Free Republic

NEW YORK - Despite objections from Martha Burk, NBC said it was going ahead with plans to air an NHL commercial showing a bare-chested player being dressed by a scantily clad woman. Burk, chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, said the ad was offensive. Burk led an unsuccessful effort to allow female members at Augusta National three years ago and is stepping down as chair of NCWO on Nov. 1. NBC said it had no problem with the spot, which first appeared last week on the NHL's Web site, and planned to air it on its NHL preview...

Title IX for Jihadi Chicks By Debbie Schlussel FrontPageMagazine.com | April 13, 2005 The strange new equality of the Islamic jihad has arrived on our shores. Yet, feminist Martha Burk is complaining about women wearing pink. Thursday, The New York Times reported that two 16-year-old girls from New York City were arrested in March because they planned homicide bombings. Saying they are “from New York City” is kind of a stretch. The girls were actually from Bangladesh and Guinea and are in the U.S. illegally, as are their families. Both families have overstayed their visas—and welcomes—by more than a decade....

Masters to go commercial-free again in 2004 by DOUG FERGUSON, Associated Press JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson thought the commercial-free broadcast of the Masters in the United States turned out so well he plans to do it again. Johnson, who dropped his television sponsors last year to keep them out of the controversy over the club's all-male membership, said Tuesday the 2004 Masters again would have no sponsors or commercial interruptions. ``There were many aspects of last year's broadcast that were favorable,'' Johnson said in a statement. ``The response from our TV viewers about the ability...

NEW YORK (AP) - Martha Burk plans to expand her campaign against Augusta National and CBS by contending that televising the event from an all-male golf club ``is an insult to the nearly quarter million women in the U.S. armed forces.'' Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, plans to protest the club's membership policy during the third round of the Masters on April 12 at Augusta, Ga.Along with New York City council member Gale A. Brewer, Burk scheduled a news conference Wednesday to ask CBS to cancel its Masters coverage.Burk's remarks Tuesday came as United States troops...

If I may be so bold as to promote one of my own pieces here, go to my "Open Letter to William 'Hootie' Johnson" and see why I am convinced this issue has become such a big deal. More importantly, I urge those in agreement with what I've written to find ways, both on our own, and together, to take Hootie Johnson's example and DUPLICATE it in our own lives. The enemy realizes that this is a potential momentum-stopper for them and momentum-builder for us, so let us not blow this opportunity! Let's not just sit around rooting for Hootie,...

CHICAGO (AP)— The Rev. Jesse "Jackson plans to organize a protest at Augusta National Golf Club if it doesn't admit a female member before The Masters in April." click on url for rest of story

The working women and female business leaders of Augusta, Ga. have a message for the National Council of Women's Organizations and its chair 'person' Martha Burk: Get Lost! Women in Augusta say that if the Augusta National Golf Club cancels the 2003 Masters tournament, which may happen, it would only hurt female business owners, homeowners, caterers, hostesses, waitresses, housekeepers and service personnel of all types who make a lot of their yearly earnings from the month-long buildup to the PGA Tour's first Major of the year, in April. The Masters pumps over $100 million into the local economy each year,...

Students streaming back to the hallowed halls of Harvard this fall will find a few new faces: Last week, Harvard Law School lifted a 20-year-old policy banning military recruiters on its campus, enacted to protest the ban on homosexual soldiers. Why, pray tell? Did the boys in red reverse course because Harvard recognized that in a time of war, hampering military recruitment was foolish and unpatriotic? Nah. Of course not. Instead, Harvard finally bowed to a 1996 law stripping federal financing from schools that did not permit military recruiters. Faced with losing either its nondiscrimination principles or $328 million in...

Earning the "privilege" to smoke fine cigars, exchange dirty jokes and lie about your golf game, sexual exploits and how hard you worked to inherit your wealth with a group of mostly old white men isn't part of the cure for gender discrimination. Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters, the chosen playground for Hootie (Johnson) & His Blowhards, isn't the proper battleground for the war on gender discrimination. It's the equivalent of President Bush sending ground troops to Dallas looking for Osama bin Laden. A hunt for bin Laden in Texas would draw a lot of attention...

The movement to pressure all-male Augusta National Golf Club, site of The Masters, into admitting a woman as a member has taken an unexpected turn that prompts the question: Where will it all end? Augusta chairman Hootie Johnson fired the latest salvo when he announced in a statement the 2003 Masters would be telecast by CBS without sponsors to keep those sponsors free from pressure. Citigroup, Coca-Cola and IBM had one-year contracts for 2002. Johnson says the move was in response to what he calls a corporate campaign against The Masters and Augusta National by the National Council of Women's...

In a defiant statement about the privacy of Augusta National, chairman Hootie Johnson lashed out at a national women's group Tuesday for urging the club to have female members before next year's Masters. "Our membership alone decides our membership -- not any outside group with its own agenda,'' Johnson said in a surprisingly long and angry statement. The National Council of Women's Organizations, which has about 6 million members from 160 groups, sent a letter to Johnson on June 12 after chairwoman Martha Burk read reports about Augusta National not having women among its 300 members. Lloyd Ward, the first...