Avuncular American

The Church's Celibacy Crisis

A little thought amidst the furor over responsibility for allowing pedophile priests to continue unchecked for years, whether in the US, Ireland, Germany, or any other place that hasn't yet made it to the growing list of Priests Gone Wild.

The thought is this: can an institution - the Catholic Church, especially the Vatican - governed by men whose entire lives have been ruled by the tradition of celibacy, properly gauge the import of these outrages on children?

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd fulminates

Vulnerable children were not protected by the male hierarchy of the church, which treated sexual abuse as a failure of character rather than a crime. The men were so arrogant it never occurred to them that they should be accountable to the secular world. In their warped thinking, it was better to let children suffer than to call the authorities, embarrass the church and risk diminished power.

I submit that the nature of this imposed celibacy, which was not a feature of early Christianity, has come to warp the human reactions of the Church hierarchy as to the "value" of children.  Compared, that is, to the reputation of priests and the institution they represent.

Talk to parents of children, and you'll hear nothing but rage at the thought of their loved ones suffering at the hands of supposedly chaste priests.   And the majority of celibate priests, nuns, and monks who follow the code, however difficult, and are tainted by the shame of their fellow religious.

I cannot imagine the hurt that this has caused good priests and nuns, which is the only kind of priest or nun I've ever known.  Good name and reputation is essential in any calling, but none more than a religious vocation, which is based on a moral code.

While all priests are not predators, nor all pedophiles celibate (just think of the married monsters like Marc Dutroux who abused and murdered other people's children while his own were at home), there is a danger in imposing celibacy as a job requirement.  Future Church, a liberal Catholic group which calls for Optional Celibacy (image above) and a priesthood open to women, has compiled an interesting "Brief History of Celibacy."

From married apostles at the outset, through enslavement of priests' wives and abandonment of their children in the Middle Ages, Church history regarding celibacy has been a downward spiral of demonization of women, with a subset of obsession over sexual matters.  Priests, once permitted to lead lives that included wives and children, were forced to see them as the Forbidden Fruit.  And we know how hard it is to resist temptation.

Making celibacy optional would not rid the Church of pedophiles, just as liberal modern society has not rid itself of a host of sex crimes.  Predators there will always be, just like cheats, thieves, bullies and all manner of baddies.

But a Church where Children"R"Us - instead of just other peoples' kids - might come to regard women and children with an attitude befitting an inclusive, holy institution.

Israel To Palestinians: Take A Hike

Put aside Jerusalem and its contested status for a moment.  Divert your eyes from AIPAC conferences and White House meetings.   Consider, like Robert Wright in the New York Times, that knee jerk "pro-Israel" support can actually be anti-Israel.

And take a hike with Raja Shehadeh, prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks: Notes On a Vanishing Landscape (Profile Books, 2007).

The danger with the current focus on East Jerusalem and Israel's obstinate construction of housing on this "annexed" territory is that it clouds our view of what is happening elsewhere in the occupied territories.  Shehadeh, a human rights lawyer who hikes in his spare time, has provided us with a beautifully written walk through time.  Some of his early walks are simply no longer possible today; paths walled off, territory declared off limits to Palestinians, or hills simply razed to make way for settlements.  Listen as he narrates excerpts from his book:

I hiked some of the same paths that Shehadeh was still able to follow in the early Seventies.  Around Ramallah, I hiked with Palestinian friends and fellow international volunteers, there for a Boy Scout/Quaker project.  Stopping at a grapevine shaded roadside cafe overlooking the olive groves, where a fried egg never tasted better.  Who would ever have thought that such simple freedoms could end?

With my pack rat tendency to keep every map I've ever bought (and I've picked up many), I still have an Israeli ordnance survey map from 1971.  It's a beautifully colored topographical map, whose accompanying "list of settlements" does not refer to Israel's then rare outposts on the West Bank, but is an index to any "settled" place, from Ashdod to Tel Aviv.  Shehadeh's trails are there too.

