Gail Collins knows a little bit about firsts.  A columnist with the New York Times since 1995, in 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page.  Leaving that job six years later to finish a book, she returned to writing her pithy, humorous and devastatingly on target columns that same year.  Collins, the author of several books including America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, sat down recently to talk to Red about her latest tome When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (Little Brown 2009, $27.99)

I was amazed when reading your book about how quickly things have changed for women and though we still have a ways to go, your opening vignette about Lois Rabinowitz, a Manhattan secretary who went to court to pay her boss’s traffic fine and got kicked out because she was wearing pants, was really amazing. And it wasn’t that long ago.

That was in 1960 and the judge went nuts, he said she was defaming the honor of the traffic court and sent her home to put on more appropriate clothes though men could wear sweatshirts and overalls in his court.  He also told her husband, who was with her, “start now and clamp down a little bit or it’ll be too late.” So many women I’ve talked to remember those days and how awful it was. If you worked in the Post Office you had to wear a skirt. And it was extremely uncomfortable, extremely cold for some women.  The right to wear sensible clothes was completely withheld.

And there was the men’s only plane . . .

Yes, that’s the plane United used to have that went from New York to Chicago every day–the Executive Express.  It was men only.  A woman could not buy a seat on that flight.  So it was too bad for them if they needed to get to Chicago at that time.  The men on that flight were served huge steaks and cigars and part of the training stewardesses received was how to lean over and light their cigars.

The amazing thing to me was that it wasn’t illegal to have men only flights.

Whenever I talk about the Executive Express, someone asks a question like wasn’t it illegal, and I say nothing was illegal back then. It was perfectly legal to say, “We don’t hire women for this job,” or as Newsweek told Nora Ephron when she applied for a reporter job, “Women don’t write. They only research.”  There was the head of the medical school who said “We do keep women out, when we can. We don’t want them here.”

None of that was illegal?

None of it. In 1960 the vision of women’s limitations of the proper role for women in society was not, at bottom, much different than it was, say, in 1200 or 1600.   And it all changed in such a small period of time.  It knocks me out when I think of it.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins credits her career advancement to the women who came before her and opened doors that until 1960 had been closed to women.  Collins recounts the female revolution in her newest book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.

You interviewed over 100 people for your book, is there one interview that stands out?

One of my favorite stories is about Lorena Weeks.  She was just one of those people who just do something because they believe in what they’re doing.  She applied for a job as a switchman and was denied because there was a law in Georgia that women couldn’t lift heavy equipment over 30 pounds, though she had been lifting her typewriter which weighed more than that every day.  She sued and lost but kept fighting.  Her husband was horrified, her kids were petrified but she just went on.  And she finally won her case.  She’s just a regular woman, she just instinctively knew what was right and what was wrong.  And she just went on.

How did it change?

There were many factors–the birth control pill so that women could no longer be denied jobs and promotions because they might get pregnant.  Before the pill, women used birth control but it wasn’t as effective–it might limit the number of kids they had to three instead of 12.  Suddenly you didn’t’ have to be a woman committed to being single to get ahead.  You could be married or sexually active and control when you had children. Financially, there was a little window of opportunity in the 1950s where you could obtain the middle class on just one salary but that went away in the 1970s and you needed that extra income.  Then there was the Civil Rights Movement.

The Civil Rights Movement?

Yes, women helped spearhead the movement.  Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat and they had a huge rally when she got out of jail but she wasn’t invited to speak.

You were born in 1945, were you part of the women’s movement?

There were women who were one second ahead of me, who filed the suits, took on the fights and generally they were not the ones who got the rewards, it was those of us who followed, who went through the doors they had opened.

So no stories about you fighting the good fight?

One of my first jobs was in Connecticut and in the capital there was this dreadful room called the Hawaiian Room. It was where the lobbyists and the legislators went to drink. Male reporters could go in, too. A woman radio reporter filed some kind of complaint and the legislators’ response was instantly to bar all reporters from the Hawaiian Room.  The male reporters were so angry at her for doing that.  At the time I just sort of thought, “Wow, who would want to go to a Hawaiian Room?”  I totally did not get it at all.

