Bledsoe / Out Of The NFL & Into Business

BEND, Ore. — On the first day of the first football season after his retirement, Drew Bledsoe actually missed two-a-days. In the morning, he climbed into his boat and floated on Whitefish Lake in Montana and allowed for 30 minutes of reflection.

Then he started training camp.

This was not training camp like the ones Bledsoe reported to during his 14-year N.F.L. career. This was Camp Bledsoe, the beginning of his transition.

He grabbed a camera and asked his wife to snap a shot of him sitting on a deck, feet in the water, beer clutched between his legs. He sent the picture to dozens of friends still playing in the N.F.L., all sweating through training camp in the sun.

“As you can see from this first picture I am maintaining my strict workout regimen,” he wrote them. “You can see here I am alternating some 12-ounce curls with some toe swirls. I generally do these until the bottle gets too light to offer enough resistance then I start over with a fresh one.”

The messages continued through the first week of camp — Bledsoe riding his motorcycle, sipping wine, playing golf. By the end, Bledsoe knew deep down what he already suspected. His N.F.L. career was over.

“When training camp came and went, and I wasn’t there, that was when the official break happened,” said the 36-year-old Bledsoe, who announced his retirement last April. “I left that phase of my life and moved on to the next one.”

Last week, quarterback Brett Favre joined Bledsoe in the retired quarterbacks club. Next season, Favre will experience what Bledsoe went through this year, a transition from veteran signal caller to real-world rookie.

On a recent two-day tour of his new life in the city of Bend, Ore., Bledsoe conducted a business meeting over wine, coached third graders on the basketball court and closed a business deal on the ski slopes at nearby Mount Bachelor.

Bledsoe began planning his transition six years before his retirement, about the same time his tenure ended with the New England Patriots. They selected him out of Washington State with the first overall pick in the 1993 draft, and Bledsoe’s entire family traveled to New York City, their first trip together on an airplane.

“Like the Waltons go to New York” Bledsoe said.

During his ninth season in New England, against the Jets in late September 2001, Bledsoe took the most vicious of hit of his career. Linebacker Mo Lewis smacked Bledsoe along the sideline as he tried to run for a first down. Four liters of blood flowed into Bledsoe’s chest cavity, until his lungs failed to inflate.

Bledsoe went back into the game, but he could not remember plays he spent years practicing. He needed assistance getting dressed after the game.

In Bledsoe’s absence, the Patriots turned to a young and unknown quarterback named Tom Brady. Bledsoe threw a touchdown pass in the American Football Conference Championship game that year, but Brady started in the Super Bowl, and the Patriots’ dynasty began with Bledsoe on the sideline.

“I don’t play the what-if game much,” Bledsoe said. “And of course, I believe had I not gotten hit, we would have done the same thing. As an athlete, you have to believe that.”

After that season, Bledsoe felt a strong urge to walk away. Instead, he went to Buffalo, where he made his fourth Pro Bowl, then to Dallas, where he was benched again. His career ended with more than 44,000 passing yards and 251 touchdown passes.

The Cowboys pulled Bledsoe at halftime of a game against the Giants in late October 2006. He said he decided to retire then, but waited until the season ended to make sure he was not simply making an emotional decision.

Bledsoe says he is still bothered by the perception at the end of his career that he was too slow and his skills were declining. He insists his skills “had not diminished to any measurable degree.”Bledsoe wished he could show up at the scouting combine wearing a disguise, pretending to be from a small school, essentially starting over.

“Perception always bugged me,” said Adam Bledsoe, his younger brother. “In the latter half of his career, he became a whipping boy.”

Bledsoe relished standing on the field, the center of attention, 80,000 fans packed in the stands. But after the second benching, after teammates started addressing him by Mister, he decided to fade into the background. He started to decline interview requests and began starting businesses.

He knew the statistics of recently retired players, the marriages that crumbled, the money that disappeared, the friend who refused to watch football for three years after retirement. Gone were the people who made his doctor’s appointments, gave him directions and planned nearly every minute of his day.

His biggest fear: finishing football and having no reason to get out of bed in the morning. As a result, Bledsoe said yes to everything. During his career, a winery deal with three other N.F.L. quarterbacks — Damon Huard, Rick Mirer and Dan Marino — fell through, so Bledsoe started his own vineyard. He planted the grapes three years ago, and the winery will start producing in 2010.

A coffee business, 11 Roasters, is in full swing. Bledsoe proudly shows off the fire-engine red roaster in his Bend offices and talks about his blends like a Starbucks chairman. (He says the Esmeralda special is a favorite.)

