President Obama's top aids are accusing Republicans of politicizing the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day for their own political gain (Accusing? Pointing out the obvious is more like it). Senior White House advisor David Axelrod said that Democrats did not attack President George W. Bush when he did not make a public statement for nearly a week after an attempted bombing in 2001 by "the shoe bomber". Axelrod continued, "There are those who want to solve the problem and there are those who want to exploit it." (Full Story)
Heather: How do Republicans consistently shoot themselves in the foot and yet still win elections?
Eagan: Because Americans like the idea that they own guns which Republicans prove by showing the bullet holes in their feet.
Interesting editorial by Julianna Baggott on gender discrimination in the literary world. Publishers Weekly named the Top 100 Books of 2009, and no female writers made it in the top ten. Twenty-nine total women made the list. "I could understand Publishers Weekly's phallocratic list if women were writing only a third of the books published or if women didn't float the industry as book buyers or if the list was an anomaly." She goes on to explain that in the past 30 years, only 11 Pulitzer prizes have gone to women. With Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2009, only two women made it in the top 10; only four in the top 20. This month Poets & Writers compiled a list of the 50 Most Inspiring Authors in the World; women made up 36% of the list.
"When asked about their choices this year, Publishers Weekly said it chose books that 'stood out' and weren't trying to be 'politically correct,' as if this were the only reason female writers could have gotten on the list. Or is it that we have stamped the publishing industry post-feminist and can now slide back to comfortable stereotypes?"
She explains how throughout her education she picked up on the lesson that "if you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one." She said she was guilty of this as well. To further her point, she argued that the books on the Publishers Weekly list "are not only written by men but also have male themes, overwhelmingly. In fact, the list flashes like a slide show of the terrain I was trying to cover with my graduate thesis, when I wrote all things manly -- war, boyhood, adventure. "
She also points to an interesting recent study that examined perceptions of male and female playwrights. Participants read the exact same play -- exact same female protagonist, same lines, same pagination. The play was rated higher when readers thought it had a male author. Another question on the survey was about the character's likability. The exact same female character when written by a man was considered likable; when written by a woman, the character was considered unlikable.
Baggott concludes the article by saying one solution to this problem is that we have to see the prejudice and stop ignoring it. Currently, the top prizes' discrimination against women has largely been ignored. However, she says there is hope, as this year's Pulitzer for fiction went to a woman who wrote about a woman (Elizabeth Strout for "Olive Kitteridge"). (Full Story)
Newly-released government papers reveal that when Margaret Thatcher was going to Tokyo for an economic summit in 1979, a month after she won the general election, Japan was going to provide her with a security unit of 20 "karate ladies". Margaret Thatcher was completely against this idea and asked them to not do this. A letter from Thatcher's office was sent to Japan's foreign office, "The Prime Minister would like to be treated in exactly the same manner as the other visiting Heads of Delegation; it is not the degree of protection that is in question but the particular means of carrying it out. If other delegation leaders, for example are each being assigned 20 karate gentleman, the Prime Minister would have no objection to this; but she does not wish to be singled out. She has not had in the past, and does not have now, any female Special Branch officers." (Full Story)
I definitely understand Margaret Thatcher's concern of being treated differently simply because she's a woman, but...who denies something so cool like a karate entourage?!?
Bolivians see that they could benefit from these deals and new relationships. It is believed that lithium will be the key to their future development. China has told Bolivia that they will construct Bolivia's first satellite and build an electric trainline for the country. They are also collaborating on mining and energy projects. Many Bolivians see the benefits of a new economic relationship with China. One Bolivian trader that sells home supplies in a stall in the commercial sector of La Paz travels to China regularly now to buy cheap products that she can then sell back home. She is even learning to speak Chinese (language classes on Chinese are growing in Bolivia). She said, "I think it would be great if we could cement our relations with China. We've seen how Peru has developed after it signed a free trade agreement with China."
Though one potential road block to these lithium deals is that President Morales is a leftist and he insists that profits and jobs from Bolivia's rich natural resources should go to Bolivians and not foreign companies. But some experts believe that Bolivia does not have the expertise to go it alone. The former mining minister of Bolivia said, "We don't have the technical know-how to work with lithium. You need hundreds of technicians and engineers and professionals. If we plan this right we will have the capacity to to get to a certain level. But after that you need investment that currently Bolivia doesn't have." (Full Story)
I'm with you on the Thatcher turning down a karate crew. Geeze Thatcher, way to drop the ball of cool in the name of equality.
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