You talk a lot about Gloria Steinem and I think she showed women that they could be glamorous and demand to be taken seriously at the same time.

Yes, there was a thought in the early days of feminism that women shouldn’t wear make-up and they should wear sensible shoes and that part of the movement just hit the wall.   Speaking of Gloria, during the presidential campaign I wrote that the woman’s movement had made it possible for Sarah Palin to run for the vice presidency and Gloria called me and said if that’s true, I’m going to shoot myself now.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, Red Editorial Staff

Anyone out there who knows the whereabouts of the New York Football Giants, please contact RedHouse HQ. There are tens of thousands of New Yorkers looking for those guys.

The other New York football team, the Rexes, er, the Jets, they not only make the postseason, they end up as the No. 5 seed. Weird but true, but Denver’s late-season implosion helped (though it doesn’t figure to do much for Broncos coach Josh McDaniel’s job jitters).

Getting into the Final Six is all that matters. The Jets will have to go on the road this weekend to face the Bengals, but Chad Ocho is Ouch-oh Cinco with a knee problem (he hurt it in warmups Sunday night) and you just have to think Cincy QB Carson Palmer isn’t exactly looking forward to seeing Rex Ryan’s defensive scheme for a second straight week.

It’s no mistake that the Jets DBs are so good; that how Rex’s dad Buddy got the job done with the 1985 Super Bowl Bears, even naming the 46 Defense after one of his safety’s numbers. That would be Doug Plank for those of you trivializing at home.

You have to like the Jets’ chances Saturday, even if they are living and dying with rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez.  Palmer needs to play to his capability for the Bengals to win, and a New York defense feeling little pressure (now that it made the playoffs) is likely to put some Big Pressure on the Southern Cal QB who preceded Matt Leinart who preceded Sanchez. The weather, which figures to be very un-SoCal-like, is likely to help the D’s and not the QB’s.

What exactly is up with the New Orleans Saints, anyway? Your guess is as good a theirs, losers of the last three after a 13-0 start, including two in the SuperDome, which maybe isn’t the home-dome advantage once thought. It is loud in there, no doubt, but teams feed off other teams winning road games, double no doubt. New Orleans coach Sean Payton has an extra week to figure things out and he is likely secretly thinking, “Not the Packers, please.”

Mike Shanahan coaching the Redskins and Mike Holmgren as Prez of the Browns. The NFL have-nots are almost exciting as the playoff teams. Another have-not with deep football roots, the Bears, will be keeping Lovie Smith (smart) and have already fired O-coordinator Ron Turner to make room (XXL) for Charlie Weiss. Whether that is a smart move, check back after, oh, about a thousand blog entries and 16 football games later.

–Bob Condor, RedHouse

When Achilles’ mother dipped her infant son in the River Styx she made him invulnerable, unfortunately she held him by his ankle and an arrow to this spot felled the mighty warrior.

North Carolina head coach Roy Williams must’ve held his team by the guards as Monday night’s stunning 82-79 overtime upset to the College of Charleston is evidence of.

The Cougars took the No. 9 Heels, minus guards Marcus Ginyard and Will Graves, to task and hit them where it hurt most: the backcourt. The Cougars’ starting backcourt outscored their counterparts 52-17, had 11 assists to the Heels’ six and made 20 of 47 field goals compared to UNC’s 5 of 21 from their starting guards.

But the real difference in the game came from beyond the arc where North Carolina could not contain the College of Charleston, who were draining threes like the NCAA Rules Committee was considering banning them.

The Cougars outscored the Heels 39-3 from outside, making 13 of their 32 attempts including a guarded buzzer-beater from 28-feet out by Andrew Goudelock to tie the game and force overtime.

Goudelock’s bucket capped a 12-1 run by the Cougars and he scored the last eight points for C of C.

