Treat me like a queen

In a post not authorised by me, the Vol-in-Law expresses some question over the Lawrence Summers – head of Harvard – resignation after his dubious remarks about women in the sciences.

Then he gets into it in the comments section with one of the regular readers. One point that caught my eye was the use of the terminology queen and king – and whether one is of lower value than another.

Now this reminded me of the time that I worked in an office in God’s own stadium with two female (engineers both) co-workers. They were bemoaning the fact that the Promise Keepers were coming to town and having a rally in that very stadium.

I hadn’t really paid that much attention to the Promise Keepers, so I wasn’t entirely sure what their objection was. One of their principal objections was the attitude toward women in general and their wives in particular.

“They tell them to treat women like queens!” my co-workers said.
“What’s wrong with that?” I said.
They stared at me aghast. I press.
“You know, putting women on a pedestal, the little woman, treat her like a queen.”
“Oh…” I said, finally getting it. “That kind of queen, I was thinking like Elizabeth I, put-him-in-the-Tower, Spanish-Armada-defeating kind of queen.”

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Interestingly on the Promise Keeper website, it’s all men, men, men…til you get to the volunteering section, the hard slog of promise keeping, and there are only pictures of women.

Have to dash…must start cooking dinner for the Vol-in-Law.

Dashed hopes, shredded dreams

Bad news from the garden front – after a week of anticipation, and I’m afraid to admit that I was really, really excited, about the new garden shredder, I finally had time to assemble it on Saturday. It wasn’t raining, so I was really looking forward to a full day of shredding and chipping.

I put it together – carefully following the instructions – only to discover the dang thing just won’t turn on – switch is busted or something. We had to take it back to the store. The Vol-in-Law accompanied me because he knew I was too fragile from the crushing disappointment to go alone. All the other models were too expensive or too big or both. The equipment hire store was out, but I’ve booked a rent-a-shredder for this Saturday.

But it’s not all gloom – I have some blooms

Purple crocus – I love the orange.

An orange primrose – cultivar “Marietta”.

ViL: This post not approved by Vol Abroad

Anglofille writes:

“Lawrence Summers has resigned as the president of Harvard, my former workplace. (Hi Harvard friends!) Summers, a boorish, sexist jerk, resigned under intense pressure from the faculty. Gee, it must be open season on arrogant men in positions of power. ’Bout time.”

Maybe I’m missing something, but what did Summers do that merited his resignation? I read that he raised the issue of why there were less women than men at the top of certain academic professions, opined that discrimination against women might not be the main reason, and gave some alternative explanations. Is that really it?

-ViL, who gets paid less than the Vol…

Drought measures

England, this green and pleasant land, this damp and soggy isle, faces a water shortage.

It’s still February and already we’re warned that we may all be collecting our water from standpipes in the street this summer. And the first casualties will be our gardens.

Whenever there’s a threat of water shortage the Environment Agency and the water companies issue hose pipe bans. That means you cannot use a hose to water your garden.

Now I love my garden and I have a tendency to overplant, making use of every available inch in my tiny postage stamp sized London garden. This means that most weeks during the summer I have to do some supplementary watering. But I am careful about the way I water – early morning or late evening and I use soaker hoses and I don’t even have a lawn. Not only that, but I am generally thrifty in my water usage (not running the tap when brushing my teeth, washing dishes, etc) so I feel my overall low water usage means that I have extra gallons in my moral water account. Not only that, but part of the reason we’re facing a water shortage is that the water companies themselves lose most of the water through leaks in the system. Why should I suffer lack of floral abundance due to their carelessness and failure to maintain and invest?

However, I’m taking precautions and I’m investing in a water butt to collect the rainwater from my roof. I’ve been adding my homemade compost to the soil which will increase the water retention and I also plan to mulch heavily.

But push come to shove, I plan to engage in a little civil disobedience this summer. No one comes between me and my garden.
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Mayor of London suspended

I had a little stop gap post on Ken Livingstone’s suspension from his job as Mayor of London – which was basically a gloating poke at an adjudication panel’s ruling that Ken Livingstone should be suspended from his job for a month. So I’m now republishing with a bit more detail.

What did Ken do to deserve this suspension? Basically he called someone a name. He compared a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard – and then did it again after the reporter said that he was Jewish and found it offensive.

What was the reporter doing? His job. Maybe the reporter Oliver Finegold was being a little pesky (who knows?), but that’s what reporters do. He asked a public servant and a public figure a question on a public matter in a public place. You can hear the recording for yourself at the Evening Standard.

First Ken denied making those statements, but Mr Finegold being a reporter had a tape running. Then Ken claimed Mr Finegold was being rude, but from the tape, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

What would a grown-up mayor have done? He would have apologised. He would have apologised to the reporter and to the people of London, and it would have been over. Instead he called the Daily Mail group (for which the Evening Standard reporter works) a bunch of Nazi sympathisers – who Ken grants have now turned from hating Jews to hating Muslims and asylum seekers.