A return trip in the mid-Eighties, and I pick up a Survey of Israel map of Jerusalem, printed in  1982.  There's a long arm of Jerusalem reaching up toward Ramallah, enveloping "Jerusalem Airport."  The construction of high rise apartment blocks on the high ground around the city belies Israeli intentions.  But it's still rather tame, compared to what happens next.

The Geopolitical Atlas of Israel (Autrement, 2008) shows it in detail: an irregular carbuncle jutting east from what was already annexed East Jerusalem, with the "Separation Wall" enclosing what are clearly Israeli settlements that cut up and loom over Arab neighborhoods.  Elsewhere the Atlas shows what Shehadeh and other Palestinians are up against: a West Bank patchwork of "Areas," nature reserves, and military zones that relegate Palestinians to what's left over, with contiguity a quaint notion for the history books.

For Shehadeh, the omnipresent blockage of his beloved trails is a metaphor for the everyday frustration that faces Palestinians in their own back yards.   For him, "Oslo" is indeed a four-letter word, where negotiators who never hiked the hills were ready to trade them away for the chance to rule over Ramallah and a few other towns.

Raja Shehadeh dedicates his book to his nephew and niece, "with the hope that they will be able to walk in the hills of Palestine."  I certainly hope they will.  But not if Israel's response to everyone, from President Obama to Gordon Brown to Palestinians, is a dismissive "take a hike."

Repeal This?

You're turning me down?  Hey, I got news for you, you little two-bit prick, son of a bitch, rat-bastard you did nothing for me! You did f*****g NOTHING for me!

Boss Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro), Analyze This (1999)

As Mike Madden writes ("Why healthcare reform could work for Democrats now") in today's Salon.com

Some of the most popular provisions in the legislation will be active... just in time for the elections. Which is why some Democrats are practically begging Republicans to make repealing the healthcare law the centerpiece of the fall campaign, the way top GOP leaders have promised to do.

Imagine millions of De Niro-like reactions this November should Republicans try to repeal this:

• HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES—Creates a temporary re‐insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive premiums for employers and retirees for health benefits for retirees age 55‐64.  Effective 90 days after enactment.
• ENDS RESCISSIONS—Bans insurance companies from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN WITH PRE‐EXISTING CONDITIONS—Prohibits new health plans in all markets plus grandfathered group health plans from denying coverage to children with pre‐existing conditions.  Effective 6 months after enactment.  (Beginning in 2014, this prohibition would apply to all persons.)
• BANS LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Prohibits health insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on coverage.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• BANS RESTRICTIVE ANNUAL LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Tightly restricts the use of annual limits to ensure access to needed care in all new plans and grandfathered group health plans.  These tight restrictions will be defined by HHS.  Effective 6 months after enactment.  (Beginning in 2014, the use of any annual limits would be prohibited for all new plans and grandfathered group health plans.)
• FREE PREVENTIVE CARE UNDER NEW PRIVATE PLANS—Requires new private plans to cover preventive services with no co‐payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• NEW, INDEPENDENT APPEALS PROCESS—Ensures consumers in new plans have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal decisions by their health insurance plan.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• IMMEDIATE HELP FOR THE UNINSURED UNTIL EXCHANGE IS AVAILABLE (INTERIM HIGH‐RISK POOL)—Provides immediate access to affordable insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre‐existing condition ‐ through a temporary subsidized high‐risk pool.  Effective 90 days after enactment.
• EXTENDS COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 26TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE – Requires new health plans and certain grandfathered plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS—Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for nearly a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.  Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010
• INCREASING NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS—Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals.  Effective beginning in fiscal year 2010.
• PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SALARY—Prohibits group health plans from establishing any eligibility rules for health care coverage that have the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees.  Effective 6 months after enactment.
• HEALTH INSURANCE CONSUMER INFORMATION—Provides aid to states in establishing offices of health insurance consumer assistance in order to help individuals with the filing of complaints and appeals.  Effective beginning in FY 2010.

The full list of the reforms is available from Democrats Abroad.  For those who are hazy on dates, "90 days after enactment" is June, "6 months after enactment" is September, and "effective beginning in FY 2010" is, well, now.

