Focus 580; The View from Her

In this part of focus 580 we'll be talking with journalist Shana Alexander about some of her long career as a writer. She was the first woman staff writer at Life magazine she went to work there in nineteen fifty one she was later the first woman columnist in 1969. She was hired by McCall's at the time the country's biggest women's magazine as its first woman editor. Then in 1972 she became the first woman columnist at Newsweek She's covered a lot of very big stories including the women's movement the civil rights movement Vietnam. She's the author of several books her first anyone's daughter was the story of the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. She also wrote a book about the trial of Jean Harris that book is titled very much a lady and a book about former Miss America Bess Myers and titled When She Was Bad. Her most recent book is about elephants. It's titled The astonishing elephant and it came out just a couple of years ago she's also authored an autobiography titled Happy days my mother my father my sister and me.

And she's going to be visiting the campus next I believe next week or perhaps it's week after to take part in the official celebration of her decision to give all of her personal papers to the University of Illinois Library. And we're pleased that she's spending a little time talking with us this morning by telephone. The number if you'd like to call in 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's for Champaign-Urbana folks. We also have a toll free line and that one is good anywhere that you can hear us that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Once again here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 W I L L that's what you get if you match the numbers and letters toll free 800 to 2 2 w 1 Hello. Ms Alexander Hello. Good morning thanks for talking with us today. I really enjoy it and I'll be really good that day is the 17th of April. All right very good and that's an event that I think generally people are invited to attend if they fare in an around Champaign-Urbana. I understand

your mother was a writer she was a journalist you had an aunt who was a novelist so you have a couple of role models there. But I guess I would be certain that at the time that that you got involved in journalism there weren't very many women. What was it that you had to read that long. Oh what was it that got you interested in being a writer. I was interested in being a writer being a writer is absolute hell. But I could do it well enough to get a job doing it. One of my college summers and it was turned out to be so much fun that I did I wouldn't go back to Vassar for several terms because this was much better. Finally I went back and got the degree I think by mail and how that was all quite a long time ago and it was your college degree actually was in anthropology.

Yes well I was only an undergraduate. So you just got it regular. You know I don't know what it's called. I've never looked at it. Early on. How was it working in a career field that primarily was men. Wonderful. I was the only woman. And and since I enjoy the company of men very much I have a terrific time. They were all very nice and agreeable to work from to work with. And since they were all married mostly with young children I didn't at all mind being paid about half what they were paid. I thought that was a fair arrangement. But now of course that I've been retired for. You know receiving a pension for a number of years has it and the pension amount is 50 percent of what it might have been. I have a different view. I'm just telling you this in case you have any young women in your audience because girls do the same dumb thing today as I did all those years ago. Yeah. Yeah it still seems to be the case that there is. It shrunk some but there's still

a noticeable wage gap between men and women. Yeah. I mean not just in journalism but I think in in in all fields of endeavor there there still is. It probably is but we have passed on your program to eradicate it. Your dad was a songwriter. Yes he was a composer. Did you write the music and not the lyrics. A few big hits but you would know like Ain't he sweet and Happy Days Are Here Again and many other peeps wrongs of the 20s but those are the two biggies. So was there ever a time when you felt a pull of maybe being in show business. No I have a tin ear like my mother and but I always heard the piano playing all my life because my father was working and so when I hear it today it's of most who I still have that and it's the most soothing sound. Anybody piano is that is a soothing sound. You have your dad's piano.

If you don't play. No. But I have a few good friends. We talk about the need for more exercise than it gets. We talked about the fact that well there there were a lot of women involved in journalism or a lot of women reporters when you started. That's changed. Although my guess would be this there are still more men at least. I just read this week somewhere that in law school the girls are now outnumbering the boys. The 50 percent mark. So I'm sure that's happening in other professions as well journalism medicine. Suppose I should maybe I shouldn't advance that without having checked it out I guess I shouldn't have advanced the idea I would be curious to know in within journalism just what it is now whether it's close to 250 or so would I. I want to respect that the women outnumber the men but they'll work for less. For one thing. Do you think that that women continue to face the same kind of within journalism and continue to face the same sort of challenges

