Jackson Free Press

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/aug/22/7816/

Since starting at the Jackson Free Press in May, I have been involved in producing 15 issues. For some of them I didn't do a lot, but others I can flip through and see the work I put in on most of the pages inside. It's very cool having a physical product for our efforts each week and see people carrying it around, but it's even better to be proud of what we're doing—not just printing words and images into a paper, but being a force that strives to make Jackson a better place.

And now, we're upping those efforts on the Internet with our new website, including these fancy blogs for staff members and anyone who wants to create one.

So what's my story? I was born in Utah to Oregonian parents, moved to Mississippi for high school and decided to stick around for college—I went to Millsaps and loved it. Then I went to graduate school in Boston and lived three blocks from Fenway Park for two years. Boston was big and wonderful and I loved so much of it, but it was difficult to feel connected to the community in a meaningful way. So when the time came to move back to Mississippi (this time, for my fiancé-now-husband's enrollment in medical school), I was actually excited.

I touched on a lot of the reasons why in my first editor's note, but when I went to the Sal & Mookie's/Parlor Market collaboration PM Pizza on Monday night, I was reminded all over again how great our city is becoming these days. To me, the event is a perfect example of why I'm glad to be back in Jackson. First of all, Liz Lancaster (who does marketing for Mangia Bene) is a great friend of mine and a fellow Millsaps alum, and I just love seeing young people (especially intelligent former Majors with open hearts and minds) become the movers and shakers in this town. Liz and everyone at both restaurants did an amazing job for the event.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2012/aug/22/7817/

Second, the community. Walking over from the JFP office, I immediately found the table of my people, and throughout the night several more people or groups came in and came over for hugs and happy greetings. Everywhere I looked I saw people I either knew well or recognized. I love living in a capital city that still manages to create those moments.

There was also an influx of players from the local kickball league, which my table immediately wanted to know more about and get involved with. A friend who is moving out of the country for a year said multiple times how great Jackson is and how jealous she was that all of us could do events like PM Pizza and local kickball leagues. This person is moving to Paris, y'all, and she couldn't stop talking about how great Jackson is.

Third, the food. Ohhh, the food. I was there …

File this under the finally, about time file.

Augusta National Golf Club announced today that the club will welcome its first two female members when the club opens for its new season in October. For years, the home of The Masters has resisted allowing women to join the private all-male golf club.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore have accepted to join the club and will be the first female members to don a green jacket in the club’s history. This move has been coming since 2002.

Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations wanted the club to add women members in 2002 and lead a small boycott of the 2003 Masters tournament. Former club chairman Hootie Johnson, chairman during Burk’s protest, dug his heels in once saying Augusta National might one day have a woman in a green jacket, "but not at the point of a bayonet."

The Masters lost television sponsorship for two years and the club paid CBS to broadcast the tournament commercial free for those two years. Johnson retired in 2006 and Billy Payne has been more open to allowing women than his predecessor.

"These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership," Payne said in a statement. "It will be a proud moment when we present Condoleezza and Darla their green jackets when the club opens this fall. This is a significant and positive time in our club's history and, on behalf of our membership, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome them and all of our new members into the Augusta National family."

In the ESPN article linked above, it states from private sources that women have been considered for membership five years ago. It is about time, Augusta National added women members and hopefully these two women will not be the only female members added.

As if it's not bad enough that Rep. Todd Akin believes that women who are legitimately raped (I cringe to put those two words together), he was also part of a House Republican effort to redefine rape. The point, Mother Jones reports, was to keep federal funding for abortion away from teenagers, arguing that they might pretend they were raped by an older man (statutory rape, which is very common) in order to get the money because the right didn't want to "federally fund the abortion of tens of thousands of healthy babies of healthy moms, based solely on the age of their mothers."

More from that piece:

The implication of his position is that if you were raped and became pregnant, you must have actually wanted it—it wasn't really rape.

This isn't the first time Akin has expressed fringe views about rape in the context of the abortion debate. Last year, Akin, vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and most of the House GOP co-sponsored a bill that would have narrowed the already-narrow exceptions to the laws banning federal funding for abortion—from all cases of rape to cases of "forcible rape."

Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad, says the House GOP. After I reported on the "forcible rape" language in January 2011, a wave of outcry from abortion-rights, progressive, and women's groups led the Republicans to remove it. But a few months later, in a congressional committee report, Republicans wrote that they believed the bill would continue to have the same effect despite the absence of the "forcible" language.

So, what we have here, are a bunch of dudes in Congress once again trying to decide what happens to women and what to do about it. Anyone else OK with that?