“Toast”— an economical, dual-purpose word meaning to honor OR to roast. Check here every month for our take on the good, the bad and the ugly in money issues and current events. You’ll quickly figure out which meaning we’re using to “toast” each of our “honorees.”

TOAST with cherry jam to Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof for his impassioned and relentless focus on disenfranchised women around the globe whose lives are threatened for no good reason. Latest case in point: his recent columns on Aisha Parveen, a Pakistani woman who escaped from a brothel. Her country’s courts planned to send her back to the brothel owner, who threatened to kill her. Perhaps as a result of the national exposure given her case through his column, the government changed its position and is now providing 24-hour police protection for her, instead. Check out his columns on http://www.nytimes.com.

            Kristof and the Times are sponsoring a once-in-a-lifetime chance for any college student: the winner of the “Win a Trip with Nick Kristof” essay contest will earn an all-expenses-paid trip to Africa with Kristof, where s/he will be able to share perspectives and report on experiences. “You won’t be practicing tourism, but journalism,” promises Kristof. If you know any budding journalists, let them know about this opportunity. Visit http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/winatrip/ for more details, official rules and application. Entries must be received by April 20.

            A TOAST with champagne preserves to Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president, and Ellen Johnson–Sirleaf, Liberia’s—indeed, Africa’s—first elected female president. While we’re at it, let’s toast the voters who elected them. Here’s hoping that electing female heads of state is a trend that catches on in this country. Not that electing a member of the “fairer sex” guarantees wiser leadership. But wouldn’t it be nice to see how one of us would do as Commander in Chief for real and not just on TV? Isn’t it about time?

            BURNT TOAST to this shameful milestone, reported in the New York Times: According to a study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2005 was the first year on record that a full-time worker earning minimum wage couldn’t afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at market rates. Those of us who aren’t concerned about this statistic are living in a housing bubble.

Zwieback TOAST with strawberry jam—and a cup of soothing green tea—to Teresa Anderson, the 25-year-old Phoenix, Arizona, surrogate mother who refused to accept her $15,000 fee after delivering quintuplets by Caesarean section for her clients, the Gonzalezes, on April 26, because of the number of bills the couple now faced. "I cannot say enough about Teresa and what she's done for us. She has given me my dream; she has given us our family," said Ms. Gonzalez, as reported in The New York Times. " Anderson’s generosity is the sort of unselfish gesture that only a mother—or surrogate mother—could understand.

            A TOAST with plum preserves to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CONN) for introducing the Paycheck Fairness Act in the Senate and the House respectively on April 19, 2005. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 makes wage discrimination on the basis of sex, illegal. If the Paycheck Fairness Act is passed, it will make the provisions of the Equal Pay Act easier to enforce, by ensuring “effective remedies for wage discrimination” and making it easier to sue on behalf of groups of women, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity (http://www.pay-equity.org).  Another slice of TOAST to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) for simultaneously introducing the Fair Pay Act, which if passed will “address the persistent problem of paying lower wages in fields dominated by women and people of color,” explains the National Committee on Pay Equity. It’s fitting that both bills were introduced on April 19—Equal Pay Day, the day when women’s earnings catch up with the income that men earned the year before.

BURNT TOAST to the corporations that have failed to make equal pay for woman a priority. In the 42 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed, our progress has amounted to a mere half a cent per year. Unequal pay is costing American families $200 billion a year—an average of $4,000 per family—enough to lift nearly 40 percent of the women on welfare out of poverty. Equal pay would give millions of women more money to spend on health care and on education for themselves and their children, as well as more to spend on goods and services. Closing the wage gap would pour $200 billion into the economy—and a percentage of that dough would end up going to the IRS in taxes. You’d think the Government would be for that, at least!

MAKING BREAD urges you to write your congressmen and women, asking them to support and/or cosponsor both bills. Visit http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov to find the names and addresses of your representatives in Congress.

A TOAST with bittersweet gooseberry jam to 85 Broads, a women’s networking group founded in 1999 by former Goldman Sachs employee Janet Hanson, for laying down a challenge to corporate America and daring to ask us to: IMAGINE IF ON OCTOBER 19TH WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD DIDN'T BUY ANYTHING? On that day, these Broads “invite you to leave your checkbook and credit cards at home as a symbolic gesture that we no longer ‘buy’ the glacial pace of change for working women around the world.”

            This country’s economy is increasingly female-driven, with women controlling almost $4 trillion in annual consumer spending, yet the wage gap still exists, 42 years after The Equal Pay Act outlawed it; women’s access to investment capital (more about that later) is a fraction of that available to men; and only eight CEO’s in the Fortune 500 are women. Visit https://secure.85broads.com to find out more about the BUYCOTT and how you can “spend” your day on October 19 more productively. Stop by the site also to learn about other “broad-minded” initiatives and mentoring programs that have been developed by this group for business-school students, business owners, and, indeed, women everywhere around the world.

