He came clean of his own accord, and though Carl Bernstein initially wouldn't confirm it, Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee had no such qualms. After Bradlee, Bernstein, and Bob Woodward conferred, they issued the corroborating statement that puts to rest a mystery more than 30 years old. Deep Throat, the heretofore anonymous source of much of the information used by the reporters Bernstein and Woodward to crack the story of the Watergate scandal, is former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt (free registration required).

For those not old enough to remember, the gravity of Watergate is hard to grasp. It started with a breaking-and-entering, something that happens every day in virtually every city and many towns in the United States. What made this particular breaking-and-entering unusual was that the target of the crime was the Democratic National Committee. What turned it into a large-scale political firestorm was the involvement of and subsequent cover-up by President Nixon himself. The revelations of White House involvement led to criminal indictments and several resignations, including ultimately that of the President.

Watergate stands out in my memory as one of the first big news stories I was aware of as a child. Not quite eight years old when the break-in took place and barely ten when the President finally resigned, I absorbed enough information by osmosis from the nightly news and my parents' discussions to understand, if not the details, the big picture: that the crime, while undeniably serious, wasn't nearly as horrendous as the cover-up. The moral lesson was that you only make things worse by lying.

Interestingly, today's revelation debunks the theory formulated by students at the University of Illinois that former White House counsel Fred Fielding was Deep Throat.

(P.S. For those interested in learning about or reliving the Watergate scandal through the eyes of those whose investigative work brought it to light, I highly recommend Woodward and Bernstein's book, All the President's Men. The movie was quite good too, but the book gives ever so much more detail.)

I slept, just like I always do at that hour. In the middle of the night, my idea of "Star Wars" is keeping my eyes closed until it's too light to see the stars anymore.

As for the movie, I read a pretty good review over my morning yogurt, so maybe I'll see it eventually, preferably with the free movie tickets I won in the recent Scrabble tournament.

Not long ago, I attended an event at which I wore my sorority pin. I had pledged in college after having a complete attitude reversal about the purpose and value of sororities, and 23 years later I still hold my membership very dear. So every so often, when I get dressed up, I wear the pin.

This time was a bit different from most because it prompted a discussion with a friend about my sorority membership vis-à-vis my long-held feminist values. Isn't membership in a sorority/fraternity contrary to principles of non-discrimination and inclusiveness, she wondered?

I had a college roommate who certainly thought so. She was a graduate student fresh from a liberal undergraduate university that, she proudly informed me, did not sanction fraternities and sororities because they discriminate on the basis of gender. She was vocally critical of membership in single-sex Greek letter organizations.

Yet my involvement in a women's fraternity (by charter we are a fraternity, but more on that later) came about in large part because I was a woman student lost in a sea of men. The undergraduate population in my first year was around 18% and I don't think it went up much, if at all, by the time I graduated. It was culture shock to have gone from an all-girls high school to an almost polar opposite, and I while I had many wonderfully close friendships with me, I found myself seeking out what I had previously taken for granted: strong relationships with other women. A sorority seemed like the most convenient means to that end, especially once I realized that the Greek system on an upstate New York technological university campus had nothing to do with the stereotype of rich debutantes working on their MRS degrees.

So it happened that I joined a local sorority which soon affiliated with a national women's fraternity. My house not only offered lots in the way of social activities and friendship, but also promoted achievement in our academically challenging environment and development of leadership skills. Women in the Greek system were among the campus' most involved in community service, student government, and academic honor societies.

About that f-word: the national representatives who introduced the organization to us were quick to point out that fraternity is not just for men. While the Latin root frater does indeed mean "brother," the Greek equivalent phrater means more inclusively "clan member." I have since learned that mine is far from the only Greek letter organization for women to be called a fraternity. Of the 26 women's Greek letter organizations that form the National Panhellenic Conference, fifteen are self-identified as fraternities.

Interestingly, our campus also had two Greek letter organizations whose membership was co-ed. One was a service fraternity that was among the largest and most active student groups; the other was among the smaller social groups. Ironically, both these organizations referred to their members, male and female, as "brothers." That rubbed me the wrong way then, as it still does now.

But back to the original point. Is membership in a single-sex society by definition sexist? Do such groups discriminate? They do discriminate, in the same way that Mensa or the Daughters of the American Revolution or the Girls Club or my town's local India Center discriminate. In all those cases, participation is restricted to those who possess a characteristic outside their control. But in my experience, the effect is so overwhelmingly positive and opportunities for involvement in similar groups by either sex so readily available that the charge of sexism seems absurd—

Especially coming from people who do, in fact, accept groups that restrict participation by gender. Oops.

Convicted serial killer Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection this morning in Connecticut. My friend Tanya was one of the hundreds of protesters present outside the prison where the death sentence was carried out. It was the first execution in New England since 1960.