The idea behind all his endeavors, whether wine, coffee, real estate or the Drew Bledsoe Foundation, is to start slow, build small and then expand. Bledsoe said he believed every coffee blend, every bottle of wine, should tell a story.

His advice to Favre? Stay busy. Adam Bledsoe jokes that after his brother retired, he took golf as seriously as he used to take football. He raised $600,000 in four months to put in FieldTurf at the local high school.

Along the way, the strangest thing happened. Bledsoe sometimes awoke at 4:30 in the morning, excited to start the day.

He coached flag football in the fall and basketball in the winter. He and his wife, Maura, will celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary in May. Finger paintings from four children — Stu, 10, John, 8, Henry, 7, Healy, 4 — hang from the refrigerator.

Sometimes, Bledsoe’s family wonders the same things as everybody else. Like when Healy asked the other day, “Daddy, when are you going to play football again?”

Arizona, Carolina, Cincinnati and Jacksonville called this past season. Jacksonville’s offer intrigued Bledsoe. The Jaguars had a strong running game, a solid offensive line, a coach Bledsoe liked, and they were offering an easy seven-figure paycheck.

Bledsoe seriously considered it, but he decided to turn down the offer. When he woke up the next morning with a giant smile on his face, he knew he made the right decision.

Toward the end of his career, Bledsoe learned he had chronic head trauma migraines. Every time he was hit in the back of the head, he lost his peripheral vision.

“I really don’t have any regrets,” Bledsoe said. “Most people leave the game angry, at least for a little while. I had that with the Patriots, but I got over it, moved on.”

Humor eases the transition. His e-mail address starts exqb11. The Bledsoes’ Christmas card pictured the family dressed in holiday gear, with its recently retired father sitting oblivious in the middle, watching television.

There were times when Bledsoe missed the game. At a restaurant in Montana, the Cowboys’ first preseason game was on television, and there were all his teammates, guys he played with only a few months earlier, moving on.During the Super Bowl, the Bledsoes went skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyo. They planned to leave on a Sunday, but snow forced them back inside the cabin, where they watched the Giants’ victory on television.

When the game ended, Maura held a glass of wine and toasted her husband on surviving his first season out of football. She noticed tears forming in his eyes.

At the end of the two-day Bend tour, Bledsoe pulled his Mercedes into the lot where the family is building its second dream home. The house will be about 10,000 square feet, with a wine cellar and a theater and an underground basketball court.

The last time Bledsoe built a home like this, he played for the Patriots, his career still in front of him. Scanning the mass of concrete, Bledsoe smiled. New dream house, new dreams, new life. This transition is complete.

“His career didn’t end the way we thought,” Maura said. “I always wanted it to end in the Super Bowl, ride into the sunset. But this works. He’s happy and busier than he’s ever been.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/sports/football/10bledsoe.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ei=5088&en=45384b34ee9e1e99&ex=1362801600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Former Panther / Current Raider Cooper Finds Purpose In Saving Animals

He Credits Those Who Can't Defend Themselves For Prolonging His Career.

OAKLAND – Jarrod Cooper can't take two steps in the Oakland Animal Shelter without stopping.

He might pause to pick up an abused dog recovering from surgery, gaze out a window at roosters rescued from a life of cockfighting or help socialize for adoption a malnourished animal being nursed back to health – all while wearing a huge grin.

And when discussing Code 597, the nonprofit he founded to fight animal cruelty, before taking a group of about a dozen Raiders fans dutifully dressed in silver and black – masks and all – for a tour of the shelter, Cooper is just as happy.

The shelter might as well be Cooper's second home. When he didn't have football last season, it became his solace.

Hit with a four-game suspension to start the season after violating the NFL's steroid and related substances policy, the Raiders safety seriously began considering life without the game when the team cut him before training camp.

That led Cooper to reflect on what he would like to do when his playing days end, and he turned to his childhood dream of being a veterinarian.

The Raiders eventually re-signed Cooper, and although his 2007 season was cut short by a torn anterior cruciate ligament in Week 12, that couldn't get him down. He had found solace in working with the animals.

"It changed my life," Cooper said. "I'm actually moving here. I live in (South) Carolina, but I want to work with animals when I'm done."

Cooper, however, isn't waiting until he's done with the NFL to pursue a career as an animal control officer.

If Cooper isn't working out, he's at the shelter or on his way. If he can't be there, he's calling to check in.