            A TOAST with sage-flavored butter to the Nobel Prize committee, who in its wisdom, named Kenyan environmentalist and women’s rights activist Dr. Wangari Maathai the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. So far, through her Green Belt Movement, 30 million trees have been planted by African women, reversing deforestation that left them without firewood to cook meals and keep warm.  "When our resources become scarce, we fight over them. In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace," she said on learning of the award, according to The New York Times. Do we spot a trend? This marks the second year in a row that the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to a woman. In 2003, an Iranian lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, won for her efforts promoting the rights of women and children in Iran. Perhaps the warring nations of the world have something to learn from our fair (in all senses of that word) sex, after all.

          A TOAST with hot pepper jelly to Christina Aguilera for her in-your-face DECLARE YOURSELF efforts to get out the women’s vote. Proving once again that one picture is worth a thousand words, her right-on campaign kicked off with a billboard of herself high above Times Square, showing her mouth sewn shut. And that’s what women might as well do to themselves if they don’t vote on November 2. Visit www.declareyourself.com to view some very inventive and entertaining get-out-the-vote public-service videos.

            BURNT TOAST to President Bush’s recent proposed budget cut, depriving the Small Business Administration (one of the primary sources of funding for women-owned businesses) of money to back loans to small businesses. For more about how the Bush Administration’s policies are affecting women around the world, visit http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com, a project of the National Organization for Women.

A TOAST with (money) honey to Donald Trump for publicly advising Britney Spears to “get a prenup.” The twice-divorced mogul knows the value of a prenuptial agreement from personal experience. That he advocates women with wealth get equal protection for their assets is commendable. Spoken like a man with a daughter. Truth be told, all women should consider prenups. Getting one puts money issues on the table as a topic of discussion before marriage, when they should be addressed, and acknowledges that the marriage contract is at heart a financial contract, with serious implications for both partners’ financial security.

            A TOAST with sweet (revenge) cherry jam to the 340 women of Morgan Stanley who are eligible for a share of the $54 million sex-discrimination-suit settlement announced on July 15. Among the charges leveled by female employees who cried foul: “Being cut out of a client meeting because it was [held] at a strip club,” according to The New York Times.  Share that slice of TOAST with the women of Wal-Mart, for having the courage to speak up, alleging discriminatory pay and promotion practices at the largest retailer and demanding equal treatment. May the determination of these and the other women who have filed sex-discrimination suits in recent years against employers who should know better by now inspire others to raise their voices and ask for what they deserve. The wage gap costs U.S. households $200 billion a year, according to the American Association of University Women.

      BURNT TOAST to Slim-Fast for dumping Whoopi Goldberg as spokesperson of their “Big Loser” weight-loss campaign after she made certain anti-Bush jokes at a Democratic fund-raiser. In our opinion, Slim-Fast is the ”Big Loser” by overreacting to a few critics. “The fact that I am no longer the spokesman for Slim-Fast makes me sad, but not as sad as someone trying to punish me for exercising my right as an American to speak my mind in any forum I choose,” commented Goldberg in The New York Times, after she was fired.

            (Note: All of our TOASTS are high-octane, low-carb mind munchies.)

A TOAST with apple jelly to Bread Upon the Waters, a fabulous scholarship program for women over 30 interested in completing an undergraduate degree through part-time study at the University of Pennsylvania. This program was started in 1986 by Elin Danien, who enrolled at U of P at the age of 46 and graduated seven years later summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. The difference that returning to school at that age made in her life prompted her to fund this scholarship so that other women could do the same. "I never dreamed there was a source of financial aid for women who work full time. This scholarship is the key to my future,” one “Bread-winner”—a data-entry operator and mother of two teens—says on the site (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/CGS/resources/bread.php?section=undergraduate).

Interested applicants should call 215-746-7761. Application deadline for the next enrollment is June 1.

            BURNT TOAST to the three major credit-reporting agencies for dragging their heels about making credit reports available for free to all of us once a year. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, signed last December, mandates one free credit report a year from each of the three major credit bureaus. But—here’s the catch—the Federal Trade Commission has six months to establish distribution rules and the bureaus have another six months to comply. For the record, we have historically been eligible to receive a free report whenever we are denied credit, insurance or a job as a result of a poor score; when we are on welfare or unemployed and looking for work; and whenever there is an inaccuracy as a result of fraudulent activity, such as ID theft, on our report.

            But MAKING BREAD wonders why we don’t have the right to free access to our reports all of the time. It is our personal information that these bureaus are selling to creditors, after all.

