text:
The American Peace Commissioners to Elias Boudinot, 10 September 1783
The American Peace Commissioners to Elias Boudinot
LS7 and press copy of LS: National Archives; copies: Library of Congress, Massachusetts Historical Society
Passy, 10th. Septr. 1783.
On the third Instant, Definitive Treaties were concluded, between all the late belligerent Powers, except the Dutch, who the Day before settled and signed Preliminary Articles of Peace with Britain.
We most sincerely & cordially congratulate Congress and our Country in general, on this happy Event, and we hope that the same kind Providence which has led us thro' a vigorous War, to an honorable Peace, will enable us to make a wise & moderate Use of that inestimable Blessing.
We have committed a Duplicate Original of the Treaty to the Care of Mr. Thaxter, who will go immediately to L'Orient, whence he will sail in the French Packet to New-York. That Gentleman left America with Mr. Adams as his Private Secretary, and his Conduct having been perfectly satisfactory to that Minister, we join in recommending him to the Attention of Congress. We have orderd Mr. Grand to pay him one hundred and thirty Louis d'ors, on account of the reasonable Expences to be incurr'd by his Mission to Congress, and his Journey from thence to his Family at Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay.8 For the Disposition of the Money he is to account.
The Definitive Treaty being in the Terms of the Provisional Articles, and not comprehending any of the Objects of our subsequent Negociations, it is proper that we give a summary Account of them.
When Mr Hartley arrived here he brought with him only a set of Instructions signed by the King. We objected to proceeding with him until he should have a Commission in Form. This occasioned some Delay—a proper Commission was however transmitted to him, a Copy of which was shortley after sent to Mr. Livingston.
We having been instructed to obtain if possible an Article for a Direct Trade to the West Indies, made to Mr. Hartley the Proposition No 1.9
He approved of it greatly and recommended it to his Court, but they declined assenting to it.
Mr. Hartley then made us the Proposition No 2.1 but on being asked whether he was authorised to sign it, in Case we agreed to it, he answer'd in the Negative. We therefore thought it improper to proceed to the Consideration of it until after he should have obtained the Consent of his Court to it.— We also desired to be informed whether his Court would or would not comprehend Ireland in their Stipulations with us.
The British Cabinet would not adopt Mr Hartley's Propositions but their Letters to him were calculated to inspire us with Expectations, that as nothing but particular local Circumstances, which would probably not be of long duration, restrained them from preferring the most liberal System of Commerce with us, the Ministry would take the earliest Opportunity of gratifying their own Wishes as well as ours, on that Subject.—
Mr Hartley then made us the Proposition No 3.2 At this Time we were informed that Letters for us had arrived in France from Philada. We expected to receive Instructions in them, and told Mr. Hartley that this Expectation induced us to postpone giving him an Answer for a few Days.
The Vessel by which we had expected these Letters, it seems had not brought any for us. But at that Time Information arrived from America, that our Ports were all opened to British Vessels. Mr Hartley thereupon did not think himself at Liberty to proceed, until after he should communicate that Intelligence to his Court and receive their further Instructions.
Those further Instructions never came, and thus our Endeavours as to commercial Regulations, proved fruitless. We had many Conferences & recd. long Memorials from Mr Hartley on the Subject; but his Zeal for Systems friendly to us, constantly exceeded his Authority to concert and agree to them.
During the long Interval of his expecting Instructions, for his Expectations were permitted to exist almost to the last, we proceeded to make & receive Propositions for perfecting the definitive Treaty. Details of all the Amendments, Alterations, Objections, Exceptions &ca. which occurr'd in the Course of these Discussions would be Voluminous. We finally agreed that he should send to his Court, the Project or Draft of a Treaty No 4.3 He did so, but after much Time, and when pressed by France, who insisted that we should all conclude together, He was instructed to sign a Definitive Treaty in the Terms of the Provisional Articles.
Whether the British Court meant to avoid a Definitive Treaty with us, thro' a vain Hope from the exagerated Accounts of Divisions among our People, and Want of Authority in Congress, that some Revolution might soon happen in their Favour; or whether their dilatory Conduct was caused by the Strife of the two opposite and nearly equal Parties in the Cabinet is hard to decide.—
Your Excellency will observe, that the Treaty was signed at Paris & not at Versailles. Mr Hartley's Letter No. 5, & our Answer No 6. will explain this.4 His Objections, and indeed our Proceedings in general, were communicated to the French Minister, who was content that we should acquiesce, but desired that we would appoint the signing early in the Morning, and give him an Account of it at Versailles by Express, for that he would not proceed to sign on the Part of France, 'till he was sure that our Business was done.
The Day after the Signature of the Treaty, Mr. Hartley wrote us a Congratulatory Letter No 7. to which we returned the Answer No. 8.5
He is gone to England, and expects soon to return—which for our Parts we think uncertain. We have taken Care to speak to him in strong Terms, on the Subject of the Evacuation of New-York, and the other important Subjects proper to be mentioned to him.— We think we may rely on his doing every thing in his Power to influence his Court, to do what they ought to do, but it does not appear that they have as yet formed any settled System for their Conduct relative to the United States.— We cannot but think that the late & present Aspect of Affairs in America has had, and continues to have, an unfavourable Influence, not only in Britain but throughout Europe.
In whatever Light the Article respecting the Tories may be reciev'd in America, it is consider'd in Europe as very humiliating to Britain, and therefore as being one which we ought in Honour to perform and fulfil with the most scrupulous Regard to good Faith, & in a manner least Offensive to the Feelings of the King and Court of G. Britain, who upon that Point are extremely tender.