that you did. You know I I don't think I faced any challenges. I was aware of facing any challenges because of my gender. It seemed an odd and rather pleasant fact that there weren't any other women around. So you never felt you have to be so retrograde but you know that's funny. So you didn't feel that there were that stories that you that you couldn't do or assignments when there were stories. They were assignments which I could not get. Such as getting to Vietnam because they were all the other people who wanted to go on our staff on the Staff of Life magazine and Time magazine were men and the people who made those assignments were men and they thought that the boys had a better right then than me then I do go there. So I finally I went there twice and the first time I went as a showgirl in Hello Dolly. I read that and I I couldn't I couldn't pass that one by

what exactly how exactly did this come about. What if in California and of a spa a friend of mine a woman producer in New York phoned me and said Look David Merrick's production of Hello Dolly is in Tokyo and he just. Convinced LBJ who at that time was in the hospital recovering from the gall bladder operation if you remember if you are able to go back that far in history. Anyhow Lyndon Johnson had been re-elected to the tune of Hello Lyndon. So David Merrick the producer of Hello Dolly had an in with the president and he when his show was canceled by the Russians it was going to play in Moscow as a State Department cultural you know an American State Department cultural offering. We got mad at the Russians and either they canceled or we did so. MERIK have a show. With about you know 60 or 70 salaries to pay. And three weeks

and nobody and no place to play. And so he did call the president in the hospital and say How would you like my show to play your war Mr. President. And indeed all that was arranged in the way they did it was wherein the entire company not just performers but stage heads and backstage people as a unit of the signal corps. And I joined the show just in time to go to get sworn in. And I think I'm still in the Signal Corps although I haven't heard from any of these people since nineteen sixty five. Well maybe they you might check and see if there's any pension benefits. That's a great story so far Lyndon Johnson said I certainly do remember the pictures of him pulling up his shirt to show that. That was wonderful David Levine cartoon to show that the car with the scrap of it. Oh yes indeed indeed I remember that as well. Let me introduce Again our guest for this part of focus 580 We're talking with Shana Alexander she

has had a long career as a journalist and has written for a number of different publications including life and Newsweek. She's authored several books her most recent just out a couple of years is about elephants. And she has decided to give her personal papers things like notes and manuscripts and articles and other things to the photographs and photographs. That was the most appealing part of the university's offer because I have cartons full of photographs and they're going to sort them out and pictures of you with with newsmakers and places you've been an echo. That's right. That worked for a picture magazine most of that time. So they're not to pick anything in particular that stands out in your mind. And you you graph yet you with you with particular people. There's one with me and General Westmoreland. It's quite spectacular. And there's some made in Australia with me and some kangaroos that I remember.

That's just opinion of them. Well what were the what were the circumstances of the photograph with Westmoreland. Oh I was in in Vietnam. I had got there is a member of Hello Dolly and the general had come to welcome the troupe of singers and actors and stage hands and to give his apologies for not being able to join us that evening for dinner. Because a group of congressmen were arriving the same day and he had to receive them. And I remember Mr. Merrick saying well I understand General you we have our angels and you have yours. Maybe this didn't. So well on the air. It was quite a remark when he made it. You know what they had to go and get those those people to come up with the money. That's it. Yes that's right. One of the many things I guess I want to ask you about one thing that strikes me it's sort of curious when you talk about women and how far they have come as that is as late as

1069 the biggest women's magazine in the country had never had a woman's editor. When you went to work for calls you were the first one. Yes it was I believe it was the biggest women's magazine in the world. And one of the last because that was a period it was 1969 did we say that it was the whole magazine business was changing good television was coming in so those big fat large format magazines like McCall's and like Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post all were becoming dinosaurs almost overnight. And and and went out of business. Well I think I hope I have this right just reading recently that McCall's was finally now is or is going and that it's going to become Rosie O'Donnell's magazine. Well it's been through many incarnations since my day and I didn't know that but I knew she was having a magazine and she's got a lovely title for it and I wish it very very well.