Then Ken’s co-workers (the Greater London Assembly – our big council) said “Ken, be a big boy and say you’re sorry.” But Ken refused to apologise. He didn’t even apologise for any offense he might have caused (that old get-out) but did say it wasn’t his intention to offend the Jewish community of London.

Now could his remarks have been construed as unacceptably anti-semitic? Maybe. (I sure wouldn’t like to be compared to a Nazi concentration camp guard and as a Londoner I was offended by his remarks and I’m not Jewish.) Though when you compare what he said to Ken’s cosy relationship with nasty, anti-semitic, homophobe, mysogynist Egyptian cleric al Qaradawi, his remarks hardly even seem noteworthy in the anti-semite stakes.

Ken you brought this on yourself, you stupid mf.

On the other hand, who the heck are these people on this Panel of Adjudication who can remove the properly elected Mayor after a meeting of a few hours? Ken says it undermines democratic principles and is an insult to the people of London. On that, Ken, you and I are in agreement.

Ken you’ve wasted taxpayer money again because of your stupid arrogance. I can’t help but gloat at your misfortune, you stupid, reactionary, anti-American ass. But I’m sickened that London is shamed first by having a loud mouth mayor and then by having him removed.

But as this post from Harry’s Place says:

That said, the only way to counter left-racism and the “Galloway-lite” religious communalist politics which Ken Livingstone, and his Socialist Action chums have been pioneering, is for us to organise, politically, against it.

An administrative or quasi judicial ‘solution’ is not only a mirage: it is also an affront to democracy.

holocaust denial

David Irving, the British “historian” and holocaust denier is an idiot. He is his own worst enemy. His most severe legal troubles stem from his own stupidity.

To wit:

1. His biggest legal problems in the UK were when he took American academic Deborah Lipstadt to court for libel, when she called him a holocaust denier. In court, it was proven that he was a holocaust denier, and he lost.

2. Austria banned him from the country. He knew that there was essentially a national restraining order in place, and knew there was a warrant for his arrest stemming from a previous holocaust denial incident within Austria. He went anyway and got thrown in the poky.

In each case, he’s been the author of his own downfall (as well as the author of some very dubious stuff he calls “real history”).

Still, I don’t think he should be in jail for holocaust denial. He was sentenced to three years in prison, and Austrian prosecutors are appealing against the sentence saying he should be chucked in for the maximum ten. This despite the fact that he plead guilty, recanted on the denial, and apologised for hurt and affront. (Though to be fair, I don’t put much weight on his mea culpa)

Now, I think people who publicly deny the facts of the holocaust should be lampooned and discredited or perhaps just denied the oxygen of publicity.. I don’t think they should be thrown in jail – made a martyr to their stupid cause. I don’t think that people should be thrown in jail for what they write and say…(mostly, there is the issue of child porn and direct incitement to violence).

Most commentators in the UK are sort of defending his “right to be wrong”, but I don’t think many on the Left or Right are shedding too many tears. I have to admit I’m not either, I find him abhorrent.

But in the wake of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, I find his incarceration for three years disturbing. Very disturbing. There’s been an escalation of penalties for offending others – and as one person is punished for offending an orthodoxy or breaking a taboo, so all the other orthodoxies clamor for their own protection under the law. It’s a dangerous climate for free-thinkers as well as vile campaigners.

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The other night, the Vol-in-Law took me to a lecture on multi-culturalism and the law (he sure knows how to show a gal a good time) by Professor Ralph Grillo an anthropologist. He took us through the Bezhti affair (a play found offensive by some Sikhs who smashed in the Birmingham rep) and covered the Danish cartoons as well.

He seemed to be coming from the premise that we really oughtn’t to be offending anyone…and that free speech was a good thing generally, but it was better not to offend. He was speaking in a law lecture series, but no one could quite pin him down to what he thought the law ought to be. At one point he was pressed…who has the right not to be offended, religious adherents? (yes), members of ethnic minorities? (yes), various nationalities? (yes). He never answered the question of why religion (a system of belief, i.e. thought) deserved any gentler treatment than any other system of thought or belief (utilitarianism, liberalism, conservatism, Darwinism) that all have to take their knocks.

I’d rather think that we all have the positive right to be offended. Yes, you can say what you like, but I have the right to object, to argue back and to feel aggrieved. As I said above, when we start going down the road of protecting the precious sensitivities, everyone wants their sensitivity protected, too, until finally we’re paralysed by it and can’t speak out when things are really wrong.