The unseasonable and unnecessary Resolves of various Towns on this Subject, the actual Expulsion of Tories from some Places, and the avow'd Implacability of almost all who have published their Sentiments about the Matter, are Circumstances which are construed, not only to the Prejudice of our national Magnanimity and good Faith, but also to the Prejudice of our Government.6
Popular Committees are consider'd here as with us, in the Light of Substitutes to constitutional Government, and as being only necessary in the Interval between the Removal of the former and the Establishment of the present.
The Constitutions of the different States have been translated & published, & Pains have been taken to lead Europe to believe, that the American States not only made their own Laws, but obey'd them. But the continuance of popular Assemblies conven'd expressly to deliberate on Matters proper only for the Cognizance of the different Legislatures & Officers of Government, and their proceeding not only to ordain, but to enforce their Resolutions, has exceedingly lessen'd the Dignity of the States in the Eyes of these Nations.
To this we may also add, that the Situation of the Army, the Reluctance of the People to pay Taxes, and the Circumstances under which Congress removed from Philadelphia,7 have diminish'd the Admiration in which the People of America were held among the Nations of Europe, & somewhat abated their Ardor for forming Connections with us, before our Affairs acquire a greater Degree of order & Consistance.
Permit us to observe, that in our Opinion the Recommendation of Congress, promised in the 5th. Article, should immediately be made in the Terms of it and published; and that the States should be requested to take it into Consideration as soon as the Evacuation by the Enemy shall be compleated. It is also much to be wished that the Legislatures may not involve all the Tories in Banishment and Ruin, but that such Discriminations may be made, as to entitle the Decisions to the Approbation of disinterested Men, and dispassionate Posterity.
On the 7th. Inst. we received your Excellency's Letter of the 16th. June last, covering a Resolution of Congress of the 1st May directing a Commission to us for making a Treaty of Commerce &ca with G. Britain. This Intelligence arrived very opportunely to prevent the Anti-American Party from ascribing any Delays on our Part to Motives of Resentment in England to that Country. Great Britain will send a Minister to Congress as soon as Congress shall send a Minister to Britain, & we think much Good might result from that Measure.
The Information of Mr Dumas, that we encouraged the Idea of entering into Engagements with the Dutch to defend the Freedom of Trade, was not well founded.—8 Our Sentiments on that Subject exactly correspond with those of Congress; nor did we even think or pretend that we had Authority to adopt any such Measures.
We have Reason to think that the Emperor and Russia, & other Commercial Nations, are ready to make Treaties of Commerce with the United States. Perhaps it might not be improper for Congress to direct that their Disposition on the Subject, be communicated to those Courts, & thereby prepare the Way for such Treaties.
The Emperor of Morrocco has manifested a very friendly Disposition towards us: He expects and is ready to receive a Minister from us, and as he may either change his Mind, or may be succeeded by a Prince differently disposed, a Treaty with him may be of Importance. Our Trade to the Mediterranean will not be inconsiderable, and the Friendship of Morrocco, Algiers, Tunis & Tripoli, may become very interesting, in case the Russians should succeed in their Endeavours to Navigate freely into it by Constantinople.9
Much we think will depend on the Success of our Negociations with England. If she should be prevailed upon to agree to a liberal System of Commerce, France & perhaps some other Nations, will follow her Example; but if she should prefer an exclusive monopolizing Plan, it is probable that her Neighbours will continue to adhere to their favorite Restrictions.
Were it certain that the United States, could be brought to act as a Nation, and would jointly and fairly conduct their Commerce on Principles of exact Reciprocity with all Nations, we think it probable that Britain would make extensive Concessions—but on the Contrary, while the Prospect of Disunion in our Councils, or want of Power and Energy in our Executive Departments exist, they will not be apprehensive of Retaliation, and consequently lose their principal Motive to Liberality. Unless with respect to all foreign Nations and Transactions, we uniformly act as an entire united Nation, faithfully executing and obeying the Constitutional Acts of Congress on those Subjects, we shall soon find ourselves in the Situation in which all Europe wishes to see us, Vizt. as unimportant Consumers of her Manufactures & Productions, and as useful Labourers to furnish her with raw Materials.
We beg leave to assure Congress that we shall apply our best Endeavours to execute this new Commission to their Satisfaction, & shall punctually obey such Instructions as they may be pleased to give us relative to it.— Unless Congress should have nominated a Secretary to that Commission, we shall consider ourselves at Liberty to appoint One; and as we are satisfied with the Conduct of Mr Franklin, the Secretary to our late Commission, we purpose to appoint him, leaving it to Congress to make him such Compensation for his Services as they may Judge proper.
Count de Vergennes communicated to us a Proposition1 (Viz No 9 herewith inclosed) for explaining the 2d & 3d Articles of our Treaty with France, in a manner different from the Sense in which we understand them. This being a Matter in which we had no Right to interfere, we have not express'd any Opinion about it to the Court. With great Respect, We have the honor to be, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient & most humble Serts.
John Adams.
B Franklin
John Jay
To his Excellency Elias Boudinot Esqr: President of Congress.
7. In WTF's hand.
8. The payment is recorded in Account XXVII (XXXII, 4) under the date of Sept. 12.
9. The first article that the commissioners presented on April 29: XXXIX, 524–5. For Livingston's instructions and the congressional resolution on this issue see XXXVIII, 71–2, 537n.
1. Above, [May 19].
2. Hartley's revised article of June [14–18], above.
3. Summarized above, [Aug. 6].
4. Hartley's of Aug. 29 and the commissioners' reply of Aug. 30.
5. Hartley's of Sept. 4 and their reply of Sept. 5.
6. Since March, opposition to Article 5 of the preliminary treaty had found expression in newspaper editorials and local public meetings throughout the United States. Some of these meetings issued resolutions banning Loyalists from their town or state and petitioned elected officials to pass anti-Loyalist legislation: Roberta Tansman Jacobs, "The Treaty and the Tories: the Ideological Reaction to the Return of the Loyalists, 1783–1789" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1974), pp. 71–9.