Certainly print is still VERY important than the New York Times is still the paper of record and people pay attention at the times on the post and so forth but now that I wonder how you think things have changed now that broadcasting has come so to dominate the world of watching a lot of people male get their news from television newscasters ABC old Peter Jennings says every night that most people get their news from ABC. I presume that's mostly television more than radio. So it's Thanks a lot. And we get the I get the nose in my car. I'm great deal when I'm driving. And I I do read the paper in the morning but that's because i'm had graduated to it I've done it for so many years that I've it's unthinkable for me not to go out in the early pre-dawn and pick up the New York Times from my doorstep you know from home delivery. We have a caller and I expect we may have others if folks would like to talk with our guest Shannon Alexander you

can pick up the telephone and dial the number here in Champaign Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also toll free anywhere around Illinois Indiana you may be listening and it would be a long distance call. Use that number. The toll free line which is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 years call or in urban or a line number 1. 0 0 0 0 0. I'm curious to know what. You decide to give your papers and photos to the University of Illinois just isn't where you went for all of that. I'm glad you asked me because I want to tell everybody that the that the university got in touch with me and asked for my papers. Oh and which was very nice. And Barbara Barbara Jones their. Archivist and she has many other distinctions. Recognize that I really was kind of ahead of the curve you know there weren't any other women journalists who had been at it as long as I had been. And she got in touch with me.

And all I had to hear was that they were going to sort out the photographs and put them all in glassine envelopes of scholars. And I said please take this stuff and for moving men arrived here and also there are women who are taking cartons out of my out that are already done and they're here they're there yet I don't know how much sourcing she's had an opportunity to do or it may be that when I come there next on the 17th whenever that is April 17th that this this stuff will be on exhibition. You know that that I think that's the cause of the event. You didn't go to school you have been. No. Well thank you and I don't mind. I never I had no connection with you until I heard from Miss Jones. Well that's when. Raising one thank you thank you. Thanks for the call in just mentioning it you went to Vassar and I did. It was during the war and we went in three years and it was a quite meaningless

experience to me. Was it at that time kind of a finishing school more than an ordeal education was a highly regarded girl rather small all girls college which had been started a century before by a brewer and put it in a math grad. It was very high ranking but but I found it rather stuffy and conservative because I had come from a wonderful school in Manhattan and so vast it was like a step. Back for me. But that was all a long time ago. I would think that given the way that you grew up with your parents being involved and being around show business and having family friends like the Gershwins that it was it would have been a very different kind of social milieu to be in after having grown up that way. That's true. Yeah. Yes you're quite You're quite right that piano that I mentioned earlier my father bought it from George Gershwin and when my

sister was born we had to move to a bigger apartment. And I still have in fact I'm looking. Very good shape. Again I guess this morning in this our focus is Shane Alexander and if you have questions I'd like to talk with her. You can call us. Three three three. W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W while we talk a little bit about why women in journalism and the fact that perhaps women still lag behind men in compensation for equal work all those sorts of things one of those issues that certainly has interested people involved in the women's movement that you have covered and and I think you had been a long time advocate of equality for women where where do you think things stand right now. It's interesting to me that that women particularly younger women undeniably have benefited from the movement and yet seem very reluctant to identify with it. I think you're exactly right. Not sure why that is except that one atavistic thing about women is that they don't like other women very much.

They like men and I remember when I first became editor of McCall's I went to see my old professor Margaret Mead the anthropologist and I said Is there any difference between men and women. Aside from what we see in the mirror when we get this oh yes she said there's one difference which is throughout history and in all the tribes of the world. What is that. Women of men in the company of other men I have are happy people whether they're warriors or playing golf or whatever they're doing with their buddies. They enjoy male company women in all female company are sad. They tell stories of men that ran off and children that died and other other melancholy things they don't like. Still I don't know why this should happen but I think it's true it's still true. Tell me that. Yes. You don't have any idea why that if if if indeed you believe that it's true you don't have any idea why they

do. That's because I do I mean women need men in order to procreate and continue the race. And with that their primary interest is in their children I think India even more than in their mates. And and then and even more than men are interested in their and men children. And that's I think that's biology. Let's talk with someone else another urban a caller and this is line 1. Hello. Yes I'm looking forward to. You know Alexander's arrival on campus but I understand that my own show is going to be also on the program and I'm wondering if I collaborate I hope I'll hang up. I'll tell you. Can you hear me. Yeah. Maybe you might not want to hang up right now OK hold on. Yeah go ahead.