Cooper has attacked working with animals the same way he tracks down punt returners as a gunner on special teams – full steam ahead with no regard for anyone trying to stop him.

"He wants to beat down the door of somebody," said animal control officer Andrew Gordon, who has spent 33 years at the shelter. "Especially for the animals."

Cooper isn't literally tackling animal abusers – although if he could, he probably would – but he does help screen families that want to adopt animals and goes out of his way to help educate others on animal abuse.

Last fall, he began taking ride-alongs with animal control officers. Instead of using Tuesdays, the team's day off, to rest, Cooper spent eight-hour days volunteering to beat down the doors of animal abusers.

"It was Code 597 left and right," Cooper said. "We picked up dogs, cats, dead animals. It was nonstop. I was exhausted when we were done."

Cooper has spent many a tiring day at the shelter doing whatever needs to be done.

"Nothing's beneath him," animal control officer Nicole Frede said. "He's been in kennels cleaning up dog poop, and we have people to do that – on his hands and knees picking up dog poop in the kennel when he doesn't have to."

If you didn't know better, you might assume Cooper was on the payroll. Instead, it's Cooper pouring money into the shelter, including the recent addition of the "Coop," an open area for dogs to roam free.

He speaks in "we" terms when talking about the shelter and gives tours with a comfort level that proves he spends as much time rehabilitating his knee as he does helping socialize animals for adoption.

"He really is addicted to this place because I had to put him on a schedule," said his girlfriend, Erica Arana, who helps with the nonprofit and volunteers at the shelter. "I'd call him and say, 'Hello, you can't possibly still be there. The place closes at 6.' He really is here every day."

Though his veterinary dreams were derailed when he realized the curriculum was too intensive to coincide with playing college football at Kansas State, Cooper never lost his love for animals.

Code 597 was born out of Cooper's desire to educate the public on how to properly care for animals. He reminds people on tours of the facility, for example, that it's not OK to leave their dog chained all day. The program also pays for animals to be spayed or neutered if owners can't afford to do so.

It's all part of the perspective Cooper has gained from working at the shelter.

"I don't think any player really has it that bad," Cooper said in between playing with dogs. "You're living the dream and doing what you want to do. You come here and see reality.

"Working here probably prolonged my career. It takes a lot of stress off you. (After retiring), I'll probably be an ACO with a big thing of mace to spray people with."

So if you're out to harm animals, cover your eyes.

NFL Players Open Up About Sexual Abuse

TO BE HONEST, Al Chesley says he doesn't know how much the terrible secret he kept within affected his life.
The former Eagles linebacker won't say it was the root of the alcohol and drug abuse that might have cut short his NFL career.

He doesn't know how much it contributed to his issues with anger management or with authority figures. He doesn't know if it caused him to be a womanizer.

All Chesley knows is that after 37 years of hiding, fearing, feeling ashamed, the last 3 months have started the healing process, and he wants to let others who may be suffering like he had know that help is available.

"I don't know how bad it hurt me," Chesley said of being sexually abused when he was 13 years old. "I self-medicated myself with illegal drugs and alcohol. I was into womanizing and had anger problems.

"I don't know how much it contributed to those things, but it could have played a big part. I'm not crying the victim. I was a victim then, but now I'm a survivor.

"All I want to do now is set an alarm, to help other people out there who are going through what I did. You don't have to suffer."

Chesley, 50, was in Wilmington yesterday along with members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to encourage law-enforcement officials to extend their support and encouragement to victims of pedophilia.

It was the first time Chesley, who played 3 1/2 seasons for the Eagles and was a member of the 1980 Super Bowl team, has spoken in a large public setting about the abuse he suffered.

He said when he was 13, a Washington police officer he thought was his friend coaxed him into his apartment and performed oral sex on him.

"I hadn't had any sexual experience prior to that," Chesley said. "He stole some of my innocence. I always knew something was wrong with that incident but I was never able to talk about it."

Chesley said he kept this secret for 37 years, in part because he didn't want his parents to find out.

"I did not want to embarrass them," Chesley said of his parents, who are deceased. "That was probably a warped way to look at things, but I was still thinking I did something wrong. I was just 13 years old.

"As I look back now, my parents would have loved me more and been very supportive of me if I told them."

Paul Livingston, who is the San Diego director of SNAP, said Chesley's story is not uncommon. Livingston, who said a janitor at his school sexually abused him when he was 7, said pedophiles count on their victims being too ashamed or afraid to speak out.