7. See Boudinot to the Commissioners, July 15.
8. See Livingston to the Commissioners, May 31, and their reply of July 27.
9. It was widely feared that Russia's annexation of the Crimea on April 8 would lead to a war with the Turks in which the Russians would seize Constantinople and partition the Ottoman Empire: Alan W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772–1783 (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 135–7.
1. Above, [May 20].


text:
Over two months after Italian surveillance software maker Hacking Team had its internal data leaked by hackers, vendors are apparently still fixing zero-day exploits from the company's arsenal.
On Tuesday, Microsoft published 12 security bulletins covering 56 vulnerabilities in the new Edge browser, Internet Explorer, Windows, Office, Skype for Business, .NET Framework and some of its other software products.
One of those vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2015-2509, was located in the Windows Media Center and had zero-day status — it was publicly disclosed before the patch was released.
In the accompanying security bulletin Microsoft says that despite the public disclosure, the company "had not received any information to indicate that this vulnerability had been publicly used to attack customers."
However, a working and reliable exploit for it was found in the leaked Hacking Team data and the company ran a service through which it shared zero-day exploits with its customers for use in the deployment of surveillance software.
In July, security researchers searching through the leaked Hacking Team files found exploits for six zero-day vulnerabilities: three in Flash Player, two in Windows and one in Internet Explorer. Some of those exploits were quickly adopted by various groups of attackers after being leaked.
According to security researchers from Trend Micro, who reported the newly patched Windows Media Center vulnerability to Microsoft, an exploit for it was found in Hacking Team's data.
Based on a description found in the company's leaked emails, the exploit was quite recent because it had been tested against Windows Media Center running on Windows 8.1, 8 and 7 with the April 2015 security updates installed.
The exploit consists of a specifically crafted Media Center link (.mcl) file and could be delivered to targeted users in different ways including as a download from a website, by e-mail or via instant messaging applications, the Trend Micro researchers said in a blog post Tuesday.
Creating malicious .mcl files that would exploit this vulnerability can easily be done using a text editor like Notepad, they said. "For example, we created a .MCL file that contained instructions that will launch the computer's calculator."
Since information about the exploit has been available on the Internet for over a month, due to the Hacking Team leak, cybercriminals might start using it in attacks, the Trend Micro researchers said. "We recommend users avoid opening any files with the .MCL file extension, especially from unverified sources."

subset: commoncrawl


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Minor League Baseball
Minor League Baseball (MiLB)[1] is the association that runs baseball leagues at levels below the Major Leagues. It was given the title Minor League in 1869, in ironic contrast to the Major Leagues, as its clubs had Minor fan support and exhibited a very Minor quality of play. Their bank balances were also Minus. The third word, Baseball, was appended mere decades later, to emphasize that baseball was sometimes played amongst the copious amounts of drinking, spitting, fighting and spitting.
If baseball is America's greatest pastime, Minor League Baseball is America's principal waste of time. It is often described as a farm system for Major League clubs, generally because both the pay and the victuals resemble slop from a trough.
The economic significance of Minor League Baseball is as a place where nearly everyone demonstrates willingness to work for little or no pay, out of faith that the next job will be different.[2]
League classification
There are currently 246 teams competing in 20 different leagues, which are ranked by their poor standards of play into various classes.
The traditional letter grades that rank the minor leagues (from mediocrity down to true patheticocrity) have always been controversial. Originally there were A leagues, B leagues, and C leagues. The latter leagues were stung by the implication that they were somehow worse than A-grade. Therefore, in the 1940s — in a process imitated by Department of Agriculture food standards, and by Lake Wobegon for grading pupils — the lower grades were retired and new, higher designations emerged. The AA and AAA leagues could claim they were better than A-grade (better than the best). That is, sneaking extra A's onto their league name greatly increased the prestige of the ball clubs.
This led to what Baseball historians call the "A wars," where each league tried to outdo one another by adding more and more A's. Although the term "A wars" implies confrontation between league commissioners and the front office of ball clubs, thankfully, like conflict on the ball field, everyone was on the same side and the only real adversary was the paying fan. The wars culminated in the late 40's with the creation of class AAAAAAAAA, which forced the federal government to step in and limit the use of A's to three.
The highest ranked class is triple A, affectionately known as the Parking Lot due to the many baseball careers that never progress any further than this level. Use of this moniker has strengthened lately due to a recent trend of fans parking their cars in the outfield, knowing that most hitters lack the skill or strength to hit the ball that far. Teams are usually constructed of washed-up major-leaguers and washed-up bums that never quite made it to "The Show," with the remaining roster spots filled with washed-up corpses from the local river or wetlands.
The double A class comprises leagues that are in-between, sited in cities that are in-between. Ballplayers spend a few years here to accustom them to being in-between; that is, unsure of their status or future and unable to do anything about it.
Class A, or single A, typically refers to two different sub-classifications; Class A Below Average and the Canadian Class Eh leagues. Clubs that play in single A are often referred to as A*Teams. This is the franchise's official name, although fans who are disenfranchised instead use a series of grunts, moans, and obscenities. Their team rosters usually comprise unwanted draft picks or players in need of a confidence boost that can only be achieved by wailing on someone smaller than themselves.
There is also a Class A short season for fans who get easily bored of sitting around and watching men chew tobacco long before the Fall chill sweeps the nation.
Independent Leagues
In addition to the numerous leagues at the A, AA, AAA, and AAAAAAAA level, there are many independent leagues, or "indie" leagues, operating around North America without any affiliation to a Major League club.