So, if I understand it correctly, the Republican Repealers want to take all this away from Americans?  The Party of No wants to relegate kids with pre-existing conditions back to the ranks of the uninsured?

Citizens might exhibit a Boss Vitti reflex in the voting booth - "You did f*****g NOTHING for me!"

Repeal this?  Go ahead, make my day.

US To Lose Its World Focus

On April 2, to be precise.

That's when PBS channel WNET will broadcast the final airing of its international TV news program World Focus.  Full disclosure: Avuncular American is on World Focus' "Blogwatch" roll, and I'm not sure what will become of its eclectic and world-spanning collection of blogs.  Like the TV program, the Blogwatch people at World Focus sought out blogs from every corner of the world.

These days, interesting websites come and go - Baghdad Burning and The Hegemonist were two excellent blogs 'til they just stopped in their tracks - with such regularity that some people might not get worked up about the loss of a TV news program.  The difference being the international focus of WF, and that it was on American TV screens.  American audiences have already seen the steady diminution of international coverage from the heydays of network news in the 60s and 70s, when the Big Three of CBS, NBC, and ABC fielded correspondents across the globe.

The sad announcement from World Focus explained that it was all about money: great concept, growing audience, but expensive to produce in recessional America, when all kinds of great ideas must scrounge for dwindling philanthropic resources.  How many former donors were burned by Bernie, or lost it all with Lehman?

Worked up about a TV program that I don't even watch (my capacity for video streaming in a two-inch square box is limited to cute kitty videos that last 90 seconds)?  No, it's especially about a lost opportunity for Americans to learn more about the world than breathless anchor coverage of Haitian disasters can provide.

Next lost opportunity to mourn: the world's ability to learn about America through sites like the New York Times, which, after an apparently unsatisfactory pay-as-you-go experience a couple of years ago, is going to give it a go again.  Yes, I know that journalists have to be paid and the lights kept on, but readership will inevitably shift to those papers, like The Guardian, which plan to remain free.  I love The Guardian, and it has excellent coverage of US topics through columnists like Gary Younge and Michael Tomasky.  But it's a UK-based paper.

World focus, both inbound and outbound, is an activity that also needs to have its US practitioners.

Image: FocusTestChart.com

Healthy Boost For Obama's International Standing

"It's Safe To Come To America"

Such a headline might be premature - the US House of Representatives' passage of the Senate Health Care Reform bill is only hours old, and even after the President's signature, will require time for implementation.  In the meantime, foreigners traveling to the US will still need to check the fine print of their insurance policies, many of which exclude the US, given its costly and byzantine health care system.

Byzantium just got updated, though it's not over 'til it's over.  Meaning that even though this reform represents historic progress, much more needs to be done to make affordable health care available to all.  The training of new doctors and nurses.  The reform of tort laws and accompanying stratospheric malpractice insurance.  Instituting a culture of preventive medicine and prophylactic public health.

Fixated as Americans were on the outcome of yesterday's vote, they may have missed the fact that foreigners were too, especially foreign leaders.  It went beyond European incomprehension at American reluctance to join the club of civilized health care providing nations.  Had the President not succeeded with his own party, on the key domestic proposal of his first term, what would happen to US leadership abroad?  That breeze you feel coming off the Atlantic is a huge sigh of relief.

We were on the road all day Sunday, driving through France back to Belgium, and the BBC provided regular real time updates on the state of the vote. French commentators noted that Benyamin Netanyahu, who treated Vice President Biden with barely concealed contempt as little as a week ago, will be meeting a President Obama newly invigorated by his domestic victory.

The Obama Way should be especially instructive for the Israeli Prime Minister.  The President focused on a major problem, persevered when pundits said the patient was dead, and pulled off a reform that is being compared with the major progressive initiatives (Social Security, Medicare) of the last century.  Now that he'll be more free to zero in on the Middle East, the moribund peace process between Israelis and Palestinians will likely be tops among his major international priorities.

