Dorothy Brant RIP

Dorothy Brant, who has died at the age of 102, was a vital part of the development of female emancipation in Britain that followed the winning of equal voting rights in the late 1920's. The Telegraph notes that:

"The rhetorical skills she exhibited (at half a guinea a time) made her particularly valued. Her efficiently organised women's branches provided speakers' classes to enable women to hold forth on the issues of the day."

Brant's career lasted for nearly 40 years:

"In the post-war Conservative Party she held positions that no woman had occupied before. From 1947 to 1954 she was deputy head of the party organisation in the north west, playing a leading part in the arrangements for Churchill's 1947 visit to receive the Freedom of Manchester, when agile supporters hung from lampposts cheering wildly. She never forgot the furious Churchillian roar which greeted his discovery of an enterprising journalist hiding under a table in his room at the Midland Hotel."

Read more about her here.

the final furlong

these last few days before the election are becoming terribly tense. does it really look like a victory for obama? can the republicans make a dramatic comeback in such a short time? what if mccain's heart stops beating? what if some aryan nut assassinates obama? for the first time, people i know well are going to be out there stumping for their candidate this weekend. meanwhile, i present another gem from the london times' cartoonist peter brooke. whether one agrees or not, i still think it is a fine cartoon.

ps re 'all mouth and no trousers', see here. o i do love that phrase :-)

what we are fighting for

in the end, i still do not yet know for whom i will be voting in the primary. while the candidates are busy playing politics, i am just trying to get my work done. does anybody remember the years before watergate, when presidents and kings and prime ministers were looked up to with respect as leaders and nobody knew what they did when they went home? that's not to say that they were any different of course ... it's just that sometimes i yearn for those days of ignorant innocence. *sigh*

meanwhile, a quote that i just found on 'fetch me my axe':

"The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.
--Bernice Johnson Reagon"

and that is why i want to be a teacher.

don't deify benazir bhutto

a quote from an op-ed by william dalrymple in today's new york times:

"Benazir Bhutto was certainly a brave and secular-minded woman. But the obituaries painting her as dying to save democracy distort history. Instead, she was a natural autocrat who did little for human rights, a calculating politician who was complicit in Pakistan’s becoming the region’s principal jihadi paymaster while she also ramped up an insurgency in Kashmir that has brought two nuclear powers to the brink of war."

i have been resisting all those who have had negative things to say about bhutto in these last few days. i did not want to accept any criticism against someone that i have admired. now the shock of her assassination has abated somewhat, it is a little bit easier to move towards a balanced view. in the interest of that purpose, i selected this particular quote. the rest of the article may be read here,

who is this woman?

her name is cristina fernandez de kirchner, and she has just won the election to become the next president of argentina. here is a profile of her from the bbc. she follows her husband, nestor, as president, and becomes the first elected female president of her country. the bbc online reports:

"Mrs Kirchner, candidate for the governing Front for Victory, has promised to continue her husband's centre-left policies. As well as facing comparisons with Eva Peron, Argentina's legendary former first lady, Mrs Kirchner has been compared to former US First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is also a lawyer and senator seeking to become the first elected female president of her country. "I don't want to be compared with Hillary Clinton or with Evita Peron, or with anybody," she said recently. "There's nothing better than being yourself.""

views of benazir bhutto

imran khan writes in today's telegraph:

"I have known Benazir since we were at Oxford together, but we have drifted apart politically since then. Perhaps I could have warned her that her life would be in danger if she returned to Pakistan and had a parade, but I doubt she would have listened. After all, there has been no shortage of warnings from other quarters. But I can tell her this: it is not going to get any easier for her. Whenever she goes out campaigning in public, her life is going to be threatened. It is different for me campaigning in public, even in the frontier region, because I am not perceived as an America stooge, or a supporter of the war on terror." more here.

imran is standing for a different party. how do we know what to believe?

first i think how amazing it is that a woman has been prime minister in a country like pakistan, and instinctively want to support the return of bhutto to her home country. i read an account by a correspondent for the times, who was on the bus when the bombers struck. she recalls the beginning of the journey:

"She looked stunning, dressed in an emerald-green-and-white shalwar kameez, the colours of the Pakistani flag, to symbolise national unity. Her jacket was finished with tiny white pearl buttons, and over her head was a trademark floaty white dupatta, which as usual rarely stayed on. As she said goodbye to her two daughters and her husband, Asif, in the VIP lounge, she announced: “This is the beginning of a long journey for Pakistan back to democracy, and I hope my going back is a catalyst for change. We must believe that miracles do happen.”"

as they ride on the bus through the streets, bhutto says:

"“This is the real Pakistan, not the militants or the military. We are giving a voice to the moderates that don’t want to see their country taken over by terrorists.” For a moment she grew sombre. “I just hope I can meet all these expectations . . . but also that I am allowed to.”"

lots more here.

these are the kind of words that move me, the kind in which i wish to believe. this is a brave woman. her father was hanged by the military, and her brother was poisoned, and another brother was shot. yet she wants to return. but this is also someone who made a deal with the current dictator to drop corruption charges that were hanging over her head so she could return without being arrested. were the charges real, or trumped up? is she an american stooge? is she a western stooge? can she be a voice for democracy in her country?

aaaaaaaaargh! said ravaj impotently. i want to believe that miracles do happen, that she won't end up like indira gandhi, and that she will make a positive difference.

belgian blues

according to tomorrow's times, the dutch-speaking north and the french-speaking south of belgium cannot find enough consensus to form a coalition government, and various media speak of 'the czechoslovakia option' and 'velvet divorce':

"Living together in one country is impossible if year after year the minority prevents the majority from realising its most important desires,” said Het Laatste Nieuws, Belgium’s largest daily, voicing the frustration of many in Flemish-speaking Flanders, where 6 million of the population of 10.5 million people live. “Prepare for divorce,” announced the cover of Le Vif, an influential French-language weekly magazine, which spelt out the far-reaching costs for the impoverished region of Wallonia of splitting the health and social services, railways and the national debt."

while belgium, if it means anything at all (in the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy the word is the worst of expletives), is chocolate and beer to most and the bit on the way to germany that i got to drive because they were strict about speed limits and my mother preferred that i do that ... don't forget that its capital is home to the european union and to nato. so this story is of interest even to americans.

here is the story.

ding dong farfour is dead

hamas' mickey mouse lookalike
yahoo reports that the mickey mouse character used to preach Hamas dogma on al aqsa tv has been killed off:

"GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children's television program was beaten to death in the show's final episode Friday. In the final skit, "Farfour" was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a "terrorist." "Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added. The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV. Station officials said Friday that Farfour was taken off the air to make room for new programs. Station manager Mohammed Bilal said he did not know what would be shown instead.

Israeli officials have denounced the program, "Tomorrow's Pioneers," as incendiary and outrageous. The program was also opposed by the state-run Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., which is controlled by Fatah, Hamas' rival."

i can only echo rodgers & hammerstein:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught

(YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT - South Pacific )