Of Myra is one of my oldest friends we've been friends for more than 30 years. Very close friends. From the moment we met and always called me her sister friend which I didn't know at the time is an African expression of solidarity and love. So when the university asked me to come out. They said Who would you like to introduce you and I said if you if my aunt can make it that would be the best. And she made it home wonderful Well I'm looking forward to and I will be there. After that I'll see you then. Thank you. And again we're about at our midpoint here talking with Shana Alexander. Her reason for speaking with us the fact that she has decided to give her personal papers to the University of Illinois at library and week will be week after next. It'll be Tuesday April 17th and she'll be here and there will be a special celebration of this to acknowledge that fact. And then after that her materials in here will be part of the library and I'm I'm sure at some point there will be kind of a show.

Select something the new school with you or the universities setting up and the first contributors to it are the Reston family James Reston and his son or his father rabbit and they are graduates of the universe. And so then that I mean the second person. It's not a journalism school but I think it's some kind of a media school that's pretty good company. It's wonderful company I'm really honored. I I will always remember it some years ago he came and talked to Reston did and he talked and was again it was a large crowd a lot of journalism faculty and students and so for that he talked about his experience as a reporter and different things that you have to do to get the story and he said sometimes he said what you have to do though is take what I call the dumb boy approach. And everybody laughed and I thought Now here's an approach that I think will work for me. The dumb boy approach has been working for me for years and I have to think Scotty Reston for putting it putting a

name on the concept because I get put on fish net. Well Sienna I wouldn't have gone that far. Well actually I didn't either. I also just in in preparation of the interview I sat down and started reading I read a few. And now I think I probably will read more but some of the columns that you wrote for life that were published in the book The Feminine eye that that was the title of the column. And I guess you know one of the things I in addition to being struck by the fact that they're really good. I have kind of been struck by how you know things really haven't changed all that much. Have they I think somehow Yes in a way that they have but the issues I think and in the last you know 30 or 30 years or something I'm not really sure that things have changed very much. I'm afraid you're right. That's a good observation. We have a think another person getting lined up here and again I want to just tell people who are

listening that if you're interested in calling in talking with our guest you can do that in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and we also have a toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 you'd like to talk with Shawn Alexander. We do have somebody else here on our toll free line the callers in south eastern Illinois on the line number. For Hello ZANDER I wondered all of the many things that you have done in your lives. I wonder if it is maybe it bugged you that you're probably the most famous to the public for your conversations with which darling Jack Kilpatrick as it was of the Soka made to discover that more people heard me on one night on television and then would read me in maybe a year of Life magazine. So yes you are right but you know I. I quit that show after five years and the reason I did it was that I was touring to promote my first book which was the Patty Hearst

story anyone's daughter. And everywhere I went I began to realize people were saying the same thing to me. You know I just happened to pick up your book I wasn't going to read it in the beauty parlor of my sister's house and you know what. It's very good. So finally I said well why didn't you think it would be any good. And they also said because we thought we knew what you were going to say about it. Another week I had become the house liberal for CBS which which which I'm not I'm not I'm a conservative and a radical but not a liberal. And this was giving me in my view a bad name as a writer. So I walked out. Well thank you. Well thanks for the call. You asked for other comments questions certainly are welcome three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 w While I mentioned the beginning of the program that you had written

these among your books were these three the one you just talked about the one that was about Patty Hearst the one about Jean Harris and one about Bess Meyerson. And I'm interested in what it is if there isn't. Something that these three women shared in common. I don't think so Patty Hearst was a very boring college girl about around who after she was kidnapped some amazing things happened including her so-called brainwashing and remember when she stuck up the bank. So that was a new story that was irresistible to me. The next one was about Jean Harris. Oh my. I couldn't talk to until she was convicted and I could visit her in prison because her lawyers during her trial wouldn't allow her to talk to me. And I became very fond of her and we are still very good friends. And she called me the other day and I believe she's coming to Champagne Bennett to this festival.