Independent baseball players, or Indians as they prefer to be known, are often categorized by their stylish looks and rebel sentiment, often displayed through insubordinate facial expressions. Players on the same team rarely wear matching uniforms (This is considered a social faux pas), but are instead distinguished from opponents by their hair style and brand of sneakers. Players will often play for a club not for money, but they joy they get from keeping it underground; that is, until their club becomes a commercial success and they quit in a huff and give an exclusive interview to the city's newspaper on how cheap the owner is.
Independent clubs are proud to be in the enviable position of being able to sell their player contracts to any of the 30 Major League organizations, after the league deducts a small "development" fee that covers scouting, negotiators, repairing the bat rack in the dugout after Slugger's last rampage, and small, tasteful office parties at League headquarters every Friday. Fans in declining small cities in the rust belt are delighted to be able to see "future stars" in action, never asking themselves why the hometown heroes never got a look from, or washed out of, the real organizations.
Some popular teams planted in unpopular places include the Lancaster Post Punks, the Long Island New Wave Rockers and the ever dominant Bridgeport College Radio Playlists, the latter gunning for their seventh straight pennant if only the players will arrive on time for the pre-game workouts despite the splitting hangovers.
The owner
Whether a local ne'er-do-well or a recent arrival in town, the franchise owner gets everyone around him to instantly regard him as all of the following:
- A sportsman since his youth
- The area's biggest-hearted benefactor
- Someone with unique interest in young people, to whom he will be the perfect role model, and
- A prime candidate for elected office.
All he has to do is stop clipping coupons and cash in his bonds to make the initial investment, and to have some way of funding chronic six-figure annual losses. He is introduced at a press conference at the fanciest restaurant downtown, and everyone envisages an era in which money and champagne flow like rain — though it would never rain on a day with a home game.
It helps if he has one or more silent partners, who own some small fraction of the team but somehow are willing never to interfere with the gigantic ego-trip described above. Their role is like owning the caboose of the Silver Streak.
His family is pressed into service for the entire baseball season, in the same menial roles as interns (see below) except that everyone treats them like royalty as they sweep the bleachers.
Most regular fans have fond memories of the owner spontaneously choosing to sit with them for an inning — generally, after it is obvious even to the youngest in the family that the owner has spent about an hour too many in the Hospitality Suite.
Unfortunately, after between two and eight years, the thrill of owning a team fades. Another way of saying this is that everyone is onto you, especially all the suppliers who never got paid. At that point, there is a mysterious, hushed sale of the franchise, and the cycle repeats.
His accountant
The owner's accountant has a more challenging task than an aging slugger trying to focus on a fastball. He — while staying within the bounds of tax law and accounting standards, and technically not lying to anyone — must make a convincing case that the team is losing money every year. The most common way to do this is to make food concessions and merchandise sales flow to a separate corporation no one knows about. The resulting losses are a useful device to claim you should not be held to full, timely rent payments, nor least of all the agreed-on compensation to the City for building that new Luxury Suite.
Local businesses (that is, companies that earn actual money) are shamed into buying an advertisement on the outfield wall. While broadcasters often guarantee that the ad will not go head-to-head against one from a competitor, the ballclub is happy to sell several car dealers adjacent advertising space, and hopefully to play them against one another to buy ever-larger signs. Outfield signs include the business's phone number and website, in the rare case that any fan is motivated to use binoculars to read it and then copy it down.
For additional cash, a sponsor can have his ad read over the P.A. between innings. Advertisers understand that incessant repetition is the key to success, and that potential customers respond the best to ads above the Threshold of Pain. Again, many fans who appear merely to be keeping scorecards are in fact furiously jotting down advertisers' phone numbers to avail themselves of that once-in-a-lifetime deal.
Sponsors hope their ads will be seen by a lot of fans. Here, too, the accountant helps the team by inventing attendance figures that actual fans can see are flagrantly phony. Season-ticket holders are counted as attending every game, though most of them were shamed into it and attend none. The count also includes:
- Pensioners who got a free ticket for buying a Slurpee.
- Bums who got in by returning three baseballs hit over the fence.
- Visitors to the newspaper who took a ticket from the stack at the reception desk.
- Pretty girls that a player has "comped."
There is no evidence that any of these want a new car, state-of-the-art industrial security cameras, or even the City's Best professional pedicure.
Athletes (invariably pronounced "ath-a-letes") are the marquee talent in the organization. Their talent is not only playing baseball, but scraping dried vomit off the stadium seats and spending entire off days in uniform trying to wave traffic into a car wash that is a sponsor.
Each league's roster rules guarantee that the athlete's pay is a pittance, and let the owner tell the athlete there is simply no "room" to pay more. The pay is essentially a salary, and the time period is the entire day and night (unless an athlete wants to look uncooperative and get a good night's sleep). Ballplayer pay is the clearest example of the fact that there will always be a way around a minimum wage law.
Athletes play Minor League Baseball for the same reason that you, dear reader, play Powerball: You realize that a minuscule number of players make it to the ultimate goal, but that the result is incalculably delicious. (Annie at the ballpark[1] presents comparable odds.)
Athletes in the Indie leagues take the biggest risk. They spend all summer with the club in hopes that a scout from an affiliated organization will saunter in and see something of interest, such as that the last round of Tommy John surgery seems to be holding up, so far. They dote on any fan wearing a team-logo golf shirt, writing on a clipboard, or entering the grandstand with a briefcase. The casual fan can make an athlete salivate by holding a cowbell as though it were a radar gun.
Athletes experience pleasures along the way, such as when a kid asks them for their autograph. This is a pleasure because the kid generally doesn't ask for the athlete to sign 20 copies (for ease of listing on eBay) or have Mylar in front of the card to scan into a computer or apply to a time-payment contract.
