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Hello and welcome to the very first double X gab fest for Tuesday, May 19th.

I'm Emily Bazelan.

I'm here with my two co-founding editors of our new, exciting and for us totally exhausting site,

double X. I'm here with Hannah Rosen and Megan O'Rourke. And we're going to talk about three

things today. We're going to talk about Obama's abortion commencement speech at Notre Dame,

Nancy Pelosi and the trouble she's having because of what she did know about torture during the Bush administration and a slew of new mommy books and daddy books and the kind of whole trope of this genre.

But first of all, we thought we tell you just a little bit about our new website.

Double X is a magazine by women but not just for women.

It will be talking about culture, politics, sex, fashion, and more.

I'm Megan O'Rourke, one of the co-editors.

And it's our hope that you've already checked it out or will check it out soon.

At the heart of the site is something you may already be familiar with, the double X Factor blog, which has been on Slate since fall of 2007. And comment. We want you to comment. We want you to go on the site and comment. There's been so much fabulous stuff. We've gotten a lot of attention for a piece on why people should get their kids off their Facebook page by Katie Royfe, which was on the site last week. And there's a little sort of feminist fight between the sites that's been started unintentionally, we have to say, between us and other sites. And there's just been lots of great, exciting stuff on the site already. So check it out. We want to hear your comments about specific pieces and also what you think about the overall site, what you'd like to see there, what you want to see less of, we're ready for your suggestions. Also, we're totally

exhausted. We've been up all night every night last week. So if you guys would start writing

for us, we'd be, we'd be totally grateful. Yes, exactly. Or maybe learn how to clone some of us.

You know, more double Xers, triple X, triple X, that would be awesome.

Solve the problem of sleep. So, Hannah, what are your thoughts about this speech that Obama gave? You know, he was showing up at Notre Dame. There had already been this backlash against him speaking at this Catholic university since he is a pro-choice president and this real, I think, heartfelt debate among Catholics about whether this was a good choice for Notre Dame or not.

Do you think that he pulled it off, given the context?

I mean, there's lots of ways to look at it. First, you have to think it's incredible chutzpah to go to a Catholic college and talk about abortion. I mean, that's one of the things like, why would you choose to do that? Now, given that as a starting point, I thought it was an incredible speech. I mean, like many of his speeches, it took into account kind of all sides where he started talking about, you know, the gay activist and the evangelical pastor

and what they might possibly have in common.

The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV-8s,

but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts.

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