The overtime was more of the same from the Cougars as Donavan Monroe opened the period with a three-point bucket to put the Cougars ahead for good. The Tar Heels made their lone three in overtime to bring the game within one but a missed layup from Dexter Strickland with four seconds left spelled the end for UNC. An errant baseball pass intercepted by Monroe ended the game and evened C of C’s all-time record versus UNC to 3-and-3.

The loss gives UNC its fourth of the year and should drop them from the rankings completely . . . that is if they were anyone but North Carolina.

That’s because the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls have an unconditional love for the Heels. Any other team with four losses before conference play, even if three were to ranked opponents, would be nowhere near the top 25.

But due to the Vitale-inspired, North Carolina and Roy Williams-can-do-no-wrong-attitude of the pollsters they’ll likely drop to just 11 or 12 when the new polls come out next week. All the while one and two loss teams like Baylor, O.K. State and UNLV languish on the outside of the 25.

Maybe when UNC drops games in the upcoming ACC conference play, which they will if they continue to have the weak guard play they exhibited last night, the pollsters rose-tinted glasses will come off.

Or should I say powder blue-tinted glasses?

–Aaron Whitebread, Red’s Editorial Staff

With the Bee Gee’s hit “Stayin’ Alive” pulsing deep in the background on your 8 track player, you slowly stuff yourself into those slick white polyester tuxedo pants that have been laying neatly folded in your drawer since last year. A shimmy here, a dab of Vaseline there, a tug on the pliers and, ohh yeah, you’re in. A little snug, but the ladies like that. Mom must have washed the damned things. That zipper worked a few years ago. Oh well. Man like you grooves on the easy access.

It’s New Years Eve, and a young wolf like yourself is going on the prowl.  Time to impress those doe eyed cuties enraptured by your James Bond-like tux, black tie, razor stubble and jacked up Pinto.  It’s time to hit the clubs.

“Hi. I saw you get out of that old ladies car in front of the club. Want a flute of some great Brut?” the first sleek minx asks as you lean against the bar, your eyes lidded seductively, head rhythmically nodding to the beat. She notices the befuddled look on your face only seconds before you sputter, “I didn’t know it was that kind of club. Thanks anyway,” and watches as you dash away, leaving a perplexed hottie wondering what the hell you were talking about.

Maybe next year, after a little lesson addressing your club night champagne faux pas, you can look her in the eye and jokingly suggest “Not this evening. I am in the mood for a taste of Cava. You?” in your best Barry White baritone.

So without further ado and freshly into the New Year, here is a brief look at champagne.

Champagne comes in these main types:

Brut: driest of the champagnes and a standard offering on the market. Seen as the best.
Extra-dry: slightly less dry than brut.
Sec: a sweeter variety, up to 4% sugar.
Demi-sec: the sweetest of the champagnes with up to 8% sugar.

Champagne is either called vintage or non-vintage. The difference between the two is the usage of only one year’s grape growth in vintage along with at least three years aging, where non-vintage is a blend and the aging time varies. Varieties of champagne include rose’, a blend of white and red; blanc de blanc, strictly Chardonnay or white grapes and blanc de noirs, made from darker skinned grapes such as pinot noir and pinot meunier.

In the world of champagne, only those produced in the French region of Champagne may be called Champagne. In other regions, the names vary. There is sparkling wine, typically from the US; Cava, from Spain; Sekt, from Germany; Asti Spumante, from Italy and Cap Classique, from South Africa.

It is produced using the Methode Champenoise, a technique using second fermentation. Wine is fermented in a steel tank for 2-3 weeks and then sits for up to five weeks after. At this point, the vintner adds yeast and sugar, caps the bottle and allows this second fermentation to go for up to 3 years.

By this time, sediment has usually formed and needs to be disgorged, a process that uses a slow spinning motion to bring the bottle to a vertical position, causing the sediment to fall to down into the neck. The neck is frozen, the sediment pushed out and a small amount of champagne is added to replace the loss. It is corked and sent out to liquor stores and bars around the world so studs like you can “get your bubbly on”.