Employees of the club who are not expected to connect with, or catch, anything are referred to as interns. Like athletes, a club only accepts interns who have years and years of familiarity with professional sports, resulting in skills that will go utterly unused during their stint with the club. However, interns have the following differences from athletes:
- Scouts from affiliated organizations never come to the ballpark to scout interns, nor do they snatch them away from the club in order to pick up trash and install new bin liners at a higher level.
- Athletes are "paid," in a manner of speaking. Interns merely receive college credit. The only cost to the team is that someone from the front office must submit a report on the intern's "performance."
The main reason why interns agree to this situation of complete exploitation is that it is a requirement to graduate with that degree in Sports Management. The position does have one fringe benefit though, which is a three-letter word with an X in it; and it's not a free pair of sox. An unsupervised work experience is also unchaperoned, and the ballpark is rife with vendors and ushers chosen for their curves--and, for those who are either female or gay, thirty young hunks in the dugout, all of whom are certain to be millionaires soon (just ask them). There are wild parties after every game, fueled by racks of beer bottles, each containing the two ounces you didn't pour into the customer's plastic cup.
The beat reporter for the local newspaper, and the play-by-play commentator for the 50-watt radio station, have the unique duty to make the game seem interesting. It is easy for them to turn any hitting slump or offhand insult into high drama, and twice a year, the reporter must write a gripping column about how the city risks having the franchise move away if fans don't start attending games.
The true drama, which is never reported on, concerns the annual negotiations between the ball club and the newspaper or radio station, all of which are equally desperate to have attention paid to them for any reason, but also to avoid the impression that their coverage is biased by receiving payment from the club.
Reporters need to be able to portray a 16-inning demonstration of inability to hit any pitch into a "classic pitching duel," and likewise a 22-to-3 rout in which the bullpen catcher pitched the last three innings as a "showcase of slugging."
Reporters, like interns, are not scouted for service at higher levels of baseball, but they are expected to sell their homes and move to the other coast in response to vague promises in order to show that they are "dedicated to their career."
Host families
The process of driving team costs to rock-bottom is supercharged by asking fans to "host" a player. The fan and his family get the priceless experience of living with an actual athlete, who may speak English and might (if he is from Texas) even be polite, and nice with the kids (if they enjoy shooting squirrels in the neighbor's backyard). The family learns about the life of the athlete, including fighting visa issues, learning to ignore those strange creams in the bathroom, and dealing delicately with the fact that the guest-room door was locked at 2 this morning, and so Rex tore it off its hinges. It is always fun to have an athlete at the dinner table, and often one of his lady friends who works downtown.
Differences from the Major Leagues
Minor League Baseball considers itself the authority on baseball, as Major League Baseball does too, but subtle and not-so-subtle variations to the rules, facilities, and player conduct distinguish the two:
- Minor League players aren't allowed to chew tobacco; but cigarettes and cigars are okay, and the entire outfield often gathers around a large, bellowing hookah between at-bats.
- Major League games last 9 innings. Minor League games last until someone loses the only ball or whoever owns the bat rages at an umpire's call and storms off the field.
- Major League stadiums are monstrous colosseums situated in large cities, with tens of thousands of seats and perfectly manicured lawns. Minor League ballparks are often dilapidated tracts of weed-infested land that usually share space with local fresh produce growers to save money on rent.
- Major League players have an average annual salary of $3.3 million. If they aren't happy with their current return, their agents can bargain for a franchise-crippling pay increase. Minor League players get a free hat with a handsome Pepsi logo on the back.
- A reverse version of the Infield Fly Rule is enforced based on the belief that most Minor League players would drop a pop fly whether or not there are baserunners.
- A disabled Major League player can be placed on a 15- or 60-day Disabled List, opening up a roster spot. In contrast, all Minor League players are considered disabled.
See also
- Baseball
- Rules of baseball
- Major League Baseball
- Major League Bloodbath
- American Defenders of New Hampshire
- Birmingham Niggers
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text:
Help! My husband, my son and I were over at my cousin's new house last weekend and while we were walking around the master bath and oohing and aahing over the size and decor it was hard not to notice that she had one of those things (I blush when I say the word) next to the toilet. I can't help it, every time I see one they just scream out to me "We have lots of s*x and don't shower afterwards." Anyhow, my four-year-old asked why they had two toilets in the bathroom. I was embarrassed and didn't know what to say, so I told him that there were two so that no one had to wait while the other one finished. He said "nasty" and didn't push it any further. But seriously, what do you tell the kids?
29 March 2009
Reader question: How do I explain a bidet to a four-year-old?
27 comments:
- Anonymous29 March, 2009 09:52
Good answer Paul. The reader is burdened not only by clearly some repressed sexual issues but also with some factual misinformation. I live in Argentina. There are bidets in all our bathrooms. The bidet is not only used for cleaning up after some wild steaming dirty SEX. It is used for cleaning up in general. Women probably use it more than men but it is not for the exclusive use of a woman or after SEX. Our littlest one thinks it is a car wash for the waist down.ReplyDelete
That question disturbed me on a really basic level and I was a bit self-conscious about publishing this post. Thanks. I'm a big fan of the bidet and I wish their use were more accepted in the US. All too often though, people in the US have the knee jerk reaction of a 10-year-old to them and I don't understand it. Thanks for checking in from Argentina, When I was reading about bidet use yesterday I came across the claim that it's hard to sell a home in Argentina that doesn't have a bidet in it. I suppose their use is so ingrained in the culture there that it's like trying to sell a house in the US without a dishwasher. Is that true?ReplyDelete
- Anonymous29 March, 2009 10:12
Oh my god... THNX Paul you made me laugh so hard that I now must use my bidet!ReplyDelete
I'm jealous Mel; I don't have one.ReplyDelete
Hahahahah!!!!! OMG, this is hysterical!!!! The question is funny enough, but your reply just cracked me up!!!! 8-)ReplyDelete
What the hell is so naughty about a bidet?? It's just a piece of ceramic on the floor, for crying out loud!!
