NEWS BITS & BITES

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WORD
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

President Bush says America has caused an incredible transformation in
Afghanistan. He said everything's being rebuilt, people are getting
jobs, kids are going back to school. He said it works so well that he's
thinking of trying it in New Orleans. -- Jay Leno

It's also spring break in Iraq. It's kinda like here, half of them
getting bombed, half of them getting stoned. - Jay Leno


Pentagon records show that at least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer
U.S. Army have deserted since the Iraq war began. Hey, at least somebody
has an exit strategy. - Tina Fey

Sen. Russ Feingold, who I believe is running for president, said over
the weekend he's pushing the Senate to censure the president over
spying. Bush, he isn't worried about it, he knew it was coming. He'd
been listening to Feingold's conversations for the last three months.
--Jay Leno

The Sopranos are a lot like the Bush administration. There are wiretaps,
people going to jail, and the second in command accidentally shoots his
best friend. --Jay Leno

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE MIX
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

WOMEN

HELEN THOMAS ON GETTING STARTED AS A WOMAN REPORTER - When I started
out, there was kind of an automatic reflex to assign a woman who comes
knocking on the door of the newspaper--if there's any slot it would be
on the woman's pages, which is ok because there's lots of news in that
field. But it was the tail end of World War II, and they were drafting
every young man who had a pulse. If he was breathing, he was going to
war, and that left a lot of slots in the hard news offices for help. So
women suddenly became the thing to hire.

But after the war, it was a real shocker to me. We had about nine women
fired from our office. I was hiding under a table, knowing this. But
they wouldn't have wanted me; I was going to work at 5:30 in the morning
and I was simply a gofer, really. The presumption was that these male
reporters, young men, 21 years old, 22 years old who had usually been in
college, would want to come back to these jobs for $24 a week. They came
back as colonels, captains, commanders and so forth. And they looked at
those girls and said "Hell no!"

I hate to think that World War II helped me get started--I mean that's
the tragedy. That was true in medicine, law, all these
professions--women had a tough, tough time. Still--they're not there
yet. They should never give up the battle for equality. . .

The Press Club we couldn't go--you had to be escorted by a man if you
were going to get a cocktail or dinner or something. That was shocking.
Even though we were on beats with men, toe-to-toe in competition, they
did not take us in until 1971. And it was because the Club was down on
its uppers, financially, and needed our money, needed our dues. - CAMPUS
PROGRESS

http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/33176/


HERALD-LEADER, KY - Mothers may soon legally breast-feed their babies
anywhere they want in Kentucky. The House of Representatives approved a
measure 98-1 that affirms a mother's right to breast-feed in public. The
proposal has already won unanimous approval in the Senate and an aide to
Gov. Ernie Fletcher said yesterday the governor will sign the bill. . .
. Thirty-two states now have similar laws

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/14110178.htm?source=
yahoodist&content=ken_news

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
POLITICS
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BUSH'S HUMAN TOUCH

TIME MAGAZINE - Through the challenges, the President has kept his human
touch. Touring New Orleans last week, he met a man who had survived for
days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. "Were you the only
black man in Salt Lake City?" Bush asked.


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
IRAQ
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

LEARNING DISABLED LEADERS

ANN MCFEATTERS, SCRIPPS HOWARD - [Bush's] remarkably strange new
national security report makes clear that if he had it all to do over
again, he would do the same things, in the same order, on the same
scale.

INDEPENDENT, UK - Unrepentant and unmoved in spite of the rising death
toll, Tony Blair has declared that if he was faced with the same
circumstances, he would support the invasion of Iraq all over again.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||