Las Vegas Co. Rents Out Babes Who Can Play

It's 'just wrong,' tweets banned journalist

(NEWSER) - A ban on female members at the Georgia golf club that hosted the Masters apparently extends to women reporters—which is teeing off journalists and sports fans. Tara Sullivan, a reporter for New Jersey's Bergen Record, was blocked from joining fellow writers in the locker room of the Augusta National Club for important interviews after the final round of the tournament yesterday. "Bad enough no women members at Augusta. But not allowing me to join writers in locker room interview is just wrong," tweeted Sullivan . A spokesman for the tony Georgia club, which has come under heavy fire for barring female members, has apologized to Sullivan, claiming it was a misunderstanding, reports AP . More»

That's 'no impingement on personal rights,' ruling determines

(NEWSER) - German bosses can order female workers to wear bras, and even dictate the length of their fingernails, a court has ruled. "Being told to wear a bra and to keep fingernails to shorter than half a centimeter does not impinge on personal rights," ruled the Cologne court. Bosses also have the right to demand that male workers' beards be neatly trimmed—but can't ban certain hair colors or shades of fingernail polish for any employee, notes the Daily Mail . The ruling was the result of a lawsuit by workers challenging demands of an airport security company, but the decision will affect all workplaces, said legal experts. More»

Now Dowd wants to play him at Scrabble

(NEWSER) - Turns out Tom Friedman played golf with President Obama last month—and fellow New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd isn't ashamed to admit she felt "a twinge of envy." Dowd's happy that Obama finally invited a woman to join him on the links this weekend, after catching heat over all-male basketball games and the "frat-house atmosphere" of White House meetings. Caught up in the spectacle of our first black president, "it took quite a while for anyone to accuse Obama of being exclusionary." More»

Focus on appearance is dragging down both politics and journalism

(NEWSER) - Remarks like Tina Brown's recent crack on MSNBC that Hillary Clinton "needs to get back in the gym," are dragging public debate down to a high-school level, Chloe Angyal writes at SpliceToday. Nobody's looking too hard at the waistline of male politicians or diplomats, Angyal notes, but journalists—especially female ones—can't resist bitchy attacks on women's bodies and clothes. More»

(NEWSER) - European reporters celebrated the “battle of the bottoms” between Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Princess Letizia of Spain last week, a display “so bonkersly old-fashioned that I hardly know what to say,” India Knight writes in the Times of London. Beauty is worth praising, she admits, but why does the media insist that women are "so completely tragic and brain-dead that they view all other women through the prism of demented competitiveness”? More»