Really. Yeah. And so what was the third one with my best medicine he'd buy a publisher an amount of money that was too big. So it wasn't that that somehow the fact that you had done these books wasn't didn't show any particular inclination to write about these three women because of who they were but it was more that they were a different story and that is why the first was a news story. The second I just described Mrs. R. something there was a commercial opportunity and I didn't want to give up you know and I guess the fact that they were women I was of course always more interested in females. You know the best Meyerson book was not particularly successful. I remember there well it was a moderate only moderate and he was not convicted unlike the first two. He had an excellent lawyer and he got her off and I think that failed somewhat. Yeah I guess maybe this is reaching it and you wouldn't agree but I

do think that that one thing that all of these books are about is the fact that when women and this may still be true or maybe it was more true in the past that when women try to break out of the roles that we have set for them that they get so. Action for. Wellness. I would just say. Not when they try to break. If they did they'd these three did break out. You know it. I don't think it was the struggles that that got people mad at them. I'm not sure. You know when you're asking me to describe something that. It's too personal. Well did you do you feel that that that happened to you in some way that is you ended up be having a difficult time because you broke out too. No I didn't. I never felt I had a difficult time. I had a fun time. I didn't as I think I said earlier I didn't mind being paid less because I wasn't

supporting a wife and small children. And I have a wonderful job. And you you never felt that somehow you were being forced to make a choice between having a career and having family. No no. Had I had Tilden I probably would've stopped. We have another caller here getting lined up lies one make sure people know that you can call in and talk with our guest Shane Alexander here Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 2 also have a toll free hotline 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so would be a long distance call for it you can use that number. Next person here up in line is again here locally in Urbana. It's line number one. Well I have a couple questions I was wondering a flaw in a kid. I mean it's and she can describes herself as a conservative and radical. I was wondering if she thought that if she

was sorry that if there's if there's anything about the 60s she wish she wishes had outlived the decades all that she's glad they're over. I think that's a wonderful question but I'd have to think about it I can't I don't have an answer right at the top of my head. The 60s was a very good time and they were a time of breakout and freedom. And I think what fun to be young in the 60s in a way that it is not time now. I think young fogie I don't I'm not attracted to. Old fogy. OK and very good company but young fogie said generally you have to give us a definition. What's a young man you know what an old fogy is. Yeah I think so I think I would probably want that person's grand son my granddaughter that and if they have the same attitudes. And political ideas they're young fogie.

Ok young very concerned young but very conservative. OK I gotcha gotcha. Actually I just thought of another question too. I was wondering if if there was any since you had a long time period there where you were working with men almost you know pretty much exclusively. I was wondering if during that time you are that you as you recall now. Is there anything you think women in general really do have wrong about guys women in general what I didn't quite hear you that women in general have have wrong all I think wrong I think women have a wrong idea about men is very thing that sticks out in your memory. They were all very very kind to me. Possibly because I was the only one around because men like women you know and I was good company. You know I can't answer so I can't give you an answer to that that you're looking for.

I don't know. OK and the last question and then I just sawing up on this one has to do with your latest book about elephants. Yes. Yeah I read a review. It sounds very interesting and we read the book it's very tough I'm sure. But one of the reviewers mentioned an incident called the Cranbrook incident back in 1926. Yes what was that. You have to help me remember. Yeah I think it was an escape one that rides for all of the nine elephants escaped from us. I think I was nervous and went wild to the field and partly Canada and partly somewhere in the northern Midwest. Yeah apparently they did it for three weeks. Yeah I finally had some tribal Indians were the ones that got to my belief was that mostly because the people chasing them were too afraid of them or I think it was because it was a

very sparsely populated region. And I'm sure the people were also afraid now. But you know an elephant will never step on you. By mistake. In other words if you're stepped on or crushed by an elephant he meant it or she meant it. And almost universally elephants are not aggressive they are very gentle animals of course if they if you're near an aggressive one you're doomed. But. It generally as I said as well as a veterinarian once said to me they're the best mothers in the animal kingdom. He said they'd be a wonderful babysitter for your daughter you certainly wouldn't want to give her to a chimpanzee. Thank you thank you. Euro interest I guess in elephants goes back some years. When I was a young reporter I covered the birth of the first baby

elephant ever born in a zoo. And that was in Portland Oregon. And that baby is still there. Packie everyone in Portland knows Packie and he himself has fathered a great many more elephants and Portland remains for some series of reasons the elephant reading capital of the world. So let's go back to the 60s that was in one thousand sixty two. It was before. But in any case it was so rare nobody knew the gestation period of an elephant. And that caused me to make four trips to Portland because whenever the veterinarian Dr. Maybury was thought that growth was imminent he would call me and I would jump on a plane. So by the time I made four trips and I did get there on the last trip in time to see this nonevent because an elephant is born the way a cow drops a calf. There isn't any drama to it. By the time I got there I was very interested in elephants.

