abuse or relationship violence. Black churches face a mission crisis as they struggle to serve their upwardly mobile and/or established middle class paying customers alongside the poorest of the poor. Historically black colleges and universities face a crisis of relevance and purpose as they now compete for the best students and faculty with the broad marketplace of colleges."

Family, church and education. The core values don't get much more concrete than that, do they? Marian Wright Edelman and Cornel West both blurbed the book, and the author has Wallis stumping for him as well--so I'm guessing it's a pretty important read. And for those who imagine that a book about the state of the black community won't be of importance to them, I would offer the reminder that we as a society, are only as well off as the least among us. Time to broaden the worldview, wouldn't you say?

Co-Sleeping Isn't News to Me

Though the NY Times seems to think it's discovered the hippest, craziest thing since sliced bread in the idea of co-sleeping--that is, where parents and children share a family bed, either on occasion or permanently--it's a concept that's as old as time and more common than most people, until recently, were willing to admit. I stand before you as a one adult, at least, who grew up in a family in which sharing beds was more the rule than the exception: I feel almost certain that my brother and I spent more nights sleeping in our grandmother's king sized bed, or our mother's, than we ever spent in the perfectly good beds we had in our very own rooms. And as far as I can tell, we've both turned into perfectly fine, independent people despite (or because of) this fact.

To me, the compelling thing here is the story's rocket-like ascent to the top of the NYT's "Most E-mailed" list, which makes two things absolutely incontrovertible: 1) More people are covertly co-sleeping than we ever allowed ourselves to know before, and 2) The online edition of the NYT is read exclusively by mommies. Regardless, as someone who's had to defend the practice through much of my life, I'm glad to see the conversation starting in the public realm. It's strange how something that was so non-controversial--that was actually a necessity--throughout much of the history of time, has come to have so much stigma attached to it. I'm not sure why people feel so uptight about having (their own) children in their beds, but I'm blaming The Victorians.