          A TOAST with boysenberry jam to First Book, a nonprofit organization that spreads the joy of reading and the wonders of the imagination to children from low-income families, by giving them the opportunity to read and own their own first new books. Forbes magazine named First Book one of the 10 "Gold Star" Charities in their Annual Survey of 200 Nonprofits. You can earn a “gold star” by donating just one dollar to put a new book in the hands of a child who’s never owned one or by buying a product from a company that pledges a portion of its proceeds to First Book. Scholastic, for instance, gives a buck for every copy of “Old Turtle and the Broken Truth” sold in the U.S. To find out more about this organization or to donate, visit www.firstbook.org.

            A TOAST with fruitcake preserves to the Georgia inventor who has patented a system for electronically forwarding online gifts that you don’t want to other unsuspecting recipients who might appreciate them more than you would. Too bad the technology isn’t in place in time to take advantage of it this holiday season!

            BURNT TOAST to the decidedly non-PC drop-down menu found by a reader on one of American Express’s Small Business loan applications recently. In filling out the online application, she was asked to select among the following designations: Jr. Sr., I or II.  “When was the last time anyone met a Jane Doe Jr.?” she wondered. This entrepreneur was left with the distinct impression that “only men need apply here,” and she took her business elsewhere.

With college tuition costs skyrocketing—they rose an average 5.8 percent at private schools and a whopping 9.6 percent at public colleges last year, according to the College Board—MAKING BREAD gives a big TOAST with apple jelly to two institutions, one large and one small, that are helping to make a difference.

            On Sept. 29, North Carolina-based Wachovia Bank announced a $50,000 donation to the City College of Philadelphia to bankroll scholarships for low-income single moms who want to pursue associate degrees in business or accounting-related fields. Child-care services are available on campus. For more information, call the Community College of Philadelphia at 215-751-8010.

            Believing that “education is the key to increasing diversity in advertising,” Philadelphia-based advertising firm Brown Partners Multicultural Marketing offers internship opportunities and scholarship money (up to $1,000) for students of color who want to major in advertising or related communications fields. Visit www.brownpartersmm.com/pathways to fill out an application form.

            BURNT TOAST to the Do Not Call List. Sure, we’re all annoyed by those dinner-hour ding-a-lings that pitch goods and services we don’t want. But, even before the List (which went into effect Oct. 1, pending court review) was dreamed up, many of us had already instituted family policies of not answering the phone at dinnertime. Given the current job market, isn’t that a more humane strategy for dealing with this minor annoyance than putting two million of our lowest-paid employed on the unemployment line?

A TOAST with Promise margarine to Maine—the first state to pass universal health insurance, promising to put in place low-cost health coverage for all state residents by 2009. "Our motto is you can't have a healthy economy if you can't have healthy people," Gov. John Baldacci told The New York Times after the legislation passed.

            A TOAST with cereal (“The Breakfast of Champions”) to Enterprising Women: 250 Years of American Business, a traveling museum exhibit celebrating women in business from the colonies to the present. Did you know that the first signed copy of the Declaration of Independence was printed by a woman in the newspaper business? The exhibit, brought to you by Ford and AT&T, with support from the Small Business Administration, offers inspiration for all women who make it their business to succeed. If you can’t catch the exhibit, which is stopping in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Detroit between now and January 2005, toodle on over to the exhibit’s Web site, www.enterprisingwomenexhibit.org, to read about these wonder women. The site has letters from mentors, including Amelia Earhart, audio clips of successful women, including Martha Stewart, talking about the people who influenced them, and it encourages you to share your own stories. There’s even a  “Mind your Own Business! Biz Quiz” to test whether you’re ready to write your own business plan.

            BURNT TOAST to British discount airline easyJet’s ad campaign, seen on posters and publications around the U.K. The ads feature a busty woman in a bikini with the tagline “Discover weapons of mass distraction“ above a list of the airline’s beach destinations. “It’s meant to be sexy, not sexist,” an easyJet spokesperson, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, said in its defense. Maybe so, but ignoring the travel dollars of half your customer base doesn’t make for a very sexy bottom line.

A TOAST with sweet creamery butter to Congress, for coming to the aid of the 2.1 million unemployed workers whose state unemployment benefits are set to run out between now and the end of the year by passing a 13-week extension of those payments. It’s the third such extension in two years—and given the fact that the U.S. is in its “worst hiring slump in 20 years,” according to The New York Times, that extension is a much-needed economic band-aid. The long-term unemployed—those unemployment-insurance recipients who exhaust their unemployment benefits without finding another job—recently reached 43 percent, the highest in record, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. (The renewed benefits extend for 26 weeks in the following six particularly hard-hit states: Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.)

A TOAST with cherry jam to www.womensway.org, a Philadelphia-based coalition of women’s organizations who’ve discovered there’s power in numbers:  In 1977, seven local women’s agencies serving “women at a crossroads” joined together under this umbrella organization to raise funds for their diverse efforts, which range from providing shelter and legal resources for abused women, to teaching financial literacy, promoting equal opportunity in health care, and fighting age and sex discrimination on the job. Today, it’s the premier women’s funding federation in the country, allocating nearly $1 million per year to agencies serving more than 260,000 women and their families. This group has created a financial model that works‑—and that’s worth emulating around the country.