You know the fourth trip well for people who want to read this book it's titled The astonishing elephant and it's published by Random House. And it was published just last year so certainly the books out there in the bookstore. If you'd like to look at it and perhaps in the library. And I also want to mention again that our guest Shane Alexander's going to be here in Champaign-Urbana on the 17th of April to take part in a celebration of her giving her personal papers to the University of Illinois Library. She is the guest of honor and indeed Maya Angelou will be here as well to speak and questions are welcome by the way if you'd like to talk with our guests three three three. W I L L or 9 4 5 5 that's for champagne Urbana folks. If it would be a long distance call. We do have a toll free number 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have a couple of Chicago call. Here in one starting with line number 4 0 0 0 0 such work for Life which was his publication I wonder if it

was working. What sort of the judge was your contact with him and the part I was much too lowly so and too female to know him at all I met him once at a dinner and the same goes for clear blue suits. Oh yes because he wasn't part of it at all of the magazine empire he was busy writing plays and after I left life and became editor of McCall's she telephoned me one time and said that she wanted to write some articles for us and she told me she said training you should write a play. You must write it like that why. Because you'll never make so much money in your life she said but that was my No she invited me to lunch in Hawaii. But again that was long after I had worked for her husband. OK. You're right and someone else in Chicago here line one. Hello. Thank you you did mention just Station 3 a little while ago have been on the book you're probably going to bring forth.

Oh yeah. Oh I mean just taking a book. But yes it might. I am but I'm not going to like you. Well another question is speaking of breaking into sings were you among the first that the gender that broke into the National Press Club. My thinking of another Sonia I think you're probably thinking of a Washington Oh well I didn't know that was had in the French a local event. Well I never worked in Washington I've worked in New York and sometimes in California. Well you're certainly broken a lot of barriers. Thank you very much. Thank you thank you. And again with all the questions welcome. But tenants left talking with journalist Cheney Alexander 3 3 3 W while toll free 800 to 2 2. W Well you are you still teaching am I right. Yes yes yes. South Hampton college I teach at Southampton and I was I was meant to preach in North Carolina this past year and I became ill and I had to cancel that.

But I hope they asked me back because I love teaching and to my surprise I there are a few things that I can pass on you know I have learned some things that I can use and in teaching. What are your impressions of young journalism students. Well I usually assume I didn't go to journalism school. You know I kind of fell into into it. And I usually have a sort of a smartass answer and say if you. Journalism School is only good if you want to be a publisher and if you want to be a journalist go out and get a job on a little paper or a weekly paper or some kind of thing and just break in. And if you want to be a publisher you have to be very likely you have to inherit the paper. So. I felt that journalism schools had a limited view that as I've never attended one I'm not sure. Well what are some of the things that you try to pass on to your students based on your experience. Oh this would take too long for me to explain why

I'm afraid but I tell them not to take tape recorders with them unless it's a very critical interview and they're interviewing the president or someone who you cannot whom you cannot misquote you know or a big villain of some sort. Otherwise you would do much better with a pad and a notebook and a pencil because your mind will edit what your subject is telling you and you will only put down in your notebook the things that struck you as important or interesting. So when the interview is over you do not now have to play over the whole long boring hour long discussion. You've got a notebook which gives you the essence of it and you take that to your typewriter or your computer now and and try to recreate the scene. That makes sense. Sense I guess that the one question would be does does one have to be concerned about the fact that you're filtering this thing through

your brain and not because you have to filter it through your brain in order to write it and then you remember when Walter Cronkite used to sign off and say and that's the way it is. He didn't know but the way it is. It was the way he thought it was you know. Well I think even he wonderful person. So I hope I'm not mis stating. Oh no no no and I'm sure he would be the first to say that actually he had some misgivings or concerns about it. Actually I think so. And we did talk about this and you're quite right. Yeah well let's talk with someone else here. We have a caller again in Chicago. One for a little yes. Shane I want to ask you if you knew Hugh Sidey ferry well because I know you for many years not terribly well because he always work in Washington. OK I just wondered because so he or you seem to be pretty level headed guy but yet you have an absolute hatred for Bill Clinton. And I wonder if you could explain it.

