UW Students Hate Looking Like Dawgs

In a recent poll, students at the University of Washington said their highest priority is “looking good/having good hair.”

That response far outweighed other priorities — the next highest was “staying inebriated (18 percent), followed closely by “getting laid” (17 percent). Only 6 percent of those polled placed “learning about the world” as their top priority while matriculating at UW. (From May 28 Seattle Weekly)

* Buy a ticket on the clue train: Men’s Journal, the quintessential magazine for well-heeled (or wannabe) fortysomething men who want to play younger, will launch a new column titled “Women.”

Now, would this column target the “Baywatch”-like babe who’s pulling the middle-aged guy in a rowboat through a swamp, pictured on the cover of the current MJ issue?

Somehow, the image of a blond, buxom young thing engaged in a “I’d wade barefoot through muck pulling a rowboat with you in it” role just doesn’t scream “now we have content for women, too.” (From June/July Men’s Journal)

* Play in three acts: Act I: The new metro editor at the New York Times, Joyce Purnick, tells graduates at Barnard College commencement speech that she is “absolutely convinced” she would not be metro editor of the Times if she had a family. (She is childless and married for the first time at age 42, to former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel). “With rare exceptions, women who have children get off track and lose ground,” she tells grads.

Act II: Women reporters and editors at the New York Times, some of whom have children, are incensed. A Washington Post account of a NY Times staff meeting includes this interchange: ” ‘Do you actually think that because we’re mothers we contribute less?” a woman staffer asks Purnick. “You contribute differently,” Purnick replies.

Act III: Purnick does damage control. “Someone’s private life is a total nonfactor in (reporting) assignments. I would never consider it unless I was asked,” she says.

Now, can she say family-friendly company? (From June 1 Newsweek)

* Signs of the times: Among the new categories in the Yellow Pages are Angels, Aromatherapy, Cybercafes, Feng Shui, Funeral Art and Psychic Life Readings. (From June 1 Time)

* Quote of the week: You know what getting married is? It’s agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you’re the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You’re his responsibility now, and he’s yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won’t. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time? — Jane Smiley (From June The Sun magazine)

Spokesman-Review. Contact her by mail at 999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201; by e-mail at susane@spokesman.com; or by phone at 459-5488.