Compare

7 Pages 1772 Words

Georgia — Seventy-one year old golfing misogynist, William "Hootie" Johnson, Chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, has undergone major heart surgery. Unfortunately, he is expected to make a complete recovery.
Augusta National hosts the Masters golf tournament and Johnson runs the club and the tournament with an iron fist.
When the National Council of Women's Organizations sent a letter to Johnson in June to urge him to admit women to the club, Johnson provoked a storm by publicly declaring that he would not be bullied into admitting women. He then released the sponsors for the television broadcast of the 2003 event, in order to spare them from being pressured on the issue, thereby giving up $3 million in advertising revenue.
A Club spokesman said the surgery involved a coronary artery bypass, aortic aneurysm repair and aortic valve replacement.
"We're surprised that the doctors found he had a heart," said a spokeswoman for the Council.
Augusta National is a private club, and legally can be a men-only institution. No one was paying any attention to the Council's position until Hootie issued a lengthy and emotional response. But while the club is private, the Masters tournament is the most watched sporting event of the year, and is thus arguably a public event.
Why don't they admit some women, hold a second Masters tournament for women golfers, and make twice the advertising revenue?
Augusta National's biggest PR problem may be that its Chairman is named Hootie.
Proving yet again his audacity, former skirt-chasing President, Bill Clinton, is seeking young interns to work under, over or alongside him at his private foundation, according to a classified ad recently placed in New York University's student newspaper.
EVERYTHING, we've been told over and over since the horror of September 11, is CHANGED. Not completely. True, the collective fear and anger generated by that atrocity has completed the right-wing takeover of Am...