It's almost like a sanctimonious a right wing zealotry that he has against us may I think it's a weird eccentricity although Bill Clinton is fairly weird himself sometimes. But if he offends the essential decency of Hugh Sidey in some way that I don't know society well enough. Yeah about him to speculate as to why that is. OK well yeah that I thought it was a moral thing but. I just wondered because the site is not a conservative Republican by young not not at all you know if I just might describe him I think as a liberal Republican. OK. I thank you. I'm not sure I made that may be unfair. Thank you. OK thank you and to Farmer city for somebody else here line one. Hello. If this this question is a little on the light side but I just want to I'm really pleased to be talking with what Chaney Alexander about twenty four years ago I had a daughter that I named Shana in a good I think one of the largely the reason was you have to want a lot of

TV to hear your name and I was. It kind of struck by the the R E sound of it I wonder if you could say a little bit about your name. I can sing. My name is. Yet it actually. And that means pretty dim.. Or in German it would be good. And it's just a common Yiddish diminutive That was the nickname I think of two of my great grandmothers something like that. But then it turned out that the same word the same name is the female of John in the gate and I would write that Sean is John and Shana is the female. Then it turns out that in Cherokee which is the only Indian tribe that had a written language I'm told it means Little Pony. And finally I was told that in tie it means victory. So as a nice string of definitions. Well thank you very much for the use of your name.

Thank you I have. And give her my best. I will. She's not a journalist. No not yet anyway. Well how best. Thanks for the call. A couple of minutes left if somebody wants to call real quick we can give you a chance to talk with our guest Cheney Alexander 3 3 3 or 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 1:58 WFLA. Would would you like to be covering politics today would you like for example to be writing about George Bush now. Oh I'm grateful not to be covering politics. I don't understand it. I don't like it. Well what do you think is different about politics now and say politics of the 60s less colorful. Less fun less joyous and grimmer. That's about all I can tell you off the top of my head. The politics is less fun and it's more covering politics covering politics as well is that because politics has become that way I think so yeah.

It certainly seems to be more. Well I don't know maybe I'm not in a position to judge I was going to say it seems to be more partisan than it was at the very least it seems we have fewer statesmen and a lot more politicians they won't want to stand. You're probably right but I don't know about that. Well again we'll talk with some other folks here. Let's go to Aurora. Why number four. Hello. Yes hi good morning. I am sorry that I missed so much of your program due to circumstances in the house today. I think I missed a very very good program. I wondered if you would have anything to say to the young women of the world or of America however. Yes. Don't undervalue yourselves because I find that even today I speak occasionally at women's colleges and so forth or coed is that women don't ask for the biggest salary prigs as men

do. Now why do you think that. And I I agree totally with what you said but why does that happen in our society when they some of the women work so hard in the 60s and here we are in 2000. Ma'am I don't I don't have that happen. I think it's it's tragic and filled the little that I can do or say to. Tell them to value themselves more. I do I don't know why. I just I see that I have weakened my generation I I don't know why it was. It would have been or it was considered unfeminine. Yes too aggressive but I think girls by now I hope they're past that but maybe they're not. And I wish they would value themselves and and they don't. I just I see that as you said a tragedy you know. Thank you so much. You know well we're going to have to stop at this point because we've used our time and what I

want to say to you also. Shane Alexander thank you very much for talking with us. I enjoyed talking to all of you. Thank you. She will be visiting the U of I campus soon on the 17th of April to take part in a celebration and exhibition of the Shana Alexander collection the marking heard solution to give her personal papers to the University of Illinois Library So that's coming up soon here on this campus.