Leaky boats, huzzah!

 From the New York Times ...

  "But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. They shed light on the motivations — and, in some cases, duplicity — of allies on the receiving end of American courtship and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name."

Click link the New York Times link or visit The Guardian's coverage — including a database of the cables —  to see analysis, content from the WikiLeaks documents.

Fear journalists around the world are crashing the WikiLeaks server today, making the website inaccessible. [ed's note: WikiLeaks said its website had come under “a mass distributed denial of service attack.”]

Either way, try again tomorrow.

I am (not) a feminist

I have very strong memories of my mother sticking an "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" pin on my sister's sweater before she was put into her stroller.

This might be my first memory, given my sister is only two-and-a-half years younger. Though, it is possibly conflated with another memory so, given the vagaries of the mind, the memory of Garth throwing up in my sandbox might remain the first.

However, I digress. The point was that my mother was a very embarrassing feminist, of the sort who attended rallies with us in tow, coached my soccer team with very hairy armpits, talked about sex with my friends (and potential boyfriends) and tried to get me to go on an all-woman-all-naked-all-the-time camping trip when I was 12. 

The notion was horrifying. [Retelling this story dumbfounded Laura, making her assert, yet again, I must write a novel about my family life.]

Of course, I had the luxury of growing up in a world where nothing seemed unavailable to me, that my gender was irrelevent in almost every aspect of my life. Quickly, however, I learnt otherwise.

And I became labelled a feminist, which is utterly irksome given my arguments fell in lines with what in university I learnt is called Third Wave Feminism. But there is that word again. Grrrrr.

Since then, I've been quietly intrigued by how people identify feminism — so here is another.

From rabble.ca

I don't think  I was ever anything but a feminist. Feminism isn't an employment agency for women; it's an alternative way of ordering the social space in which women are the prototype rather than the men. It is based on collaboration rather than competition. As a youngster I still remember my feeling of joy that one can look at the earth differently.
— Ursula Franklin