"These predators are vicious and vindictive," Livingston said. "They groom us, threaten us not to speak out. We end up blaming ourselves our whole lives."

Playing at 6-3, 240 pounds, Chesley had the invincible physique of a modern-day gladiator, but it was only window dressing for the child suffering inside.

"I was a big, strong football player, but inside I was still the little boy who was hurting," he said. "I was carrying this deep, dark secret."

Chesley said he first started thinking about telling his story to someone about 3 years ago.

He was watching the "Oprah Winfrey Show" when New York Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles told his story of being sexually abused for 3 years by the man who would become his stepfather.

"I didn't have the courage to come out at all, let alone on television in front of millions of people," Chesley said. "But to hear [Coles'] story was huge. He seemed so free. I could sense how free he was.

"I knew from that moment on, I had to get real with myself."

But it took more time, and then about 3 months ago he went to a support group meeting, where he met Livingston. The two talked afterward, and Chesley knew he had found what he needed.

"It just went from there," he said. "I'm a much healthier person. I'm 50 and working on the second half of my life.

"I wish I would have had the courage to talk about this 20, 10, 5 years ago. I don't know how many people I may have been able to help."

And helping others is all Chesley wants to do now by sharing his story, delivering information and encouraging victims to get the help that is available.

"You don't have to suffer," he said. "I was an unhealthy person to keep it in as long as I did.

"I don't want children to get tricked and to succumb to what I did. And if it's already happened to them, they need to tell someone about that person.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You were the victim and there are avenues for you to get help." *

Send e-mail to

smallwj@phillynews.com.

Who Is Dmitry Medvedev, Is He Merely Putin's Puppet Or The Man Who Can Reform Russia ?

Dmitry Medvedev is soft-spoken former law professor who has risen in the ranks of Russian politics because he is a protege of Vladimir Putin. He was handpicked by Putin in 2007 to be his successor. Before Russia's presidential election on March 2, 2008, long before a ballot was cast, Medvedev was called "Russian's next president" and heavily favoured to win.

Medvedev, a 42-year-old who comes from an academic family, is mostly defined in Russia by what he is not. He does not have a background in the security forces. He is not said to be charismatic. He reportedly has never raised his voice to a subordinate. He does not bark orders. He is not stern. His style is described as softer and gentler than that of Putin. He is said to be intelligent, competent and calm.

What he stands for, and whether his publicly stated positions would lead to reforms, is not yet clear. Medvedev is largely a man of mystery. He has spoken of "full democracy," he has complained of "legal nihilism" in Russia, he has made mention of the need for a "unified state."

But political observers said Putin would most likely remain the boss in the Kremlin regardless of who won the presidential election: Medvedev or his rivals, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Gennady Zyuganov and Andrei Bogdanov.

Medvedev is clearly Putin's chosen man. He has served as Russian first deputy prime minister, a position created for him by Putin in 2005, when Putin made him responsible for "national projects." And during the run-up to the 2008 election, Medvedev said that if victorious, he would ask Putin to become prime minister.

Aurel Braun, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Toronto, told CBC News that even if Medvedev wanted to distance himself from Putin and carry out real changes, he currently lacks the strength.

"He is creature of Putin. He doesn't have an independent power base. He is an appointee. He's not there because he's earned the position. He has not built a power base from which he could counter Putin," Braun said.

"Could he create a group of loyalists around himself? If not, he will be an administrative president, working to ensure a third term for Putin."

Hints Of Liberal Leanings

In speeches, Medvedev has indicated he is more liberal than Putin. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 27, 2007, he said: "Today we are building new institutions based on the fundamental principles of full democracy."

He went further: "This democracy requires no additional definition. This democracy is effective and is based on the principles of the market economy, supremacy of the law and government that is accountable to the rest of society. We are fully aware that no undemocratic country has ever become truly prosperous, and this for the simple reason that it is better to have freedom than not to have it."

He is also on the record as saying he would like to improve the rule of law, to support civil society and to fight corruption. His presidential campaign slogan, "Forward, Russia," suggests he is interested in progress.

In a speech in Moscow on Dec. 11, 2007, Medvedev said he wants to decrease poverty, improve health care and education, and to raise living standards in rural areas.

Much has also been made of his musical tastes, in part because some seized on them as a sign that Medvedev was more modern and hipper than his predecessors. He is a devoted fan of hard rock and cites Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin among his favourites. These bands would have been on the state-issued blacklists during Medvedev's Soviet-era schooldays, but he has said he had taped copies, perhaps from bootleggers. Today, he collects the bands' original vinyls and said in an interview with Russian magazine Itogi that he had amassed all of Deep Purple's recordings.

