How Right (Or Wrong) Does Television Get It?

From MSNBC.com, two stories about how television reflects the real world; a piece on the progress women have made in breaking through the glass ceiling since the 1970s,and a story on those interesting older woman/younger man relationships. Along the way: do anti-discrimination laws help or hurt, or have no effect? Do women flooding into the workplace eventually have the effect of flooding into the boardroom, or not?

Madeleine Albright has some interesting things to say about the power of a woman's word, even if it's expressed symbolically. In her new book, Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat's Jewel Box (HarperCollins, 2009) the first female U.S. Secretary of State discusses how Saddam Hussein inspired her use of jeweled pins to make subtle pronouncements on behalf of the government. "It would never have happened if not for Saddam Hussein. When U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright criticized the dictator, his poet in residence responded by calling her "an unparalleled serpent." Shortly thereafter, while preparing to meet with Iraqi officials, Albright pondered: What to wear? She decided to make a diplomatic statement by choosing a snake pin. Although her method of communication was new, her message was as old as the American Revolution—Don't Tread on Me." (From the B&N website). The pins are part of a special exhibit at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, and then will travel to several cities in the country including Little Rock and Indianapolis.