Tags: Free Speech, Austria, Holocaust, irving, holocaust denial

Classy

You know you’re classy when you decorate with SunDrop memorabilia…

Other cat looks like she’s full to the eyes of the golden drop herself.

Dumb laws

In a report by the Center for Reproductive Rights called What if Roe Fell?, Tennessee is highlighted as a “green” state – that is one of the states likely to protect abortion rights if there were a reversal of the Roe v Wade Decision.

Is Tennessee still the greenest state in the land of the free?

Well, it won’t be if Tennessee House Bill 3199 (link to a PDF) goes through. This is a law which requires a woman notify the impregnating male of her intention to get an abortion.

There’s a get-out clause for rape, but only if it’s been reported to the police.

This isn’t just telling a man you’re married to (not that I approve of spousal notification, if you’re not telling your husband of your intention to have an abortion, I suspect there’s a pretty good reason – after all, wife battering often picks up during pregnancy). This isn’t just telling someone you’re in a relationship with, this is trying to find and tell any possible roll-in-the-hay-lay you might have had.

Can’t find him? Don’t know who he is? That’s ok, sugar, you just march yourself down to the local department of children’s services and file a notice with them with the name of the putative father (Rachel of Women’s Health News has more on the possible delaying implications of this provision).

I have to wonder what that’s going to be like – are county children’s services geared up for this kind of thing. No doubt lawmakers imagine a waiting room full of rosy-cheeked cherubs lovingly held in the arms of their hard-pressed, but feisty moms swaying the resolve of the abortion-seeker (my guess is these guys probably haven’t had to wait in such a lobby ever). Or maybe they just want to pile on the humiliation.

_____

When I first read about this here, here and here, yesterday, I have to say I was really in a state of disbelief – surely Mr. TV on the Fritz, who first spotted it, had fallen for some kind of hoax. No sensible lawmaker would propose such a bill. But I found it on the state legislature site (where you can track progress of this bill) and then I remembered that we were talking about the state house…not a place 100% populated by sensible lawmakers.

Aunt B of Tiny Cat Pants says:

Yes, apparently Tennessee sperm is so powerful that it can penetrate doctor-patient privilege and render privacy rights non-existent. So powerful that its mere presence at one time in a woman’s reproductive system obliges that woman to report in to that man about her medical activities.

Rachel of Women’s Health News says:

You can find names and email addresses of TN Senate members here and House members here.

And since this Bill is next on its way to the Judiciary Committee, then you might want to have a word with them, too.

Technorati Tags: abortion; legislation; reproductive rights; Tennessee

Ain’t nobody here…

…but us chickens.

Well, they found some bird ‘flu in France, in fact they’re now on “bird flu war footing” (hmm…France, war footing? – are we about to see new lows in surrendering?) That’s just a short flight across the channel. It’s bound to show up here.

I know I should be worried about this, but I can’t seem to summon up the fear. I shared a taxi with a guy not long ago who thought me foolish for my lack of concern. He knew a disturbing amount about the avian influenza, the Spanish ‘flu of nearly a century ago, and previous ‘flu epidemics. He talked about our chances here in London, the stock of vaccines and anti-viral treatments. The UK government doesn’t have enough, the NHS won’t be able to handle it…he said. I have no doubt that this is true. As he reeled off death tolls and infection rates (he knew the numbers), I did my best not to snicker.

If some nasty virulent ‘flu – like the H5N1 virus – decides to jump from human to human I know it will be bad, I just kind of accept that. In London, I know I’m a sitting duck. London already makes me sick. It makes everyone sick. You’re sharing enclosed spaces with all kinds of sniffling, coughing, wheezing fellow commuters. You touch a handrail as you begin your commute and there’s no way to wash your hands for nearly an hour. By the time I’ve accepted that I’ve got to look like a paranoid plonker on my daily commute, with gloves and a mask it will be too late.

For those who either want to scare themselves senseless or prepare and take appropriate measures – check out this site: avianinfluenza.org

What’s in bloom?

I love spring bulbs and flowers…I love the anticipation and the unfolding…

What’s in bloom this week? Not a heck of a lot. My garden seems very slow to take off this year, nary a daffodil.

On the upside, this means that bulbs will have a more intense, showier season.

But here’s what’s in bloom from this week:

Hellebore – I think this is an ericsmithii, that I bought for cheap one time. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a flower named after you?

Maybe this one should be called crocus volabroadii

Orange and white crocus

I also have a smattering of snowdrops in bloom.

My mother-in-law and I dug these up last year just after Easter from the abandoned homestead across the road from her house in Aberdeenshire. We packed them in moss and I carried them in a backpack down to London and put them out despite a raging cold. At her house they don’t bloom until late March, but they are lush and thick. This year in my garden, they’re a little straggly, but I’m pleased they’ve done as well as they have.