All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Remember how maternity wards were portrayed back in the old days?
Nervous men pacing in the waiting room getting ready to pass out cigars.

These days, you'll find most men in the delivery room -- one hand on their partner's shoulder, the other hand gripping a camcorder.

But now, a leading childbirth specialist in Britain says it's time for the men to go back outside.

Michel Odent tells The Observer newspaper that birthing should be a low-profile affair.

No husband, and no doctor - just the mother and an experienced midwife.

He says the presence of a male partner causes added stress for the mother -- leading to longer labor and more births by caesarean section.

His assertions have met with criticism from professionals and parents in Britain.

Here in the U.S., the average labor lasts about eight hours.

That's a long day at work for mom and if dad wants to be there too, that's nobody's business but their own.

That's a page from my notebook.
I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

For the past 7 days now, I have done nothing but cover the death of Michael Jackson and sleep (at least 4 hours each night). While I was always a fan of his music, especially the amazing hits from the 80's, I never closely followed the surreal saga that was his life off stage. However, I find the drama that has played out over the past week to be incredibly compelling. Some of it is tabloid for sure, but it is also a great human drama and tragedy. The other thing that has amazed me is how much of the "news" about Jackson is being driven by the celebrity web site TMZ. They generally traffic in all things celebrity and it’s far from what many would consider reputable journalism. However, TMZ broke the news of Jackson’s death and has basically been one step ahead of EVERY news organization since. Some are calling Jackson’s death the event that will "legitimize" TMZ. That remains to be seen, but right now they are out front.

Some thoughts on Diana Ross and Debbie Rowe:

When Michael Jackson's will was released today, there were two bombshells. First, he asked that his mother be given custody of his children. However, if she wasn't able to care for them, he wanted them to go to Diana Ross. Jackson's biographer, Randy Taraborelli, says the two were extremely close. In fact, when a young Michael Jackson first lived in Los Angeles, he lived with Ross at her mansion and she became a surrogate mother. He was able to see how she raised her kids and apparently decided she did a pretty good job. The two also memorably starred in the 1978 musical "The Wiz." However, Jackson’s biographer says the two have not been in contact in recent years. That Jackson distanced himself from almost everyone after his molestation trial in 2005. Taraborelli does say that he thinks Ross will be delighted that Jackson thought of her in this way.

As for Debbie Rowe, Jackson's former wife who gave both to two of his children, she was specifically cut out of the will. When Jackson signed his will in 2002, he and Rowe had split and were at odds over custody and visitation rights for the children. In 2005, Rowe was called as a prosecution witness in Jackson's molestation trial. However, many believe her testimony is what led to Michael Jackson's acquittal. Shortly thereafter, the two reached an agreement whereby she gave up her parental rights for a reported multi-million dollar settlement.

Lawyer Andrew Cohen analyzes legal affairs for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

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Forget law, politics, diplomacy and war. Forget about creepy astronaut lovers and vicious athletes. Is there a more poignant and thought-provoking story this year than the one that emerged finally into such rich detail late last week about Mother Teresa’s self-professed doubts about the existence of God in her life?

I am rarely thunderstruck by news and religious news rarely interests me (even though my editor here at Couric and Co. is a Catholic Deacon whom I affectionately and respectfully call the “Rabbi”). And I profess I didn’t catch this story when it first emerged in foggy relief back in 2003. But reading David Van Biema’s fascinating piece about Mother Teresa for Time magazine this past week both dropped my jaw and raised my curiosity. It turns out that the greatest religious icon of my lifetime was moonlighting as a Doubting Thomas—“Lord, my God, whom am I that You should forsake me?,” she wrote, “… I have no Faith… I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart- & make me suffer untold agony.’”

I do not pretend to have any answers. Only questions. How will the faithful react to this news? How will atheists and agnostics react to it? To what extent will the publication of Mother Teresa’s private letters change the conversation about religion in the 21st Century? How long will it be before semester-long courses are devoted to this development alone? And, the granddaddy of them all: If God indeed abandoned Mother Teresa, for decade after decade while she was doing her miracle work, what chance do the rest of us have?

It is stunning to me to read that Mother Teresa, in Van Biema’s words, was “acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. Quoting from a new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), Van Biema offers this: “`The smile, [Mother Teresa] writes, is ‘a mask’ or ‘a cloak that covers everything.’ Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. ‘If you were [there], you would have said “What hypocrisy.”’ Indeed, it now is left to theologians and historians to cull true meaning from these mixed messages and to render judgment upon this remarkable person.

Not surprisingly, I guess, different people with different attitudes about religion are already using Mother Teresa’s words to support their own views...

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