Important as the health care vote is, it is a reminder that nothing comes easily, and that the Democrats can count on no Republican support.  The sole priority for Republicans appears to block what they can, and that includes necessary reforms of America's casino financial system.

At least now those ads promoting travel to the US (which did get bipartisan support) can include some very good news on the health front.

Coastal Protection, Then and Now

If you’re like me, you may not have known that the patron saint of customs agents is St. Matthew. What better place, then, to hike along the sentier douanier, the customs path that follows Brittany’s rugged coastline, than at Pointe St. Mathieu, west of the port of Brest?

Customs agents used to scout the horizon for signs of smugglers trying to ply the tax-free liquor trade. In the 1940s, German bunkers consumed huge amounts of concrete in a futile quest to ward off Allied invaders. Their hulking presence is especially evident here on the watery approaches to Brest, where the Germans established an important U-Boat base.

Brest is still an important maritime center, home to France’s naval academy, and the Crozon Peninsula across the bay is reputed to be a nuclear site. But the French patrol vessels that ply these waters are probably as interested in preventing pollution than in warding off hostile ships.

Offshore, an astounding 40,000 ships a year travel the maritime highway en route to and from the English Channel. Most of them are good international citizens; some crash on the rocky outcroppings that dot the Mer d’Iroise; and some deliberately flush out their oily fuel tanks and pollute some of the most pristine waters in Europe, which have been given UNESCO protected status.

The threat is not only from offshore: industrial agriculture, especially intensive pork and chicken production, has resulted in massive nitrate pollution of Breton fresh water resources. As this wends its way to the sea, smelly (and potentially deadly) green algae creates a hideous sludge on some of the most beautiful coves and beaches in Western Europe. It’s a tragedy, but one that only comes to public attention when a horse or a dog succumbs to the toxic fumes. So far, humans have only had close calls.

Interestingly, Brittany was one of the three regions in last week’s first round of elections where Socialists and Ecologists failed to reach an agreement on joint lists for next Sunday’s second round. If any region needs more environmentalists to take on entrenched interests, it is Brittany.

Nowhere else is the contrast between differing economic models as drastic. Raise millions of pigs and chickens for our fast food, spread their waste over the fields, and scare off potential tourists who come to Brittany for its combination of rural charm and coastal adventure? If ever there was a challenge for sustainable development, it is here.

A Tribute To Jean Ferrat

For the Anglophone readers of this blog who might not have heard of him, French singer songwriter Jean Ferrat - who was buried yesterday - was a mighty voice against injustice of all sorts.

That voice, which made the term “timbre” tangible, was rich mahogany and mellow oak, a perfect pitch of commitment and emotion in the cause of the downtrodden. He was 79 when he succumbed to cancer, and though he hadn’t recorded much in later life, his music continues to sell very well – his recent “greatest hits” is a platinum album.

His contemporary Jacques Brel had a wider international audience, and Ferrat deliberately shunned the showbiz limelight. At the height of his career, he settled in a rural Ardeche village – the French equivalent of Appalachia. Fellow villagers, who loved their card-playing boule-throwing neighbor, were eloquent about his humility and humanity.

Like in his earlier years living in Parisian housing projects, Jean Ferrat took his inspiration from working people. That’s how he himself started out, a teenage apprentice in a public works lab, who dabbled in performance art in his free time. He emerged in his late twenties as a singer with a difference, one who, decades before the rest of us worried about such things, decried in song “hormone chicken” and whose song “Ma Mome” had a factory worker as heroine.

A lifelong leftist, Jean Tenenbaum owed his life to Communists who sheltered the Jewish boy when his father was deported to Auschwitz. Though “card-carrying” would be incorrect (he never became a party member, and was considered too outspoken to tour the Soviet Union), he certainly identified with the PCF, the French Communist Party. This didn’t stop him from penning condemnations of Stalinism (“Le Bilan,” or the balance sheet of Stalin’s countless victims) and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Jean Ferrat was above all an idealist.

