Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco hit so many home runs when they played together for the Oakland Athletics that they were christened “the Bash Brothers.” But last week, Canseco, McGwire, and a host of other baseball luminaries found themselves on the receiving end of the hits in a very different arena. Even by the standards of high-profile congressional inquiries, the session on baseball and steroids was quite a spectacle. The House Government Reform Committee administered an 11-hour scolding to the national pastime and made clear it wasn’t done yet. “Today’s hearing will not be the end of our inquiry. Far from it,” said Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who chairs the committee. “We’re in the first inning of what could be an extra-inning ballgame.” Read the rest of this entry »

The job market looked dismal when Casey Mullaney began attending career fairs and meeting with employers as a sophomore at the University of Georgia in 2002. Now a senior, the 21-year-old marketing major has interned, endlessly revised and tailored her resume, and even taken a for-credit class in career planning. Her preparation, combined with an uptick in hiring, helped her land the job she wanted with General Mills near Atlanta. “Now I can relax for my last few months of school while my classmates are still out looking,” she says. Read the rest of this entry »

Koren Zailckas was 14 when she had her first drink of alcohol. She had her stomach pumped two years later after chugging more vodka, rum, and Kahlua than her 105-pound body could handle. Then came college–binge drinking, a sexual assault. Now 24 and sober for more than a year, Zailckas chronicles her love affair with alcohol in the bestselling Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood. Read the rest of this entry »