The state of Connecticut is scheduled to execute convicted killer Michael Ross tomorrow at 2:01am (Eastern). I have sent the following message via fax and e-mail to Governor Jodi Rell:

As a native of Connecticut, I wish to express my strong opposition to the impending execution of Michael Ross.

My opposition stems not from lack of sympathy for the families of Wandy Baribeault, Leslie Shelley, Robin Stavinsky, and April Brunais, nor from a recognition of the need to punish their killer. I am simply convinced that the death penalty is unnecessary and unwarranted in an era when the option of mandatory life in maximum-security prison without the possibility of parole can be used instead.

Statistics nationwide show that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent; in fact, other serial killers including Ted Bundy stated that the possibility of receiving the death penalty made killing more enticing and exciting.

I also believe that when there is so much as a morsel of complicating circumstances such as mental illness from which Michael Ross suffers (I say "complicating" rather than "mitigating" because I do not believe mental illness or a history of abuse excuses violence) we are compelled to err on the side of caution and against execution. The state could more effectively spend the money it takes to litigate a capital case to execution by instead providing mental health care to those with a propensity to violence in order to reduce some of these heinous crimes by other would-be perpetrators.

Gov. Rell, it is within your power to grant a reprieve to Michael Ross while at the same time promulgating methods aimed at the reduction of violent crime by the mentally ill. Please exercise your leadership in this most important area before it is too late.

Go here to read about the Ross case and send your own message to the Governor.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the fatal shooting by National Guard troops at Ohio's Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others wounded.

The web has several sites devoted to the Kent State tragedy. Some are more dispassionate than others, and I don't place much value on the more emotional or politically opportunistic ones. I do not, for example, recommend the site that refers to the four who were killed as "martyrs" because they weren't (Merriam-Webster's definition is "a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion; a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle.") — by all accounts, no one on campus thought they were in danger until the Guardsmen started shooting, at which point everyone tried to run. No one was willing to die for a cause that day.

Still, it was a monumental event that took place that afternoon on an otherwise quiet campus. It deserves to be commemorated, not only because of the loss of life, but because it can teach us a lot about what happens when tempers flare. The Kent State Library has an excellent site describing their collection of documents and other materials related to the event. It also references some excellent articles about the shooting and its aftermath.

But that didn't prevent it from happening today. Mom is celebrating appropriately, at the beach.

On the day Mom was born in Middletown, Connecticut:

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President of the United States. John N. Garner was Vice President. There were 48 states in the union.
• 21 "not neutral" Nazis and communists were arrested in the Netherlands. Norway's government-in-exile was forming in London.
• Jockey Carroll Bierman rode Gallahadion to victory in 2:05 at the 66th Kentucky Derby.
• NFL and NFL Europe coach Dick Curl was born.

In the year Mom was born:

• The average annual income in the U.S. was $1.906. An automobile cost about $810. Gasoline was 18¢ a gallon. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average was around 131.
• In London, penicillin was used on a human patient for the first time.
• James Stewart and Ginger Rogers won the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Actress.
• Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was published.
• Among the top songs were Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and Bing Crosby's "Trade Winds."
• The Foto-Electric Football game was introduced.

On the down side, no one knows when the Bruins and the National Hockey League will play again, and the Baltimore Orioles are temporarily separating the defending World Champion Red Sox from their rightful place atop the American League East. But there is plenty of other good sports news in our corner of the country at the moment.

The Celtics. I am hardly an avid basketball fan, but I'm a faithful occupant of the playoff bandwagon. Currently the Celts are tied 2-2 in their first round best-of-7 series against the Indiana Pacers. Meg from work, better versed at all things Celtics than I, promised the team would improve when they re-acquired Antoine Walker, and she was right. We would all feel better if they would spread out their scoring a little more from game to game, but for the moment delusions of a championship trifecta still dance in our heads. Of personal interest is the emergence of rookie Al Jefferson, whom I have taken to calling "Cousin Al."

The Revolution. Our Major League Soccer team is off to a roaring start, what the sports pages tell me is the best in their history. The Revs play their home games at Gillette Stadium, home of the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots, and even made it to the MLS Cup final at home the season after the Pats won the first of their three (and counting) championships. I don't think it's greedy to hope for another championship team that calls Foxboro home. When the weather gets better, I'll have to do my part to support them and head down for a game or two.

The Tornadoes. For those of you not lucky enough to call Wormtown your home, the Worcester Tornadoes are our brand independent professional baseball team. Scheduled to open at a newly refurbished Fitton Field at Holy Cross College on Memorial Day Weekend, they almost make up for the loss of our now-departed AHL hockey team, the IceCats, who up and moved to Illinois. And just this afternoon, I talked to a team staffer about buying a weekend 10-pack of tickets when they go on sale next week.

Now I have to go back to watching the Sox game, which isn't a pretty picture as the lowly tigers are leading 8-3 late in the game. Big Papi is at bat, so my fingers are crossed...