We have a bidet in the master bath. To be honest, I've never used it. But it makes a great water fountain for the dogs, and it's quite the conversation piece at parties -- we gather around it and see how high we can make the water shoot up :-) Well, OK, not at ALL parties -- just at the first one or two after we moved in when everybody was curious about what a bidet does. None of our friends have one, and to be honest, the only reason we have one is because it came with the house (which was built by an Italian couple).
I might have to borrow parts of this post for our blog. Is that OK with you??
Borrow to your heart's content Kelly. Using a bidet as a dog fountain is hilarious.ReplyDelete
My first exposure to a bidet came about ten years ago. Some friends and I sailed from Grenada to St. Lucia and back on a 45-foot sailboat. We had rationed about a half a gallon of water per person per day and that ruled out taking showers. It took nine days to get make the sail and it was a life-changing experience. I swear, it was like living and issue of National Geographic. However, after nine days of being unshowered and coated in dried sea salt I don't think I'd ever felt so dirty in my life.
When we got back to Grenada we checked into a really nice hotel for your remaining two days. I walked into my hotel room and found the most amazing bathroom I'd ever seen. There was a bidet next to the toilet and almost by instinct I dropped my bag, stripped naked and climbed aboard. I stayed parked on top of that thing for what felt like two hours. Ahhhhh, nothing makes you appreciate being clean quite like removing nine days worth of open water sailing funk from you junk, you know?
I've been a convert ever since.
Paul, I can't help but wonder what comes to her mind when she sees a urinal? ...susanReplyDelete
Hah! That's really funny Susan. I kept wondering what she'd do in the presence of an Asian squat toilet.ReplyDelete
I tried to get a picture of Squirt drinking, but she wouldn't cooperate. She really does drink the water right from the spout :-)ReplyDelete
I just posted a bidet article on our blog. Thanks for the inspiration -- and the laughs!!!
- Anonymous29 March, 2009 14:37
I wish bidets were in mainstream use in the USA. In Japan almost every house and most public bathrooms have a TOTO Washelet which is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best things to ever come out of that country. It's an attachment to a regular toilet that functions as as if it were a futuristic bidet - water temperature settings, stream or spray, proper aim for ladies and men and some even come with a trickling-water sound for those with stage fright. When living there, I once told a Japanese friend how much I loved the washelet and she looked at me strangely and said "Well, what do you use in the United States to clean yourself?" I answered with "Nothing! Only toilet paper!" The look of horror and disgust on her face was something I'll never forget. I think she even shuddered. We're even more barbaric than they'd initially supposed! Luckily, I found washelets in the US and I'm going to get them for our new house. They changed my life!ReplyDelete
I thought the Japanese reserved judgements of barbarism for China. Hah! Actually, I'm right there with you, washlets and bidets are a great idea. Toto's increasing its market presence in the US so maybe there's hope for a new era of squeaky clean hinder parts.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous29 March, 2009 14:56
Ah...you're right. I should have worded that "Now, they think we're on par with the Chinese!"ReplyDelete
Thank you so much for that. I'm still sore from hitting the floor after laughing so hard.ReplyDelete
Thanks! I'm still laughing at Susan's comment, wondering what goes through her mind when she sees a urinal.ReplyDelete
Simply amazing Paul. And you have all inspired me to hunt down a bidet and disappear for a couple hours!ReplyDelete
Hah! Thanks for the comment Randi. Enjoy your mini vacation when you find that bidet.ReplyDelete
We manufacture the Miracle Toilet Faucet here in Lake Tahoe (www.miraclefaucet.com) and it has been challenging to get people to even try a bidet. It's suprising because once you try it you really can't live wothout itReplyDelete
Skweak2: send me a press release on your Miracle Toilet Faucet please.ReplyDelete
LOL! What a funny article. Surprisingly, I haven't run into any of these in France yet.ReplyDelete
Thanks! Wait a minute, you haven't come across a bidet and your in France? How is that even possible?!ReplyDelete
This is the funniest blog I've read in ages! Keep thinking about the mom who couldn't even spell out --say to the 4 year old-- s*x. Wow! She must not have a TV 'cuz she'd be busy splainin' a lot of stuff like why you have to call a Dr. after 4 hours of the effects of Cialis and what it's for.. or why KY Jelly makes that women dream of steamship horns. Hmmm.ReplyDelete
This question really hit a nerve in me, can you tell?ReplyDelete
Paul, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard! Thanks so much for this post. It's amazing to me why she would associate the bidet with someone not washing after sex instead of admiring how someone had the opportunity to wash after a bowel movement! OMG! Most people don't have time to shower several times a day so I would think that a bidet would be seen as such an advantage. Poor woman. Poor kid. Oh well.ReplyDelete
seriously? a bidet doesnt scream that. i lived in argentina for two years and fell in love with them. when i got home i installed one in my house. my wife doesnt use it after sex. i use it to clean my butt after i take care of business. the bidets MAIN use is to clean up after you do your business. get realReplyDelete
I too am a huge fan Sean. This question still gets my blood pressure up.ReplyDelete


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SThree COVID-19 Update
Our purpose is to bring skilled people together to build the future, and this has never felt more important than it does today. We are proud to support the people and businesses at the forefront of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM), working tirelessly to keep us all safe, connected, and reducing the impact that coronavirus (COVID-19) will have on all our lives.
SThree, and Global Enterprise Partners recognise the unprecedented challenges we're all facing today and the role we must play in protecting the health and wellbeing of our people, contractors, clients, and candidates.