            BURNT TOAST to the latest wrinkle in so-called “reality shows,” NBC’s For Love or Money, debuting this June, in which 15 women vie to win a proposal from an unsuspecting bachelor, because, they’ve been told, whoever wins his hand wins a million dollars. (In reality, the “winner” will have to choose between the man or the money.) Didn’t TV already do this insulting gold-digger number to death in Fox’s Joe Millionaire? Women don't need to "get" a man to earn their millions anymore.

            BURNT-TO-A-CRISP TOAST to the conservative groups who have protested the recent appointment of Patricia Ireland as the president of the Y.W. C.A.—even going so far as to seek to bar Federal grants to the organization because of her affiliation. Who better to lead an organization committed to empowering young women than the former president of the National Organization of Women? And whose business is it what her sexual persuasion is, anyway?  As the chairperson of the Y.W.C.A.’s national coordinating board, Audrey Peeples, said about the group’s refusal to raise questions about Ireland’s bisexual history in her hiring interview: “My feeling is that it’s not only inappropriate, it’s illegal.”

Send your suggested TOASTS and BURNT TOASTS, or comments regarding those we publish, to editor@makingbreadmagazine.com.

           A TOAST with cherry jam to Oprah for being the first African-American woman to earn a place on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires–and for giving millions of viewers a way to channel their spare change into helping people in need through her “Angel Network.” (Donations are matched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—a big toast to him, too!)

            A TOAST with peach preserves to The Breast Cancer Site (www.thebreastcancersite.com). Visit and click on its “Fund Free Mammograms” button, and you can help fund free mammograms for low-income, inner-city and minority women. The mammograms are paid for by the site’s sponsors and provided by the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Last year, 1624 mammograms were funded in this way. It costs you nothing; all you have to do is click. While you’re there, why not click on the “Remember to Click” link and sign up for an e-mail reminder to visit —and click—everyday? And spread the word to your friends. Early detection saves lives.

            BURNT TOAST to Richard Perle, adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On the day the Iraq war began, Perle reportedly participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call to advise clients on investment opportunities flowing from the conflict, titled “Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?” Anyone affiliated with an Administration that is sending men and women into harm's way who instructs investors on how to profit from the “spoils of war” gives the word “mercenary” new meaning.

          A TOAST with apple jelly to two insurance companies that are going above and beyond to ensure that young people can get educations. First, there’s Guardian Life Insurance Company of America’s “Girls Going Places College Scholarship Program,” which annually awards $30,000 in scholarship money to 15 girls  “who demonstrate budding entrepreneurship and are taking the first steps toward financial independence.” The top three contenders this year will be awarded scholarship prizes of $10,000, $5,000 and $3,000, respectively, with the remaining 12 finalists receiving $1,000 each.

            Girls aged 12 to 16 are eligible for consideration and must be nominated by an adult friend or family member. For more information, visit Guardian’s Web site at www.glic.com, click on the “Women’s Channel” link on the home page, then click on the “Girls Going Places” link. Hurry up: Deadline for nominations is February 28, 2003.

            Then, there’s Mass Mutual’s LifeBridge Free Life Insurance Program, launched last September in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina, which the company expects to roll out nationally this year.  Through this program, Mass Mutual has pledged to award $1 billion in free life insurance coverage to help qualified low-income parents protect their children’s education should anything happen to them. Visit www.massmutual.com for more information and to obtain an application form.

            BURNT TOAST to the latest trend in reality shows—let’s call them “harsh reality” shows—in which unemployed contestants vie for jobs, and a studio audience and home viewers vote to decide who will be hired. Such shows are already popular in Argentina and Japan. Last fall, Sony Pictures Television acquired the rights to produce a version of the Argentinean show, Human Resources, here and elsewhere. Watching unemployed people compete for a job may beat watching a bachelorette choose her mate, or a college student eat worms, but is it really entertainment? And what does it say about the state of our economy?

          A TOAST with boysenberry jam to HBO’s The Sopranos for making a woman’s concern for her financial future a major element of the plot. In a recent episode, when Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco), wife of mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), couldn’t convince her husband to talk with a financial planner, she took matters into her own hands, and, finding a stash of Tony’s cash in a can of bird seed, invested it for her secure financial future. Given the many occupational hazards her wise-guy husband faces, that was a wise-gal move. It’s a lesson that all women, married to mobsters or not, should take to heart.