But the question remains: will Medvedev emerge from Putin's shadow and be his own man?

'Liberal Reformer' Or 'Complete Figurehead'?

Experts say Medvedev would likely be a transitional president with real power vested in Putin, who is barred from serving a third consecutive term as president by the Russian constitution.

Medvedev, in his Dec. 11 speech, did not dispel the idea that he would be anything but deferential to Putin, saying it is "extremely important" for Russia to keep Putin in the "most important position" as chairman of Russia's government.

Gary Wilson, a political science professor at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, B.C., said Medvedev is presenting himself as slightly more modern than Putin.

"He certainly comes across as being very honest, very competent, very educated and cultured. He's young, he's sort of considered a liberal reformer, someone who is supportive of reforms towards a market economy, towards democracy, a democracy in which a leader plays a very strong role."

However, like the University of Toronto's Braun, Wilson said he sees Medvedev as completely dependent on Putin for power. While Medvedev is viewed as a competent politician, he is a first and foremost a Putin loyalist, Wilson said.

"I think they'll work closely together to achieve the goals that they set out. I don't want to say he'll be a complete figurehead, but I think that they've worked together for so long and they share a lot of the same values that they just sort of work in tandem," he said.

"This is the safe bet for Putin."

Wilson said that if Putin accepted the offer to become prime minister, there could be a power reversal in the Russian government. He said that while the constitution was structured for a strong president and a weaker prime minister, Putin could use his party's large majority in the legislature to override the presidential veto, should there ever be one.

"If Putin decides to become prime minister, I think Medvedev would be a very compliant president," he said, adding that Putin "could be pretty powerful as a leader."

The early years
Medvedev was born in 1965 in St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) and is the son of two university professors. He was a top student who went on to receive a law degree from St. Petersburg University in 1987 and completed a doctorate in law in 1990.

He taught law at St. Petersburg University before entering government in the early 1990s. He joined Putin, an ex-intelligence officer who was then a young bureaucrat in the office of Anatoly Sobchak, then mayor of St. Petersburg.

The professional relationship between the two continued when, in 1999, Putin became president. Medvedev served in several posts in the Putin government, including deputy chief of staff to the president, chief of staff and first deputy prime minister.

Since 2000, he has also been chairman of the board of directors of the state's natural-gas monopoly, Gazprom.

He is married to his secondary-school sweetheart, Svetlana, and they have a son, Ilya, born in 1996.

Election denounced as farce
Officially nominated as a presidential candidate in Dec. 17, 2007, Medvedev had the support of four Russian political parties going into the election: the ruling United Russia party and three smaller pro-Kremlin parties, A Just Russia, Agrarian Party of Russia and Civil Force Party.

Despite the official endorsement, some experts decried the election as a farce.

In an opinion piece published in the Moscow Times on Feb. 27, 2008 — headlined A Stolen Election — John Hopkins University professors Mitchell Orenstein and Serhiy Kudelia wrote that Medvedev was being "painted as a new liberal" but none the four presidential candidates represented real change.

The University of Toronto's Braun said the election process itself was negative because it was not transparent. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe announced in early February that it was not going to send observers to monitor the election, citing a lack of co-operation from Moscow.

"This is not the way you run an election," Braun said.

He said the less-than-open election is an attempt to create a political duo in which Putin is the bad cop, while Medvedev is the good cop.

But a headline in the Feb. 28, 2008, issue of the London-based newsmagazine The Economist suggests that Medvedev may first have to establish himself as a presence. The headline read: "Russia's new president, the name's Dmitry."

Too Early To Guess

Braun said political scientists have been poring over statements made by Medvedev to discern political leanings. However, he added that it is all speculation.

"We are trying to deconstruct his messages. Even if he is more Liberal than Putin, will he have the capacity to implement reforms? It's way too early to predict. It's almost like reading tea leaves. You dissect every word; you parse every sentence. There are suggestions of intent, but there is the question of capacity," he said.

"We have to look closely at what is happening. We have to analyze statements, but we have to look at actual policy. Right now, we are guessing."

Story Complete / http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/russia/medvedev.html

The Playboy Bunny / A Singular American Icon

The Playboy Bunny was born on a cold February night in 1960, as
the most curious -- and, arguably, most fetching -- attraction at
the newly christened Playboy Club in Chicago. Indeed, when the
key club had first solicited prospective employees the year
before, the ad that was placed in the Chicago Tribune sought,
"the 30 most beautiful girls in Chicagoland."