Taking guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO), we've taken the relevant precautions to protect our people, and are monitoring the rapidly changing circumstances at a country and city level to enable us to protect the health, wellbeing, and financial stability of the individuals and companies that we work with today.
As of today, we have taken the following steps:
- We have restricted all travel until further notice and have asked anyone who travelled to countries that the CDC has identified as Level 2 or 3 areas to self-quarantine based on local government guidelines
- We have put measures in place to ensure meetings and interviews can be facilitated remotely
- All contractors have received a local helpdesk number and we have advised them via email to follow local guidance and inform us of any changes
- We are actively communicating and encouraging behaviours that help prevent the spread of illness based on local government recommendations - this includes extensive cleaning measures for all open offices
- We continue to monitor this daily, with daily communications to our people to support them in keeping everyone safe
The health and well-being of our people, contractors, clients, and candidates is our first and foremost priority and we will continue to monitor this very closely, adjusting our response as the situation evolves.
As we do every day, we will be continuing to connect businesses with skilled professionals during these difficult times.
If you'd like to get in touch with us, please note the following:
- Clients – please contact your local consultant or complete a contact form HERE
- Contractors – a helpline has been set up, details of which have been shared via email
- Candidates – please use our search function to view and apply for jobs or reach out to your local consultant for more information


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New York City
Dzul Dance 10th Anniversary Performance
Artistic Director Javier Dzul grew up in the jungles of southern Mexico performing Mayan ritual dance until the age of 16. Formal dance training began at the Universidad de Veracruz at which time he also became a principal dancer with Ballet Nacional de Mexico and Ballet Folklorico de Mexico. Javier then received a scholarship to study at Ballet Nacional de Cuba where he remained until 1989. In 1989 Javier was awarded another scholarship by Martha Graham to study at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Since his arrival in New York Javier has worked with numerous dance companies. He performed primarily with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Pearl Lang Dance Theater, Battery Dance Company, Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble and American Indian Dance Theater. He has performed as a guest artist with Acroback and Red Sky Productions (Canada). In 1995 Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) of Mexico awarded Javier a scholarship to pursue his dance career in the United States. Javier began choreographing and performing his own work in 1999. He established Dzul Dance in 2003.
In 2009 Javier became the founder and director of Compania de Danza Contemporanea y Aerea del Gobierno del Estado de Campeche; a dance and aerial company funded by Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA) of Mexico and the Government of Campeche. In 2010 the government of Campeche awarded Javier el Premio de San Fransisco, an outstanding lifetime achievement award, for raising international awareness about Mayan culture. Javier was a featured aerialist in photographer Acey Harper's Private Acts: the acrobat sublime, published by Rizzoli in September 2011. He and his company have also been featured by Univision's Despierta America, American Latino, the Lonely Planet, Telesur and CUNY TV.
One Night Only: October 13, 2023
One Night Only: January 7, 2024
One Night Only: September 28, 2023
Performances begin: October 11, 2023
Final performance: September 28, 2023
Performances begin: December 12, 2023


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This Reverb Puts A Spring In Your Step
There are many excellent digital reverbs available these days, but there is still nothing quite like the timeless and magical character of a true spring reverb.
Version two of the Springray provides a number of changes and improvements to the original design. The shelving EQs have been replaced with a parametric EQ with frequency, Q, and gain controls. The CV inputs for feedback and mix balance have been replaced with inputs to control the filter frequency and gain. Lastly, the feedback and limiter circuits have been redesigned, and the drive quality has been improved.
- Selector switch to choose between three different connected tanks (one on the front and two on the back).
- Parametric EQ with controls for frequency, Q, and gain.
- Feedback path with virtual tube circuitry.
- Redesigned LIMITER circuit in feedback path to prevent high gain feedback from clipping the output.
- Improved input DRIVE with high gain (can overdrive the tank inputs).
- External processors can be inserted into the feedback path via the SEND/RETURN normalled inputs.
- Three different sizes of Accutronic tanks are available.
We at Intellijel have a genuine love for true analog devices, and it has always been important for us to explore as many of these fundamental analog building blocks of synthesis as possible.
In the development of this module we were astounded by how much there is to explore. Each tank has a totally different set of characteristics, and there were many unexpected surprises when feeding it a wide variety of audio sources. One of the most interesting results was how a slow attack saw waveform from a Dixie almost sounds like a realistic cello!
Spring reverb tanks. Three sizes with three different sonic characteristics. If you have a Springray2, you'll need at least one of these tanks, but know that you have enough connections on a single module for all three tanks!


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What isn't cool, but is definitely valuable, is being able to land. With the small, boring, basic mounts, landing is easy. You know right away where the center is, where the feet are. When you need to land on tiny outcroppings to get minerals, herbs, or just need a good spot from which to rain down terror on soon-to-be terrified enemies, having a small mount helps.
My own experience with landing the big mounts has shown that they are much trickier. The worst may be the dragons, which always seem to be an inch away from landing but are still insistent on flapping their wings.
There is the option of dismounting before the mount has settled, but if it isn't landing, you're probably going to end up on a steady downward slope.
In most situations this all just means you waste a little bit of time moving around trying to get the unwieldy dragon to land. But sometimes, it means someone else wins the race, to the ore, the herb, or the rare. You can't have that.
Don't let vanity stand in the way of the pyrium vein that you've earned by flying in circle for hours!
P.S. I'm re-restarting my political blog over at Delusions of Truth. This could result in 25% less randomly political posts here. No promises.


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Oh dear. RIM's iPad competitor, the PlayBook, gets a solid panning from the New York Times' David Pogue.
The main problem is the lack of apps. Not even native apps. It doesn't even have built-in email! The hardware is pretty limited too — no 3G or GPS.