            MINI-TOAST with gooseberry jam to another Italian-American pop icon, best-selling mystery author Lisa Scottoline (“Courting Trouble”), who’s a Sopranos fan and, incidentally, has one of the best author Web site’s around. Visit www.lisascottoline.com and, in addition to free, downloadable Lisa screensavers and order forms for personalized autographed bookplates, you’ll find Lisa’s recipe for “Tomato Sauce for the Lazy,” and even a “Lisa Cam.”  Tune in and watch the writer at work.

            BURNT TOAST to another woman with a Web site: www.savekaryn.com. The site was launched in June for the purpose of asking people to contribute money to help Karyn pay off $20,221.40 in credit-card debt. In less than six months, after receiving $13,323.08 from visitors to the site, selling $4,340.60 in goods on E-bay, and contributing $2,336.32 of her own money, in November Karyn’s debt was paid off.  But we wonder what she learned about responsible spending from this exercise in electronic panhandling.

          A TOAST with cherry jam to California’s newly enacted Family Leave Plan—the first such state plan to allow for paid family leave for employees. The legislation, which will become effective in 2004, provides for workers who pay into the state’s disability insurance system to take up to six weeks of leave to care for a newborn or adopted child, an ailing spouse, parent or grandparent, and receive 55 percent of their pay during that time. Whereas a 1993 Federal law established family leave, because it is unpaid, only three out of four workers who are eligible can afford to take it. This law “will allow Californians to get through a difficult time without going broke,'' says California Governor Gray Davis. Similar bills are pending in 27 other states.

            A TOAST with honey to Sports Illustrated for taking a stand for all women in its September 9 issue, when it described CBS’s planned telecast of next spring’s Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National—a club that denies women membership—as “a two-day, seven-and-a-half hour infomercial for the Good Ol’ Boy Way.” We couldn’t have said it better.

            BURNT TOAST to Philadelphia’s heartless new advertising campaign designed to discourage pedestrians from giving money to panhandlers and the homeless on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. The campaign, using the tagline “The more you give change, the more things will stay the same,” is sponsored by the Center City District (CCD), an organization that represents the interests of merchants and homeowners.  “Many are clearly professionals using the money for drugs and alcohol," said Paul Levy, executive director of the CCD, referring to the street people who beg for change. That may be true of some of them, but so what? MAKING BREAD doubts the campaign will affect a change of heart among the truly generous who do give their spare change, with no strings attached.

          A TOAST with Money, Honey, to the Grammy-winning Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines and sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, for finding their voice and using it —to call Sony Records on alleged accounting misdeeds in calculating their cut of the estimated $200-some million their records had earned. Sony sued for breach of contract when the Chicks walked off, declaring themselves free agents. The Chicks countersued and proceeded to record a new album and shop it around to other labels. That’s when Sony reportedly offered them a new, far sweeter deal, worth, according to Time Magazine, a $20 million signing advance and 20 percent of royalties. Any way you count it, that’s a lot of bread. The new album, “Home” was released last week.

            BURNT TOAST to the Augusta (GA) National Golf Club, whose chairman, William Johnson, is so loath to admit women to the club’s august membership that, in a preemptive move, he forfeited potentially millions of dollars in advertising revenue from sponsors of the Masters Tournament, held each spring at the club, so that the more than 150 women’s groups who are protesting its admissions policies can’t exert pressure on those advertisers.  Johnson has been quoted as saying that women would be admitted when the club decides the time is right, not “at the point of a bayonet.” MAKING BREAD thinks it’s time that the club’s no-women (and only 10 African-Americans) membership is no longer considered “par for the course.”

          A TOAST with cinnamon-apple jelly to Office Depot (www.officedepot.com) for its “5% Back to Schools” program. Here’s how it works: whether you’re buying back-to-school supplies for your kids or office supplies for yourself, 5 percent of the price of all qualifying purchases will be donated, in the form of a credit toward qualifying school-supply purchases, to the school of your choice, as long as that school has earned more than $10 in credits. The eligible shopping period is July 21 through September 30. Schools from pre-kindergarten (think of all the crayons toddlers go through) to Grade 12 are eligible. Through this program, Office Depot reports it “has been able to give millions of dollars in school-supply credits back to thousands of schools.” So far this year alone, the company has donated “over 1,100,000 products totaling over $8,000,000 to over 472 non-profit organizations that serve children,” says the company. They get a gold star from us!

            BURNT TOAST to the aggressive and sometimes misleading marketing tactics that drug companies have been engaging in of late: Case in point, the March Today Show appearance by Lauren  Bacall, who recommended a new drug to treat macular degeneration in the course of telling a story about a friend who had gone blind from the degenerative eye disease—without mentioning that she was being paid by Novartis, the maker of the drug. Another example: pharmacists accepting payments from drug companies to convince patients to switch from one drug to another—a practice that is permitted under the recently enacted new  Federal rules governing medical privacy. The pharmacist does not have to disclose his relationship with the drug company to his customers. Could these practices, which smack of payola, be contributing to the high cost of prescription drugs?

