Behind the Scenes at the Cayman Islands
(CBS)
All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.
Read all 'family' posts in Couric & Co.
July 9, 2009 6:08 PM Lucky assignment, right? My senior producer, Kim Godwin, called me to ask if I "might be free to go to the Cayman Islands" to follow the "Financial Family Tree" as it wound its way through the Caribbean. My response, clearly, did not require much thought: "yes".
July 3, 2009 4:42 PM
This Fourth of July, Thank Teddy Roosevelt
It’s impossible to examine the life of Theodore Roosevelt and not feel a certain degree of envy. The man was so prodigious in his pursuits and accomplishments it humbles everyone who comes close.
June 12, 2009 7:16 PM
Katie Couric's Notebook: Affording Sick Days
Katie Couric's Notebook: Affording Sick Days
The Problem With Sick Days
Does this happen at your office? The guy at the next desk coughs and sneezes all day long. You keep your distance and wonder, why didn't he just stay home?
It may be because he wouldn't get paid.
Well, there's a move in Congress to change that. The Healthy Families Act would force companies with at least 15 employees to provide up to seven paid sick days a year. Workers could use them, not just for when they're sick, but to care for a child, parent, or spouse.
Business groups vow a fight, arguing that with so many companies on the brink in this economy, it's the wrong time to make them pay more. But supporters insist this affects all of us. Half of private sector workers, three quarters of low wage earners get docked when they're sick. They include day care workers, restaurant staff, and maybe the guy in the next cubicle. Happy, health employees are more productive employees. And more productive employees make for better business.
That's a page from my notebook.
I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.
The Problem With Sick Days
(AP)
It may be because he wouldn't get paid.
Well, there's a move in Congress to change that. The Healthy Families Act would force companies with at least 15 employees to provide up to seven paid sick days a year. Workers could use them, not just for when they're sick, but to care for a child, parent, or spouse.
Business groups vow a fight, arguing that with so many companies on the brink in this economy, it's the wrong time to make them pay more. But supporters insist this affects all of us. Half of private sector workers, three quarters of low wage earners get docked when they're sick. They include day care workers, restaurant staff, and maybe the guy in the next cubicle. Happy, health employees are more productive employees. And more productive employees make for better business.
That's a page from my notebook.
I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.
December 9, 2008 4:07 PM
Riding A New Wave Of Nostalgia
Tony Maciulis is a CBS News producer based in New York.
Mitzi Gaynor, now there’s a blast from the past.
I found a YouTube clip of her singing Peter Allen’s hit “Everything Old Is New Again,” on a variety show special in 1976. It was called “Mitzi…Roarin’ in the 20’s.” I guess “Mitzi with a Z” seemed too derivative.
For years, the only place to see a classic piece of television camp like that was either online or on a late night infomercial advertising a DVD series. But now, there’s no need to remember when. Everything old … you get the picture.
Those splashy '70s-style variety shows are making a comeback. NBC gave an hour to Rosie O’Donnell recently, and Ellen DeGeneres ...
(AP Photo/ABC, Kelsey McNeal)
I found a YouTube clip of her singing Peter Allen’s hit “Everything Old Is New Again,” on a variety show special in 1976. It was called “Mitzi…Roarin’ in the 20’s.” I guess “Mitzi with a Z” seemed too derivative.
For years, the only place to see a classic piece of television camp like that was either online or on a late night infomercial advertising a DVD series. But now, there’s no need to remember when. Everything old … you get the picture.
Those splashy '70s-style variety shows are making a comeback. NBC gave an hour to Rosie O’Donnell recently, and Ellen DeGeneres ...
September 25, 2008 5:26 PM
Forty-three percent say women make most decisions in their homes. Only 26 percent say men do.
It may also be women who have the final say on Election Day. For the past quarter century, women have voted in larger numbers than men – and experts say that will likely continue. The Obama and McCain campaigns know it, and both candidates are working hard to win the female vote, talking about issues traditionally important to women such as education and health care. Obama even started singing "I'm Every Woman" at a rally in Florida the other day.
With women influencing their husbands on big purchases and where to go on vacation ... might their sway extend all the way to the voting booth? The issue may not be who wears the pants, but the pantsuit.
Katie Couric's Notebook: Who Wears The Pants?
It's a question couples are asked all the time: "Who wears the pants in your family?" A report out today from the Pew Research Center shows, increasingly, its women.
Video: Forty-three percent say women make most decisions in their homes. Only 26 percent say men do.
It may also be women who have the final say on Election Day. For the past quarter century, women have voted in larger numbers than men – and experts say that will likely continue. The Obama and McCain campaigns know it, and both candidates are working hard to win the female vote, talking about issues traditionally important to women such as education and health care. Obama even started singing "I'm Every Woman" at a rally in Florida the other day.
With women influencing their husbands on big purchases and where to go on vacation ... might their sway extend all the way to the voting booth? The issue may not be who wears the pants, but the pantsuit.
June 26, 2007 3:10 PM 
David Martin is National Security Correspondent for CBS News.
For me, reading the Family Jewels is like listening to Golden Oldies.
I spent my early years as a wire service reporter in the 1970s covering all the investigations into the Family Jewels. There's nothing in the documents that surprises me, but even on a first scanning of some 700 pages I see some nuggets I'd either forgotten or never knew. For most Americans, including myself, the Congressional hearings into assassination plots, drug testing and mail opening provided the first exposure to the world which one CIA officer famously called a "wilderness of mirrors." If you missed it the first time either because you were too young or too busy, you can catch the rerun in these documents.
All of the activities described in the documents occurred during the Cold War, a very different time when Communism not terrorism was the main enemy. Different people will have different reactions. Some will be horrified that the CIA was trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, and others will see nothing wrong with trying to get rid of a man who allowed the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles in Cuba. Some will read the documents and conclude that the CIA was a "rogue elephant;" others will read the same material and decide it was doing exactly what the White House wanted it to.
Scholars will be mining these documents for years, and that's their real significance -- for good or ill history always catches up with you.
Poring Over The Family Jewels
(CBS)
For me, reading the Family Jewels is like listening to Golden Oldies.
I spent my early years as a wire service reporter in the 1970s covering all the investigations into the Family Jewels. There's nothing in the documents that surprises me, but even on a first scanning of some 700 pages I see some nuggets I'd either forgotten or never knew. For most Americans, including myself, the Congressional hearings into assassination plots, drug testing and mail opening provided the first exposure to the world which one CIA officer famously called a "wilderness of mirrors." If you missed it the first time either because you were too young or too busy, you can catch the rerun in these documents.
All of the activities described in the documents occurred during the Cold War, a very different time when Communism not terrorism was the main enemy. Different people will have different reactions. Some will be horrified that the CIA was trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, and others will see nothing wrong with trying to get rid of a man who allowed the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles in Cuba. Some will read the documents and conclude that the CIA was a "rogue elephant;" others will read the same material and decide it was doing exactly what the White House wanted it to.
Scholars will be mining these documents for years, and that's their real significance -- for good or ill history always catches up with you.