In the France of the 1950s, Tenenbaum wasn’t considered a marketable name, so the young singer looked at a map, saw Cap Ferrat jutting out into the Mediterranean, and voilà, a star was born. As if Anthony Dominick Benedetto had seen Mt. Rushmore and chosen the national monument for a stage name.

Watching one of several homages to Jean Ferrat on French TV, B&W footage showed a very scrawny thirty-something strolling along a street in a vintage musical video clip. Jean Ferrat is a perfect example of “improving with age,” his long middle years where his trademark moustache and salt-and-pepper mane adorned his many albums (he composed and sang some 200 songs). His voice remained strong well into his sixties, when he recorded his last album. His commitment to social justice remained: he once wrote “When they stop banning my songs, just throw me off the bridge.” (image: JeChanteMagazine)

Ferrat’s poetry deserves more than this blog can offer, and his influence was as much due to his mellifluous voice as to his subject matter. While his odes to the victims of the Holocaust and to Pinochet still stir passions, his work on everyday subjects (“Ouralou,” his departed dog) are also touching. Try to stay dry-eyed while listening to “Tu verras, tu seras bien” (You’ll see, you’ll be fine), about adult children relegating an aging parent to a retirement home.

Ferrat’s poetry, and that of Louis Aragon, which he set to music, was sublime, and his love songs are some of the most beautiful in modern French music. Have a listen.

Jean Ferrat, tu seras bien...

Loaded Lexicon: Genocide, Apartheid, Fundamentalism

Bet you thought the US Congress was busy sorting out health care last week, or tackling unemployment.  Well, they may one day return to those rather crucial domestic issues, but not before dealing with pressing foreign policy matters, such as condemnation of the four decade-old occupation of Cyprus, and labeling almost century-old massacres of Armenians as genocide.

The point in common is casting Turkey as the bad guy.  The other point in common is Israel.  As MJ Rosenberg noted in Media Matters Action Network, Israel had heretofore taken the Turkish view that the Ottoman-era bloodletting should not be labeled as genocide.  In any case, Israel has always looked askance at others' attempts to appropriate the terms genocide and holocaust.  But, says Rosenberg

since the Gaza war, Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated.  The Turks... were appalled by the Israeli onslaught against the Gazans. And said so. Ever since, the Netanyahu government has made a point to stick it to the Turks. That battle is now being carried to Washington.  The Israelis are trying to teach the Turks a lesson.  If the Armenian resolution passes the House, it will not be for purely compassionate reasons, but rather, to send a message to Turkey:  if you mess with Israel, its lobby will make Turkey pay a price in Washington.

The Obama Administration opposes the resolution, and it may not go beyond the Committee stage.  But the point is that, like the noise about Cyprus, the pro-Israel lobby can wag the Congressional dog with impunity.  For Turkey, like for Israel, and for the US, words do matter.

Like the word apartheid, which Israel would like to see relegated to the history books concerning South Africa, period.  It bristles at the notion (anytime, but especially this week) that there is a parallel between its separation walls, checkpoints, bypass roads, ethnic ID cards, segregated housing on occupied land... and similar practices that ended with majority rule in South Africa.  Use the word apartheid and Israel in the same sentence (oops, just did) and you'll incur the wrath of its formidable PR machine.

Word association test: if I say fundamentalism, what word immediately flashes through your brain?  Be honest: "Islamic," of course.  As if Muslims, in their infinite variety, had a corner on the market for religious extremism.  We know to our chagrin that Christians include a fair number of end-days fundamentalists in their midst, including in the person of a certain FOX  News personality.

And ask Palestinians how it is to live in ground zero of inter-religious fundamentalisms, where home-grown Islamists attempt to crowd out secular Muslims and Christians, and where Jewish settlers claiming Biblical rights to the exclusion of all others get succor from millennial American Christians, who see the Holy Land as a convenient setting for rapture.   The Palestinians know that "fundamentalism" is ecumenical in its application.

So next time Congress tries to be helpful in throwing around loaded terms like "genocide" and threatening relations with longstanding allies like Turkey, or condemning "occupation" in Cyprus but ignoring a longer occupation in the West Bank, maybe it should consider the utility of sticking to the facts on the ground, instead of words that can be defined according to the political beliefs of the interested parties. 