          A TOAST with boysenberry jam to Jane Fonda for having the foresight, intuition, savvy financial sense, golden gut, whatever, to unload the maximum $10 million in AOL stock that her prenup with Ted Turner guaranteed her when they divorced. In the last year, Fonda has given away most of her AOL stock to environmental causes and Democrats running for office, according to The New York Post, while her ex, Ted Turner, lost $9.6 billion as a result of the dive AOL stock took last week, after accounting irregularities were revealed.

             BURNT TOAST to the "business as usual" accounting practices that have decimated the value of so many retirement accounts this summer. Got your own tale of stock-tumbling, 401(k) shrinking woe to tell? Public Relations firm Gregory FCA is sponsoring a contest: pick your favorite failing public company and rewrite its last annual earnings report in the style of your favorite author. “Aren’t they all fiction, anyway?” the cynical and disillusioned among us might ask. The samples provided on the company’s Web site, www.gregoryfca.com, written in the style of Hemingway and Faulkner, will amuse you. And the winner of the contest (submission deadline: August 9), gets $500. MAKING BREAD wonders how Virginia Woolf or Dorothy Parker would have described the recent fall of men in pinstriped suits.

          A TOAST with plum jam to Denzel Washington’s carefully nuanced performance in the plum role of a blue-collar father fighting a heartless medical establishment (Anne Heche is chilling in the role of hospital administrator) that  has denied his son, dying of an enlarged heart, treatment for lack of sufficient medical insurance. It’s the performance that Washington should have won the Academy Award for—and it’s available at video rental stores this week.

            BURNT TOAST to the medical establishment‘s cavalier and uninspired handling of women’s health issues. Case in point: the confusion that millions of women taking the hormone replacement drug Prempro to alleviate symptoms of menopause and decrease their risk of heart disease and osteoporosis felt this week upon learning that the National Institutes of Health had discontinued a study measuring its safety. The study was halted when early findings indicated that taking the estrogin/progesterin mix increased risks of breast cancer, blood clots, heart attacks and strokes when taken over a long period of time. The drug, sold by Wyeth, is used by about six million women and generates about $948 million in annual U.S. sales. While other drug and alternative estrogen-replacement treatments exist, none has undergone sufficient testing to determine whether they might represent similar risks.

             If millions of men had been taking hormone replacement therapy for years, would those drugs have been more thoroughly researched by now?

          A TOAST with cherry jam to everyone who contributed to charity in 2001. Americans gave $212 billion to charity last year, according to the Giving USA survey just released by the American Association of Fundraising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy. That’s $2 billion more than the previous year, despite the fact that personal income (a factor in charitable giving) grew at the slowest rate since 1993.  Giving by individuals represented three-quarters of the total, or $160.72 billion, with corporate giving amounting to only 4.3 percent.  Adjusting for inflation, these numbers reflect a decrease of 2.3 percent from last year’s giving, not surprising given the recession we’ve been in.

            A MINI-TOAST with strawberry preserves to Take Your Parents to Work Day, this year celebrated on June 27. This innovative twist on Take Your Daughters to Work Day, now in its third year, was first suggested to the co-host of a radio show on Chicago’s WGN radio by a listener. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming the first Parents Day, and the practice has spread. Most visitors are moms, say the organizers. No doubt full of advice on how their WONDERFUL kids could do their jobs even BETTER. Thanks, Ma!

            BURNT TOAST to the latest Pier 1 Imports TV ad, featuring actress Kirstie Alley as a crazed genie, urging viewers to flock to a store full of imported home furnishings and gifts that—let’s be honest—as nice as they are, no one really needs. “You looked stressed, Sister Moon,” she croons. “You need shopping therapy!” Alley reportedly got the job when she ‘fessed up that she’d spent more than $50,000 at Pier 1 stores, decorating her three homes.

            A TOAST with honey to Esther Lederer, better known as Ann Landers, who died of cancer on June 22, after 47 years of serving up her two cents’ worth on a wide range of problems, large and small, sent in by the avid readers of her syndicated column. The advice Landers gave in her last column to a stay-at-home wife whose husband closed their joint checking account is typical of the no-punches-pulled, on-target counsel she’s been dishing up since 1955.

            “See a lawyer immediately and find out how to protect yourself and your children if Edgar leaves you and takes all his assets with him, “ she advised Desperate in Des Moines, Iowa. “You should also start looking for a part-time or even full-time job.”  Not only did her no-nonsense advice offer sympathy and sound solutions to millions of troubled or confused readers over the years, her own housewife-makes-good-doing-what-she-loves success story serves as an inspiration for all women who hope to do the same.

            R.I.P, Ann Landers.