When you finally find a gal who actually digs your Friends DVD collection and the posters of Farrah still clinging to your wall with cracking, amber bands of old tape, it may be time to take this new found knowledge and put it to use with a little bubbly and some snacks that go with well with it.

In stead of plagiarizing the well choreographed thug gangsta look that MTV twits like Puffy and Jay-Z promote with wild parties featuring barely clothed ladies wrestling in pools of French champagnes like Dom and Cristal, pimp up some sweet domestic sparkling like an Iron Horse Cuvee (California), Chateau Frank Blanc de Noirs, 2000 (NY), Handley Brut Rose’ 2003 (California) and a tray of cheeses like fresh chevre, or goats cheese; mild cheddars, preferably young and mild; brie, served at room temperature and Colby, a mild cheese from Wisconsin.

Wow her at first sip with your Bond-esque “Excellent. 45 degrees, just where it should be”, making sure that crusty meat thermometer you stole from Mom stays out of the picture. Toss out those cheap plastic champagne flutes your pocketed from last year’s New Year’s Eve bash at Grandma’s bingo hall and pick up some real glass flutes, those long stemmed, thin bowled vessels that hold in the nose and effervescency of your champagne. Do it right.

And the next time some hottie comes up with an offer of a flute of Brut, straighten your food-stained bow tie, suck in your spare tire and work your love mojo with “Perhaps a domestic vintage? Indeed!” Go get ‘em, Clooney!

Happy New Year.

–Tim Connors, Red Editorials Staff

Everyone already knows that college football has the worst system in all of sports, perhaps the world, for deciding an outcome. The BCS is the kind of thing that would come about if you locked Hugo Chavez, Barry Goldwater and an H-Bomb in a room together and told them to come up with a solution to something. Needless to say, the results, like the BCS, would please no one.

But would you believe it if I told you that the BCS isn’t even the only thing that’s wrong with the college football bowl season?

And I’m not just talking about the fact that the majority of the games take place more than a month after most teams’ final regular season games, bowls routinely pass over more deserving schools for ones that will make them more money or that most bowls are named after fading national pizza chains.

No, all of this stuff is even besides that. So without further ado, here are some of the things plaguing college football’s “postseason.”

Orlando has two bowls. Somehow, the only other city in the entire country besides Dallas to host two bowl games is Orlando, Florida. Orlando, the home of . . . what exactly? We know it has the two things that absolutely no bowl can live without, excessive Disney product placement and elderly people who are not originally from the area (who are likely complaining at this very moment about how many bowl games there are). But what else?

The block of cheese I am eating as I write this has more personality than this city. For crying out loud, Orlando is in Florida, America’s most celebrated coastal state, and not even on the ocean. We can do better.

Cincinnati got crushed in the Sugar Bowl without its head coach. Cincinnati was overmatched against the Florida Gators on Friday night. That is indisputable. But the fact is, they were still an overmatched team that was forced to play its most important game of the season without the person most responsible for getting them there in the first place: head coach and offensive coordinator Brian Kelly.

The bowls take place so long after the regular season has ended, coaches all but consider the time in between its own separate offseason. Coaches climb the ladder in other sports all the time, including in college basketball, but never between the regular season and the “postseason.” Maybe some day all teams will be able to play their bowl games with the personnel that got them there.

ESPN. First, there’s the fact that the worldwide leader insists on calling a bowl season that stretches out to nearly a month in length a bowl “week.” Not sure which focus group told them they needed to do that, but it’s annoying.

Second, everything else. From the announcers, to the stilted opening montages to the relentless mentioning of the fact that Cincinnati wide receiver Mardy Gilyard once lived in his car, everything the channel touches turns to awfulness. Now Desmond Howard being unable to speak English on the pregame show is just as synonymous with the Rose Bowl as good football.

The pizza chains thing. I mean really, can we at least just pretend that somewhere along the line in the planning and discussions for these things that dignity is considered? Can the money the NCAA gets from allowing games to be called the PizzaHutStuffedCrustPizza.Info Bowl really be worth it? I doubt it.

–Patrick Daugherty, Red Editorial Staff