What I Learned From Viola Davis

This is a fabulous time of year for me, as I have the distinct pleasure of covering the Santa Barbara International Film Festival tributes—and the VIP after parties—for the local paper. (Tough job, I know.) Friday night brought SAG Award Winner and Academy Award Nominee Viola Davis to town, and the woman is a force! [...]

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Have it all? Yeah, right!

Once again, the “have it all” myth has reared it’s schizoid head.  This time, the poster-woman is Facebook’s second most famous face, COO Sheryl Sandberg, who graced the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday. Don’t get me wrong.  I love Sandberg.  We all do.  A graduate of the Harvard Business School (and [...]

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Brag, Dammit!

As one more reminder why you see more suits than skirts in the corporate suites, there’s this:  women don’t exaggerate nearly enough.  According to a recent study out of Columbia University Business School, one reason why men are more likely to succeed in business is because they’re much better braggers.  Men are much more likely [...]

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You Are Your Brand?

In the era of information overload, of Facebook, of “personal branding,” of Rachel Zoe–a woman famous for dressing other famous, ahem, grown women–how do we define ourselves? Have the little things come to mean too much? Have we sacrificed nuance in favor of a slick and quick elevator pitch, or swapped the legwork of figuring [...]

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Do We Do It To Ourselves?

The other day, I heard from Hilary, a former student who forwarded a pdf of the Letters page in the January issue of Washingtonian Magazine.  The top letter, which called out the editors for choosing to feature a naked woman on the cover, was hers: Your magazine is cutting edge, informative, and entertaining without being superficial.  [...]

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Hillary for Veep!

Did you catch Bill Keller’s piece in the New York Times yesterday? Called “Just the ticket,” it’s a pretty compelling case for replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton for second-to-the-top job when this year’s presidential election rolls around. Now, we love Biden’s faux pas and f-bombs as much as anyone, but–hello!–how could we not jump [...]

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Whose Family? Whose Values?

With the recent rise of Republican Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, we’re sure to hear a couple of words again and again as the right-wing’s quest to rebuild America continues: Family. Values. I can’t help but cringe every time I hear that catchphrase.  Not because I dislike families – I have a terrific one [...]

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No Apologies!

“I’m so sorry,” I said to my friend, over and over, every time I put anything into my mouth or even looked at any of the food I’d spent all day preparing for a small, impromptu New Years Eve gathering. She’s a vegetarian, you see, and I’d made somewhere in the vicinity of 14,000 relatively [...]

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