I purposely didn't congratulate Natalie Glebova on becoming "Ms Universe" - despite her being Canadian - because, well, who cares. Sure, women (and everyone else) should do whatever they want, but can't women think of anything better to do than parade around a stage, to be judged based on their appearance and - oy - poise? Instead, I'll congratulate Danica Patrick , the 2005 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year. Last week, Patrick became the first woman to lead a lap at the Indy 500. She was the race's top qualified woman ever (4th), the highest placing woman ever (4th), and the second woman to win ROY since Lyn St. James won it in 1992. I think she is a descendant of my beloved A.E. . Another woman breaking new ground - both literally and figuratively - is Cheryl Rogowski, a farmer in Orange County, NY. In 11 years, starting with a crop of chili peppers seeded in her bedroom and planted in a remote field, Ms. Rogowski has transformed Rogowski Farm, raising 250 variet...
Independent journalist Greg Palast writes : The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed. Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered. In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists." "Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants. Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th...
After I blogged about two women I admire, a discussion developed about women posing for magazines, beauty pageants (and why I hate them), and so on. My thinking along these lines has changed a lot over the years. In my 20s, I stashed it all under the category of "objectifying", and disdained it. I read a lot of classic second-stage feminist work, and was friends with many women much older than me, and was influenced by the anti-porn, anti-display mentality. This is not a bad thing, even if I don't agree with all of it anymore. In more recent years, through activism, I've found myself working with women 15, 20 years younger than me. They are feminists through and through, but to many of them, those attitudes seem prudish and narrow-minded - where feminism meets Victorianism, you could say. Several have done some kind of sex work or stripping/dancing. Others have helped put themselves through college doing ovum extraction (that is, donating their eggs for other women ...
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