More than acting simply as cocktail waitresses, hostesses and
servers at Playboy Clubs around the world over the course of a
quarter-century, the Playboy Bunny became a cultural icon -- one
that represents not only the corporate identity of Playboy
Enterprises, Inc., but likewise the persona of a lifestyle that
combines entertainment, sophistication, sexuality and fun. In the
first 20 years alone, more than 25,000 women donned rabbit ears
and cottontails, many of them working their way through college
by way of the job's legendary ample pay and flexible hours.


Contrary to critics who assumed that the Playboy Bunny mystique
was more about being an ornament than working, the job actually
required considerable skill. Ironically, Playboy founder Hugh
Hefner had almost personally put his waitresses in shortie
nightgowns -- a rabbit outfit, he reasoned, was too masculine an
image for the ladies of his cocktail corps. But Victor Lownes,
then the magazine's promotion director, along with other
associates convinced Hefner that he should extend onto the live
entertainment front the rabbit theme that he had so carefully
integrated into the pages of his magazine. Then Lownes'
girlfriend, a Latvian model who had appeared on Hef's TV show,
Playboy's Penthouse, convinced her mother, a seamstress, to
assemble a sample costume. No one could have guessed that a
classic was about to be sewn.


After its creation, the Bunny Costume was registered with the
U.S. Patent Office, and was ultimately displayed in the
Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Former Playboy Bunny's include actresses Lauren Hutton, Sherilyn
Fenn and Susan Sullivan, as well as rock star Deborah Harry. But
perhaps the most famous Bunny may have also been the most
infamous: Feminist Gloria Steinem went undercover as a cottontail
in 19TK to write an expose for Show magazine all about life in
the Bunny hutch. But guess who ironically got the last laugh!
Although the controversial article was intended as a criticism of
the Playboy Bunny in particular and Hugh Hefner's empire in
general, the publicity it generated went on to establish the
Playboy Bunny even more firmly as a singular American icon.


Article Complete / http://www.petcaretips.net/playboy-bunny.html

What If Women Ruled The World ?

If women ruled the world, everything would change, according to former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers. Politics would be more collegial. Businesses would be more productive. And communities would be healthier. Empowering women would make the world a better place. Blending memoir, social history and a call to action, Myers challenges us to imagine a not-too-distant future in which increasing numbers of women reach the top ranks of politics, business, science and academia. Here's an excerpt from “Why Women Should Rule the World”:

Introduction
Women should rule the world.

That was it, the answer to my frustration and growing political alienation. It seemed so simple, so obvious. Women!

If we were in charge, things might actually change. Instead of posturing, we’d have cooperation. Instead of gridlock, we’d have progress. Instead of a shouting match, we’d have a conversation. A very long conversation. But a conversation nonetheless. Everyone would just hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.”

Or would they? What would it be like if women ruled the world, I began to wonder?

Would anything really change? Would the world be a better place? My hunch was that more women in public life would, in fact, make things better.

After all, more women already have.

It’s easy (and perhaps a bit facile) to argue that men haven’t done such a great job. The last century was the bloodiest in human history, and so far, this one has been a tale of war, terrorism, religious extremism, abject poverty, and disease. I’m not saying it’s all men’s fault. But let’s just say, they’ve been in charge, and it doesn’t seem we’re much closer to finding answers to these profound and vexing problems.

On the other hand, if there are societies where women have truly ruled, they are few and far between. For virtually all of history, woman has played a supporting role to man’s, well, leading man. A comprehensive review of encyclopedia entries published in the early 1900s included only 850 women, though it covered a span of nearly 2,000 years. And the queens, politicians, mothers, wives, mistresses, beauties, religious figures, and women of “tragic fate” were notable mostly for their relationships with men.

I have always believed that women could rule the world. As far back as I can remember, it has seemed obvious to me that women were, in fact, every bit as qualified as men in most endeavors, and better than them at many. Of course, the corollary — that men are better than women at some things — also seemed obvious, at least after the sixth grade. Before that, I thought I could do anything any boy could do. I was a good student and a good athlete, and I didn’t have much trouble keeping up with boys in the classroom or on the playground. But then Doug, another sixth grader at Wiley Canyon Elementary School in California, challenged my friend Peggy and me to a game of two-on-one basketball, first side to ten would win. He beat us 10-0.

