Safia Amajan, chief of the Woman’s Affairs department in Afghanistan was killed by suspected Taliban gunmen today.
The BBC reports that her requests for secure transport and bodyguards was rejected but The New York Times says she chose to travel in taxis to avoid being conspicuous.
Ms. Amajan preferred to take a taxi or public transport so as not to draw attention to herself, even though her office had cars and drivers, her nephew said. “She wanted to keep a low profile,†he said. “We wanted her to come and live with us in town, but she used to say, ‘If it’s God’s will, they will take me anywhere.’â€
Further to my post on skinny models, in August this year a Uruguayan model died of heart failure after her turn on the catwalk during Fashion Week in Montevideo, Uruguay. Her father told police that she had gone several days without eating.
A study has found that women are more likely to orgasm if they are graduates, speak English at home, have a managerial/professional occupation or have sex with other women.
And finally, Mark Latham is a moron:
“Australian mates and good blokes have been replaced by nervous wrecks, metrosexual knobs and tossbags,” Mr Latham writes in A Conga Line of Suckholes, published today.
Mr Latham, who left politics after leading Labour to defeat at the last general elections in 2004, blamed changes in the workplace and family, a rise in left-wing feminism and the prominence of neo-conservatism for creating “a crisis in male identity” and “debilitating” Australia’s language.
You’re so right- Latham is such a gigantic, poor-loser dropkick I’m ashamed I ever thought he’d be a refreshing change from Howard. Well… god, it’s demoralising, isn’t it? Having such grim prospects for government- & watching Beastly try to out-xenophobe Howard, & knowing the ‘barren’ Gillard will never get the green light. Jeez.
Bad bad news all around Anna. *sad face*
With Latham it’s just another case of making personality flaws and failures symptomatic of the “national character”. How egotistical of these politicians to superimpose their realities as some kind of universal standard of “Australian culture.”
It also really reveals to me how off putting the whole blokey “macho” union culture of the Labour party is. They need to fix themselves up.
I disagree with his assertion that lefty feminists have “castrated” the Australian male.
I think good feminism liberates men and women- makes them equals- which injects beauty, sensuality and challenge to human relationships previously characterised by slavishness and mutilated development.
There is something romantic about the archetypal “australian bloke” primal, untouched by civilisation, but it’s not brutish and buffonish like Latham would suggest. It’s underscored by a kind of rugged gentleness,an almost feminine and intuitive love of nature and women. Is not afraid to love, lyrical in language and even sentimental. Honest, straightforward and never uses violence. (kind of like the late Steve Irwin).
The Australian male latham refers to is an idiot neanderthal- uncompromising, bullying, insensitive and mean, vulgar in language and violent. This is not Australian it’s just stupid.
(ok too many romance novels for this cowgirl:)
;p
Yeah, as if this culture doesn’t put enough emphasis and importance on masculinity as it is. Masculinity (in the manly man macho sense)is oppressive to both women and men.