Women Rule, Though Not Where It Matters

In honor of International Women's Day (and the Oscars victory of Kathryn Bigelow), I repeat a column that ran here last year, and which first appeared as "Women in Power" in Together Magazine, a Brussels bi-monthly.  Although yesterday's Iraqi vote will give a serious boost to women's numbers among the world's elected, not much has changed in the United States of political power women, unless you count "professional" wrestling's Linda McMahon's candidacy for the Senate a positive development.

Image: "Women Rule Social Media?" Sarah Chong, Penn Olson.

------------------------------- 

A mini-quiz to begin: Who was the first female US Presidential candidate?

a. Eleanor Roosevelt
b. Hillary Clinton
c. Geraldine Ferraro
d. Shirley Chisholm
e. None of the above

Attention - it’s actually a trick question. Most people know that Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for President. Except she wasn’t. In fact, the mostly forgotten Victoria Woodhull (from as far back as 1872) takes that honor - her running mate, black anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, is better remembered. Appropriately enough, they were candidates for the Equal Rights Party.

“You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” - the 1960s vintage "Virginia Slims" cigarette adverts (not Fatboy Slim’s album) - have provided clichéd headlines for thousands of articles on the progress of women’s rights during the past 40 years. In the American political battleground, ‘Women in Power’ remains a largely underachieved goal, with notable exceptions. More accurately, we might say ‘Women For Power’, as their vote is increasingly crucial to winning elective office for candidates of either sex.

LONG TIME COMING

It wasn’t until the 20th century that women were enfranchised, let alone taken seriously enough to campaign in the mainstream parties. In the Democratic Party, Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman, ran unsuccessfully for President in 1972. In 1984 another Democrat, Geraldine Ferraro, became the first woman Vice Presidential nominee of a major party, but met the same fate as Republican Sarah Palin in 2008.

So Hillary Clinton, though she got further than other American women, didn’t invent female Presidential politics. In fact, the US comes out rather poorly in some metrics: Rwanda is number one in elected women, while Belgium is number eight. The US ranks a lowly 57 in terms of female members of parliamentary bodies (for women in elective office, it is 70th in the world). Women have fared somewhat better in the US Senate and states, however - there are 16 women out of 100 senators, and women are governors in 11 of the 50 states. [Update 3/8/2010: I guess we have to subtract Sarah Palin - we know where she is - and Kathleen Sebelius, now Secretary of Health, a key portfolio].

In the Presidential succession lineup, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House of Representatives comes after the Vice President. Pelosi wields considerable legislative power, which was strengthened in the 2008 elections. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also highly placed in the succession order, as was her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.

Rice wasn’t the first female Secretary of State; Madeleine Albright was, a decade earlier. And Clinton, who during husband Bill’s tenure preferred a more overtly political role to the honorific duties of ‘First Lady’, was not the first Presidential wife to dabble in matters of state. Edith Wilson was catapulted into an unofficial ‘secret Presidency’ when her husband Woodrow suffered a stroke after WW I, and Eleanor Roosevelt survived her husband Franklin to lead the US delegation at the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

THE FEMALE FACTOR

So, we’ve established that American women have been politically active for some time, even before they won the right to vote in 1920, but what has it got them? Under-representation, for one thing: only 25 per cent of US elective office holders are women, though they comprise 52 per cent of the population, and there’s also the notion - often misconstrued - that there is a ‘women’s vote’, that is, they vote monolithically, and that women vote for women.

The 2008 campaign was instructive: though most attention had been on Hillary Clinton’s prospects, she had barely lost the Democratic Party nomination when the Republican Party came up with its own woman - Sarah Palin, (then) Governor of Alaska. John McCain’s choice of Palin as running mate was both a bold move to corral the conservative base and a blatant bid for ‘the women’s vote’. All manner of supposedly disappointed ‘Clinton women’ were trotted out to testify how they were now going to vote Republican.