I realized then that athletic boys are better basketball players than most girls, even the ones like Peggy and me who spent a fair amount of time shooting hoops. While I confess this was a bit disappointing at the time, I certainly didn’t think that boys were better at everything, or even most things. That idea simply never occurred to me.

Maybe it’s because I grew up surrounded by strong women. My mother, a product of her generation, left college after two years to marry my father, a young Navy pilot.

Within a few years, she had three little girls and a husband who was often at sea. With Castro’s ascent in Cuba, then the war in Vietnam, my dad was gone for weeks or even months at a time, and my mom was left to manage alone. One of my earliest memories is of helping my mom pack a little plastic Christmas tree, some cookies, and a few wrapped packages into a big box to send my dad, who was on a ship somewhere in Southeast Asia. But she never complained (at least not when my sisters and I were listening), and she never seemed overwhelmed by all that she had to do. The Navy, like all branches of the military, would collapse without the community of able women (and now a lot of men) who manage things stateside, while their husbands (and now some wives) are away. My mother and her network of Navy wives helped each other tend to sick children, unstop kitchen sinks, and deal with worrisome news from the war raging half a world away.

After my father left the Navy, we moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles, and my mom eventually earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees, then went to work, first as a counselor at a local college, then as an executive at the phone company. She was good at what she did, rose quickly in her various jobs, and got a lot of satisfaction from her professional accomplishments. I didn’t always like it when my mom was gone, but I never doubted that what she was doing was important. At the time, most of the mothers in my neighborhood stayed home, so what my mom was doing was unusual. But my dad was supportive, and my sisters and I were more proud than displaced — even when we had to eat dry macaroni and overcooked hot dogs every time it was my sister Betsy’s turn to make dinner. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t go to college and have a career — as well as a family — of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.


My father’s mother, Grandma Bernadette, also shaped my ideas about what women could accomplish, in ways I think she never would have imagined. Her husband — my grandfather — died of congestive heart failure (he’d had rheumatic fever as a child) when he was just thirty-seven, leaving her with five children: my dad, who was eleven, and his four sisters, ages twelve to two.

My grandfather had owned a gas station on Main Street in Racine, Wisconsin, while my grandmother was busy raising the children and playing the organ at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. She hadn’t been very involved in the business — and it certainly wasn’t a business where one expected to find women in 1946. Because of his heart condition, my grandfather didn’t have any life insurance, but his business was insured. So when he died — as my grandmother liked to tell it — the insurance men came to her house, suggested she sell it and the gas station, and move with her children into the Catholic orphanage across town. She told them to get the hell off her porch and never come back. She kept the station and managed the day- to-day operations until she sold it more than thirty years later.

She raised five children, put them all through college, and still found time to play the organ at Mass every weekday and five times on Sunday. While she clearly missed things about being married — and having a father for her children — she never really dated or considered marrying again. She would sometimes say she never found the right fellow, but her daughters believe that she simply liked being the boss.

So my grandmother — by fate, rather than design — was a small business owner and single mom long before women routinely did either, let alone both. And I’ve often wondered: What would have happened to another family if the mother had died and left the father with five young children? How many men could have managed to run the business, raise the kids, and volunteer at church six days a week, all by themselves?

In addition to my mother and grandmother, I grew up surrounded by accomplished women. The principal of my elementary school. My guidance counselor in high school. My father’s sisters. My friends’ mothers, and my mother’s friends. It seemed to me that women were capable of doing just about anything. Not that they were always allowed to, of course. When I was in second grade (even before I learned that boys were better at basketball), our teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. The kid next to me, Robert, drew himself as a TV repairman. While his choice of career may not have thrilled his parents, it struck me hard. Wow, I thought. He can be anything. I have to be a teacher, or a nurse, or a nun. I drew myself as a teacher.

Happily, the years since I finished the second grade have seen an exponential increase in options. Girls can now aspire to be elementary school teachers or university presidents; nurses or doctors; nuns or — in many denominations — priests or ministers or rabbis. Girls and boys can be engineers, entrepreneurs, or astronauts. They can repair televisions or appear on them as actors or journalists. They can build homes or stay home with the kids.

And they can be press secretary to the president of the United States, as I was.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23308727/?GT1=10856 / Link For Tech Purpose

Amsetrdam's War On Sex / Famous ''Red Light'' District Closing

Two weeks ago a young Dutch fashion designer named Bas Kosters opened a new store. His colorful and sumptuous creations—skirts, handbags, sweatshirts—merit attention. But the most striking aspect of his new venue is the location. Kosters's work is on display in Amsterdam's Red Light District behind two tall windows that until recently were used as a brothel. The ladies have vanished. The red lights and curtains have been removed and replaced by Kosters's hyperfashionable clothes.