            BURNT TOAST to Bar None, the auto-loan company that recently brought the Pets.com sock puppet out of retirement by licensing its use as a mascot, reasoning that, like its customers who, because of credit problems, have had a hard time being approved for car loans, “everyone deserves a second chance.”  This may rate as the most inventive use of a nonhuman spokesperson, but putting a warm and fuzzy image on this part of the auto loan industry doesn’t change the fact that generally loans to people with credit problems are offered at extremely high interest rates. Granted, financial institutions need some protection from risk, but nowhere on the company’s Web site could we find interest rates even mentioned. Consumers should be forewarned.

          A TOAST with bittersweet orange preserves to Coleen Rowley, the latest in a growing line of female whistle-blowers. This mother of four who works as the general counsel in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office made public the bureau’s mishandling of smoking-gun information regarding Al Qaeda activities prior to Sept. 11. “Certain facts have been omitted, downplayed, glossed over, or mischaracterized,” she wrote in a 13-page memo addressed to FBI Director Robert Mueller. "I know that those who know me would probably describe me as, by nature, overly opinionated. . .." But, she concludes, "until we come clean and deal with the root causes, the Department of Justice will continue to experience problems fighting terrorism and fighting crime in general." Like Sherron Watkins, who tried to warn Enron management about the error of its accounting ways earlier this year, Rowley deserves praise for her courage to speak out. We only wish she hadn’t felt the need to undercut her criticism by acknowledging that some might find her  “overly opinionated.” Women’s opinions have been underrepresented in government and in business for too long. It’s high time we made ourselves heard.  And made others listen.

          Update on last week’s BURNT TOAST to “The Tyranny of Skinny”: those of you who are curious about what actress Renee Zellweger looked like in those Harper’s Bazaar photos that were deemed “unfit” (read: too fat) for publication can find them inside the July issue of HB, along with a cover photo of the newly svelte Renee. (Media sending mixed messages again? Or could this be current editor Glenda Bailey’s way of publicly thumbing her nose at her predecessor, Kate Betts, who already has publicly apologized for her error in judgment.)  You don’t have to buy the issue—just leaf through it next time you’re standing at the supermarket checkout counter.

A TOAST with grape jelly to the  “Don’t Buy It” Web site

( www.pbskids.org/dontbuyit ) created by PBS to teach kids the tricks of the advertising trade. This cool, consumer-smart site “sells” media literacy to children ages 9-12, using games and ad parodies to encourage them to think about the manipulative messages they’re being bombarded with in pop music, movies, magazines, television, and on the Internet daily. Adults will find parents’ and teachers’ guides for grades three to six.

”Beauty, popularity, boyfriends—all in one lipstick?” one parody banner ad asks. A section called “Cover Model Secrets” walks young visitors through the hours of preparation it takes to get a teen model ready for a photo shoot (learn what cucumbers, ice water and Preparation H can do for your face). Kids can design their own cereal box, take a junk-food quiz and read about teen heroes like 15-year-old Kat Bauman of Seattle, who participated in the Reel Grrls Media project to produce a video exploring the unrealistic ways girls are portrayed in the media. "For someone who doesn't see herself as beautiful, to then create something so powerful as this video is very reaffirming." Kat says.

Speaking of the way women are portrayed in the media, BURNT TOAST to what former Harper’s Bazaar editor Kate Betts dubbed “The Tyranny of Skinny” in a New York Times piece last month, in which she apologized for rejecting “Bridget Jones’ Diary” star Renee Zellweger as a cover subject, because Zellweger had gained too much weight. Even 15-year-old Kat knows it’s long past time for fashion magazines to get real about the way real women look.  Sales of plus-size clothes were the only category of women’s apparel to rise last year, according to those who track these figures.

A TOAST with butter and gobs of sugar-free cherry preserves to Weight Watchers International Inc. The weight-loss firm founded by Jean Nidetch out of her home almost 40 years ago was one of the biggest success stories on Wall Street last year. Currently owned by European investment firm Artal Luxembourg, Weight Watchers (WTW) went public in November 2001 with an initial offering price of $24 per share, and its price rose 24 percent, closing at  $29.50 at the end of its first day on the market.  Less than six months later, WTW was spotted on the Stock Exchange at 41.

The company, many of whose customers are women, racked up sales totaling $623 million and an impressive one-year sales growth of 56.1 percent last year.  Weight Watchers’ financial-gains success story rivals the weight-loss success stories of its clients, who flock to its meetings to find inspiration for their battle of the bulge. With six out of 10 American adults considered overweight or obese, according to the National Institutes of Health, the outlook for this firm is rosy.

It’s nice to see a company founded by a woman and serving women doing so well. Here’s hoping that many of the investors who’ve fattened their bank accounts on the rise of this stock in the last six months are also women!

BURNT TOAST to ABC’s reality show The Bachelor. We’ve resisted whacking this show, which everyone from the women of The View to Politically Incorrect pundit Bill Maher have taken potshots at, because it’s such an easy mark. We can’t hold our tongues any longer. Finally, MAKING BREAD must ask: What were these women thinking about when they agreed to participate in a show that turns popping the question into a game-show question.

