Among his memories of life with Led Zeppelin, tour manager Richard Cole recalls the night he traded watches with Elvis Presley. He and band member John Paul Jones were visiting the King when Cole remarked that Presley`s hangers-on seemed a little reserved. Presley took offense and went into his kung-fu mode. Not wanting to be remembered as ”the tour manager who was killed by Elvis,” Cole blocked a karate swing with his arm, but the blow broke his watch. Elvis was immediately contrite and gave him one with 32 diamonds to replace it. Then he traded a lapis-faced watch for Jones` Mickey Mouse job. The evening became ”something akin to a tribal ritual in which everyone was trying to prove his manhood-in this case, by giving a bigger and better gift than the last one,” writes Cole in ”Stairway to Heaven”
(HarperCollins).
As this political year marches on, here are some facts to consider: Only 16 percent of elected officials in the U.S. are female. Since the country was founded, there have been more than 11,000 members of Congress, but only 134 of them have been women. In Sweden, women make up 32 percent of the national legislature; in Norway, it`s 34 percent; and in the U.S., 5 percent. Over the past decade, the number of women appointed to federal courts has been decreasing. If the current trend holds, it will be another 64 years before women make up 50 percent of state legislatures. The figures are from ”How To Make the World a Better Place for Women-in 5 Minutes” (Hyperion), by Donna Jackson.