Kosters found this studio thanks to an ambitious plan by the Amsterdam city government. Arguing that too many brothels and sex bars are linked to criminality, the authorities plan to all but erase the Red Light District. If the plan goes through, the peep shows, sex shops and prostitute windows that line the small alleys and canals will have to go, giving way to galleries, boutiques and upscale restaurants and bars. Goodbye to the big neon signs advertising every possible form of sexual indulgence.

Amsterdam without the Red Light District? Wouldn't that be like Paris without the Eiffel Tower? Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, and his aldermen have demonstrated little nostalgia for the district, which has been the world's most famous home of sexual permissiveness since the 15th century. They first unveiled the plan to close it in December; last month they revoked the licenses of two widely known sex venues, the Casa Rosso and the Banana Bar. The next step is to buy out the real estate owners. Last fall the city struck a deal with a powerful brothel owner, Charles Geerts (known as "Fat Charlie"), to buy 20 buildings.

driving force behind the cleanup is Lodewijk Asscher. A young star of the Dutch Labour Party and deputy mayor of Amsterdam, Asscher believes it's time to deliver his hometown from sleaze—even if he's scuppering a $100 million-a-year industry in the process. He is pleasantly surprised, he says, by the public support he's gotten for the plan. "Every day I get e-mails," he says. A recent survey confirms the sentiment: the city administration's polling agency found that 67 percent of Amsterdam's population supports a clampdown on sketchy business. The Amsterdam City Council approved the plan about two weeks ago by an overwhelming 43-2 majority.

But not everybody is happy about the change. Jan Broers, owner of Royal Taste, a hotel in the heart of the Red Light District, and eight prostitute windows, has formed a protest committee called Platform 1012 (named after the area's ZIP code). He claims to have collected thousands of signatures. This week the group staged a protest march, starting in front of the Casa Rosso and ending in Dam Square, where thousands of people shared a minute of silence. They carried pink balloons and signs saying "Hands off the Red Light District" and a poster of Asscher doctored to look as if he was with a street hooker.

Broers is afraid that fewer tourists will come to a sexless Amsterdam, harming legitimate, legal businesses. Most of all, he says, he feels "stigmatized" by the city government. "With all his rhetoric, deputy mayor Asscher is giving the district a bad name throughout the world," he says. "People phone me up from abroad every day, worried we might be gone already." Broers questions the city's premise that prostitution leads to criminal activities in the area. Indeed, the city, which is acting under laws that require only a suspicion of criminal activity, can point only to studies from the mid-1990s. "It's a shield. The city just wants to gentrify the neighborhood, so they can make some good money. And they're using public funds to buy all the real estate."

And what about the ladies? The Red Light District has about 450 windows where women offer their services. The majority of those will be closed down. Where will the inhabitants go, once they're forced out of work? Asscher says most of the prostitutes are part of international human-trafficking networks that draw on women from Eastern Europe, and they will most likely move on to Antwerp, Hamburg and other European cities. For those that remain, the city administration may start certifying pimps and require that prostitutes who work for them to be 21 years old.

The Dutch Sex Workers Union fears that many women and girls will be forced to start walking the streets. On its Web site the union calls the city's plans to certify pimps "bizarre." Since prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000, it argues, sex workers don't need pimps to find a place to work. Ruth Hopkins, a Dutch-English investigative journalist who has written extensively on prostitution in Amsterdam, says the city government overstates the extent of involuntary prostitution. "Even though there are gangs of pimps, a lot of women, mostly Africans and Latinos, do their work in complete independence," she says. Hopkins fears that a cleaned-up Amsterdam will be a boring city.

The crackdown fits into a nationwide backlash against the excesses of 1960s "happy-clappy" liberalism, as a conservative Dutch member of parliament recently put it. Over the last few years the Netherlands has adopted a stricter policy on selling marijuana, and a ban on hallucinogenic mushrooms is slated to go into effect later this year. "People in Amsterdam and the rest of the country are starting to discern real tolerance from bogus tolerance," says Asscher. "When Rudy Giuliani started to clean up Times Square in the mid-'90s, some people were warning that no one would ever again want to come to New York City. But as far as I know, it has had record tourist numbers each year since." Perhaps Giuliani, who this week dropped out of the U.S. presidential race, should run for office in the Netherlands.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/109373/page/2