Video and transcript from The Rachel Maddow Show June 4 2009 -

MADDOW:  If choosing a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Princeton graduate with the J.D. from Yale, and 11 years experience on the second circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals—where only three of her hundreds of opinions have been overturned by the Supreme Court—who happens to be the first Latina ever nominated to the high court, weren‘t enough to secure President Obama‘s first Supreme Court nominee, her confirmation, if that weren‘t enough?  The Obama administration deployed its most powerful asset on the campaign in support of Judge Sonia Sotomayor yesterday.  They deployed FLOTUS, the first lady of the United States, whose favorability rating stands at 76 percent, which does happen to outpace Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at similar times in their husband‘s presidencies.

Here was Michelle Obama speaking yesterday to a high school graduation in Washington, D.C.

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From review by Pauline on CHICKS ROCK! :

“This documentary film follows the trials and tribulations of five women artists, and how they maintain the shaky balance between motherhood and art in their lives. It is the kind of movie everyone should see, but may not be able to because of limited media coverage.

“Who Does She Think She Is?” exposes the enduring sexism that continues to permeate the art world. I was unaware of this, until someone in the film asked random people outside of museums if they could name five women artists. No one could answer the question!

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One of the tracks (”Remember That”) on Jessica Simpson’s upcoming album Do You Know? has the powerful lyrics, “It doesn’t matter how he hurts you / With his hands or with his words / You don’t deserve it / It ain’t worth it / Take your heart and run.”

Simpson declares in an Elle magazine article, “There’s nothing on my album that you’re gonna hear that I don’t relate to or that I haven’t experienced. Because the only way I know how to sing is from life experience. I have definitely experienced abuse in a way that I would tell people to take their heart and run.”

SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) is the bestselling author and artist of fifteen books, including Succulent Wild Woman, Bodacious Book of Succulence, Eat Mangoes Naked, and other titles. She is an acclaimed speaker and teacher, and CEO and founder of Planet SARK, a business that promotes empowered living, and her writings and artwork.

Her new book is Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It.

In an interview, SARK said she knows that art is healing “because of how it heals me and how I see it healing other people every day. Through art, we come alive through the deep connections to our souls and spirits. I’m talking about being ‘artists of life,’ not only visual artists. I believe there is an ‘art of living’ and that this art practiced heals each of us everyday in small and significant ways. [From Arts and Healing Network interview.]

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From article: Shadows of Day, Los Angeles Times

A new biography looks into the shadows and ‘Untold Story’ of Doris Day
On screen, she was America’s smiling, singing darling. But off screen, her husbands weren’t Rock Hudson and her life was no light romp.

A former singer with Les Brown’s band in the 1940s.. Day was always portrayed as happily married.. But the real story couldn’t be further from the truth, according to David Kaufman’s expansive new biography, “Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door.”

Instead it’s a sad story — partially told in the actress’ 1975 autobiography — of a talented woman who was unloved by her father, pushed by an ambitious stage mother, with four failed — and mostly loveless — marriages, who never got what she wanted: simply to have a happy home life.

“What is even sadder to me and what I have learned in the course of researching this book, interviewing people and from quotes from her own autobiography is how insecure she is about her looks and about her talents,” said Kaufman.

“This woman has lived so much of her life unhappy with herself, I think, and yet she brought so much happiness to so many people all around the world,” he added.

More in Shadows of Day, By Susan King, Los Angeles Times.

Heather Thomas based her new novel “Trophies” on Hollywood trophy wives - who, she says “get a bad rap, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about them. But really, there isn’t a hospital wing or a library in this city that wasn’t the result of some trophy wife’s efforts.”

Here is an excerpt from the mediabistro blog GalleyCat:

Thomas readily admits that she and her fellow philanthropist/activists are held up for ridicule, dismissed as intellectual lightweights, sometimes even by the ostensible political allies who come courting the money they control. “If you’re a wealthy second wife,” Thomas says, “you’re like a poster child for schadenfreude…

“But as a feminist, I don’t think we should attack other women. I’ve never met a bimbo trophy wife. I think women label other women because we’ve been socialized to compete with one another—but when we stop attacking each other, we’ll realize how powerful we are.”

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