In none of the tête-à-têtes captured on tape between Alex, Trista and, his ultimate choice, Amanda  (OK, we admit we’ve watched in horrified fascination) did the subjects of spending and saving habits or financial goals come up.

A TOAST with hot pepper jelly to Equal Pay Day, organized by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) to call attention to the gender wage gap. Marking the day each year when women, who earn an average of only 73 cents for every dollar men earn, finally catch up with the amount men made the year before, this year Equal Pay Day will be observed on April 16, 2002.

         Last year more than 325 women’s business and professional associations around the country organized events to protest and raise awareness of such facts as this: Over the course of a lifetime, the wage gap costs the average American woman an estimated $250,000. Lower salaries mean lower, or no, pensions. Half of all older women who received a private pension in 1998 got less than $3,486 per year, compared with $7,020 per year for older men. The wage gap is even broader for African American women (65 cents for every dollar men earn) and Latino women (52 cents per dollar). Most disturbingly, despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the gap seems to be widening. A survey recently conducted by the General Accounting Office and released by U.S. Representatives Carolyn Mahoney and John Dingell revealed that, in seven of the 10 industries surveyed, the earnings gap between full-time female and male managers increased, and that, overall, women managers were worse off in 2000 than in 1995.

         For a guide to analyzing the fairness of your company’s compensation practices, go to this page on the Department of Labor’s Web site: www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/regs/compliance/ofccp/compdata.htm .

        BURNT TOAST to the newest wrinkle in financial products: First Union’s VISA BUXX Card is advertised as a “parent-controlled prepaid spending card designed to give parents an easy, safe way to provide spending money to teens while maintaining control over how much money is available and where it can be spent.”   We think this credit-card look-alike will just serve to teach teens an easy-come, easy-go attitude about money.

      A TOAST with plum jelly to Hewlett-Packard chairman Carly Fiorina, who was put in the plum position of being the first outsider to run the electronics company in 1999. A very public battle for investor approval of her proposed merger with Compaq pitted her against H-P director and company scion Walter Hewlett in a war of words that often took the form of personal attacks and newspaper ads and sometimes resembled the plot of a Danielle Steel novel. After the smoke cleared, Fiorina was happily left standing, victorious, at the podium of  the shareholders’ meeting last week, claiming that she had enough votes to consummate the merger.

       As the battle heated up over recent months, the business community speculated that Fiorina’s career was on the line. With too few women CEO’s in this country or abroad, MAKING BREAD applauds her success in handling this tricky situation with aplomb, persistence and savvy politicking. Amid the media circus, she stayed focused on what needed to get done. Now that the squabbling is over, she’ll have the time to focus on making the merger work.

      BURNT TOAST to Italian magazine Capital. With many European businesswomen complaining that too few women are pictured on the covers of business journals, last spring Capital began featuring a woman on its cover every month, according to The Wall Street Journal.  Trouble is, the magazine’s “cover girls” wear little or nothing at all. The magazine’s newsstand sales may have jumped 25 percent, but we doubt many of its readers are women. What’s next: an “Undress for Success” advice column?

A TOAST with currant jam to all the women who have the courage to speak out for what they believe in. March is Women’s History Month, established to honor the achievements of women throughout history. MAKING BREAD celebrates the power of women to shape their own history every day. Still, we’d like to take this time to celebrate the spirit and accomplishments of the countless women who raised their voices before us, who put actions behind their words and opened doors for us.

We toast pioneering women, like Victoria Woodhull, the 19th-century feminist who was the first woman stockbroker on Wall Street and the first woman to run for President of the United States, and who now has an institute in her name, The Woodhull Institute (www.woodhull.org), which promotes financial literacy for women and works to empower them as community leaders.

 We toast outraged and outspoken women, like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, who made feminism such a powerful force in the 20^th century.

 We toast artists like Rosie O’Donnell, Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) and Jane Fonda, who are using their high visibility today to speak out on issues—such as the rights of children to be adopted by gay couples, and violence against women—that are important to women and the world.

Most of all, we toast all of you who are not afraid to raise your voices, raise the roof, raise a ruckus, if necessary, to make bread, make history and make change. As Gloria Steinem once observed, “Nothing will happen automatically. Change depends upon what you and I do everyday.” 

BURNT TOAST to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and PBS commentator Doris Kearns Goodwin (“No Ordinary Time,”  “The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys”), who has admitted to putting other’s words in her mouth. “There were sentences that should have been in quotes,” she says. To be fair, many men (most notably, recently, fellow pop historian Stephen Ambrose) have fallen into this trap. But, when Goodwin inadvertently plagiarized the works of others, her woman’s voice was diminished by our loss of trust in her.

A TOAST