EPIC FAILURE
It’s time we finally and permanently put Larry Summers out to pasture.
Many of you will remember Larry Summers. He is the sexist former President of Harvard University who infamously said: “There are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.” In other words, according to Larry, boys are better than girls at math – they’re just born that way. Shortly after this asinine comment, Larry was summarily dismissed …

A couple of years ago, there were three top women working for U.S. Investment Banks. Each was rumored to possibly be in a position to break a very high glass ceiling: to become the CEO of an investment bank. One by one, each has fallen. The reason? Well, the investment banks each fell on hard times, so the easy target was shown the door.
With the benefit of hindsight, I thought we could all revisit the performance of these firms after the ouster …

When you’ve got HuffPo offering us the trenchant political wisdom of such esteemed thinkers as Alec Baldwin, Brigitte Bardot and Madonna, you know it’s only a matter of time until someone hauls a camera crew into the prison facility where they’re holding Charlie Manson and asks him what he thinks of McCain’s running mate, Governor Sarah Palin.
HuffPo has a video up of Alec Baldwin ridiculing Palin when he appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday night. “That’s where she’s the most diseased,” the actor declaims, referring to Palin, …

Yesterday The New Agenda received the following response from Slate Magazine Editor, David Plotz:
October 6, 2008
Thanks for your note, and I’m sorry the article troubled you. Perrotta’s piece is insightful, witty, and provocative. He clearly separates the sexual sites from Palin, and no reasonable reader could possibly claim he was imputing their provocations to her. As to the larger issue of Palin’s sex appeal, only someone living in a cave for the past month could deny that it is an important element in her appeal. Conservative commentators talk about her …

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi was one of three European scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine yesterday. Half the prize will be split between Barre-Sinoussi, a French virologist, and another French Scientist for discovering HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. An American Virologist who has claimed co-credit for the discovery, was not honored.
One of The New Agenda’s co-founders, Dr. Nancy Hopkins, had some unique insight into the situation:
This woman discovered the AIDS virus. It was daring, courageous, and potentially dangerous work because one did not know if the virus could …

October 6, 2008
Thanks for your note, and I’m sorry the article troubled you. Perrotta’s piece is insightful, witty, and provocative. He clearly separates the sexual sites from Palin, and no reasonable reader could possibly claim he was imputing their provocations to her. As to the larger issue of Palin’s sex appeal, only someone living in a cave for the past month could deny that it is an important element in her appeal. Conservative commentators talk about her sex appeal all the time, and with great enthusiasm; Within the McCain campaign …

This weekend, Slate Magazine, a Washington Post subsidiary, featured on the front page of its website an illustration of Sarah Palin perched on a stool, wearing red high heels, with her breasts popping out of her skimpy red dress and a bible tightly squeezed between her bare thighs. The accompanying article by Tom Perrotta, entitled, “The Sexy Puritan”, suggests that Governor Palin is using “sexiness” to further her conservative Christian agenda.
In support of his argument, Perrotta cites a sex blog called “Christian Nymphos,” “whose authors,” he says, “offer candid how-to …

Hats off to the great state of Rhode Island.
This past week, Rhode Island passed a new law called the Lindsay Ann Burke Act which will require all public middle and high schools to teach students about dating violence in their health classes. The law requires that awareness and prevention are taught as part of the curriculum in grades 7-12.
Rhode Island is the first state to officially adopt such specific policy for young adults. Hopefully, this will set the example that other states will follow.
Estimates are that fully 33% of …

As this race has progressed, many of us have found it saddening and perhaps a bit disturbing to see the ease with which women attack other women.
When Sen. Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic nomination, many Democratic women did not stand behind her — because she wasn’t “likable”, was too much of the old establishment, or other reasons having little to do with policy and much more to do with a visceral dislike.
Now, as another woman candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin, makes her bid to become the first woman Vice …

In a move that should hardly be an eyebrow-raiser, the head of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women has endorsed a female candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin.
Shelly Mandell, who describes herself as a lifelong Democrat, delivered her endorsement at a rally in California, where she introduced Gov. Palin to a crowd of 20,000.
The reason this story is catching so much attention is because Kim Gandy, President of NOW, endorsed the all-male ticket of Obama and Biden. For many …