And we all know how it ended - despite the absence of Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket and Sarah Palin’s seeming omnipresence on the Republican side, Barack Obama carried the vote of women by a wide margin. It may be that their vote was decisive - for years, millions more women have voted than men, well beyond their numerical superiority in the population. In the end, it was their preference, especially among younger and unmarried women, for Obama’s stand on issues - and not gender solidarity - that swayed women in 2008.

IT’S THE POLICY, STUPID

Beyond elections, women in the United States struggle to gain influence and power relative to their numbers. It’s mostly an uphill battle, but some sectors stand out. Women now make up 14 per cent of the US Army, and 21 have attained the rank of general. In the State Department, Hillary Clinton presides over a diplomatic corps that includes more than 50 women of ambassadorial rank.

Barack Obama didn’t win the Presidency by campaigning as the African-American or mixed-race candidate. In fact, he won by transcending racial pigeonholing. Obama’s victory, Hillary Clinton’s close-run thing, and Sarah Palin’s flop should show American women that - more than race or gender - it’s the policy, stupid. 'You’ve Got a Long Way to Go, Baby' - but at least the route to power for American women is no longer the ‘Road to Nowhere’.

#---------------------------------------#

IMBY - Farms and Factories

Are the days of the family farm and the local factory a thing of the past in the Western world?  Well, I hope not, otherwise what will we all do, just "service" each other?

Can't expect the Chinese to supply us with both manufactured goods and food, or can we?  I guess it's hard to say no to Chinese made toys, but I draw the line at basic foodstuffs.  Don't want melamine in our milk, do we?  But in manufacturing, whole categories of products - I'm talking about things as essential as appliance motors, not just toys - are almost exclusively made in China.

The withering away of the industrial base is a growing concern in industrialized countries like the United States and France, where President Sarkozy laments "de-industrialization."  In the US, Charlie LeDuff wrote about the dying days of a former auto-manufacturing Midwest town in "End of the Line," a Mother Jones photo-essay.

As dire as the industrial scene in the West may be, let me add another major concern: the death of agriculture.  Well, not really, but the death of the family farmer for sure.  In Paris, the focus this week has been on the annual "Salon d'Agriculture," where farmers show off their prize cattle and you can taste fresh produce and other marvels from France's rich production.  A nice show.

Meanwhile, French TV and radio news reports from the countryside feature farmers in tears, wondering how they will be able to survive the fall in prices for their products.  Adult children raising livestock at a loss, only able to live thanks to their parents' pensions.  Thousands of new rural applicants every month for unemployment compensation or welfare.

Part of the problem stems from the whole NIMBY complex, where communities more interested in aesthetics and real estate values make a mixed economy impossible.  In the US, I have seen wealthy communities zone away the possibilities for even private schools to be established in their midst, let alone a muddy farm or a small workshop.  How many people in suburban America have been denied their right to dry laundry in the fresh air, no matter how energy efficient it is?

IMBY - In My Back Yard - is the name of a program from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) which helps homeowners calculate the amount of renewable energy they could produce for a given investment.  In the UK, the Energy Saving Trust (EST) provides an array of useful programs.

Though it won't save the farmers, the "Food Not Lawns" movement might at least get people to reduce the enormous waste of soil and water - not to speak of time and energy - that green grass lawns represent.  Turn your yard into a mini-farm.  Urban farming activists were given a boost by Michelle Obama's White House garden initiative, but still must face opposition by purists trying to uphold zoning regulations.

And given the advances in soundproofing, pollution filtering, and eco-friendly building materials, how much sense does it make to oppose mini-industrial zones close to the very residential areas which cry out for employment opportunities?

At the Paris agriculture show, little kids who grow up on packaged food from the supermarket marvel at the wonders of the temporary urban farm.  Without vegetable gardens, farms, and factories in our midst, we too are increasingly divorced from the reality of the essentials of our existence.

Get out into the mud, visit a farm, a factory, give the browser a break.  See where things are made, where food grows.  A reality show, one that should not be produced exclusively in China.