The PlayBook, then, is convenient, fast and coherently designed. But in its current half-baked form, it seems almost silly to try to assess it, let alone buy it.
Remember, the primary competition is an iPad — the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, no Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds?
On the bright side, it does have a couple of spectacular features: its secure, can be synced wirelessly, and can power an external screen independently (the iPad only does mirroring). RIM promises updates to the hardware and software throughout the year, but by then, Apple will be finishing the iPad 3. It looks like a bomb.
New York Times: A BlackBerry Tablet, but Where Are the Apps?
UPDATE: WSJ's Walt Mossberg slams it too: "I recommend waiting on the PlayBook until more independently usable versions with the promised additions are available."


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FAQ : La marca
Nell'intento di aiutarti al meglio, ti invitiamo a compilare il modulo di contatto disponibile sul sito al seguente indirizzo. La tua richiesta verrà inoltrata direttamente al servizio che si occupa dei gadget e della sponsorizzazione nel tuo paese. Non possiamo garantirti a priori un riscontro positivo, ma faremo tutto il possibile per rispondere nel più breve tempo possibile.
Ice-Watch is definitely worth 60 seconds of your time...
Time has never quite been the same since the arrival of Ice-Watch to the watch market in 2007. A watch whose colourful fashion-focussed and accessible concept would lead to an international, intergenerational and intercultural brand that's ticking along nicely. Since then it has been constantly ticking away, changing and inventing new collections, with complete transparency. This value is conveyed by its name: ICE.
Its stroke of daring – transforming a watch into a fashion accessory but a chic one at that – could have melted like ice in the sun. On the contrary, it has become one of the coolest successes on the planet. At a time when every minute counts, the Ice-Watch brand ensured its world domination by going out and getting the skills wherever they are. It was a matter of finding the right pace. Its limitless creativity is supported by talented designers based in Belgium and reliable Belgian services, the quality of Japanese movements (Miyota), Chinese expertise in production and assembly, and Hong Kong organisation for the logistics and distribution. It is said that a tree can be judged by its roots: they remain firmly planted in Belgium thanks to the efforts of the Ice-Watch brand's founder and CEO, Jean-Pierre Lutgen. Marketing, communication, legal aspects and web campaigns are shared between Brussels and Bastogne, where the local presence was boosted in 2014 with the construction of a 6,000 m2 European storage centre. From one cog to the next, from solid teams to dynamic partners, from superb designers to committed distributors, the Ice-Watch brand has given itself the means to constantly grow its presence on an international scale.
As flexibility and responsiveness are encouraged at each level, it's easy to understand how a simple idea could be transformed into a trendy accessory worn all around the world. Multiple styles: minimalist, sporty, urban, colourful, glamorous, romantic. Multiple materials: Ice-Ramic, silicone, metal, leather. Multiple audiences: men, women, kids and juniors. Multiple desires: 8 to 10 new collections per year, fitted with a screwed back, making them waterproof to 10 ATM. Collector's models and more targeted models are released thanks to partnerships and prestigious co-branding arrangements (BMW Motorsport, Pantone Universe, Vendée Globe Race). The wide range of Ice-Watch timepieces can adapt to the lifestyle and activities of those who wear them. It's more than a marketing strategy, it's the commitment of a brand that's a legitimate leader in its sector.
The Ice-Watch brand enjoys high visibility, whether on the wrist, in its 'BeCubic' presentation box, on social media (4,5 million Facebook fans) or through the vast network of Flagship Stores, Ice-Stores, kiosks and retail points of sale. Ice-Watch collections have generated many different product placements on the international music scene: Black Eyed Peas, Jennifer Lopez, David Guetta, etc.
Their vibrancy has attracted great sportsmen who have acted as ambassadors: world cycling champion Philippe Gilbert, the swimmer Florent Manadou and the DTM championship driver Marco Wittmann behind the wheel of his Ice-Watch BMW M4. The Ice-Watch brand can now boast incredible viewer ratings thanks to the popular weather girl: Tatiana Silva, a beautiful Belgian who now presents the weather on TF1, France's channel 1.
The worldwide Belgian brand has thus become an enduring household name and will continue to do what it does best: shake up the watch market with affordable prices (starting from €59) and unfailing energy, innovation and the will to boldly go where no other watch brand has gone before...


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AIG in Talks to Unload Air Leasing Unit to Chinese Investors
American International Group (NYSE:AIG) is in negotiations to sell a majority stake of its ILFC aircraft leasing business to a group of Chinese companies in a deal that could reportedly be worth $5.5 billion.
The negotiations come as AIG continues to pare its holdings in an effort to slash the amount of money it owes U.S. taxpayers following a 2008 bailout worth as much as $182 billion.
AIG confirmed in a statement Friday afternoon that it is in discussions to sell a 90% stake in ILFC to a group of Chinese investors.
The insurance giant said the consortium includes the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, trust company New China Trust, New China Life Insurance, P3 Investments and the China Aviation Industry Fund. British banking giant Barclays (NYSE:BCS) owns a 20% stake in New China Trust.
AIG reiterated that ILFC is a "non-core asset" and warned that any potential deal to sell the business would be subject to regulatory approval in the U.S. and China.
According to Reuters, AIG could net about $5.5 billion in the sale of ILFC.
"The talks are reasonably far along," a source told Reuters.
The potential sale of ILFC to the Chinese consortium would signal a shift for AIG, which had planned to bring the business public in an initial public offering valued at $6 billion to $8 billion. However, AIG has expressed concerns about an IPO in the current market environment.
A majority sale at $5.5 billion compares with ILFC's net book value, which stood at $7.9 billion as of the end of the third quarter. The business has total assets of approximately $39.6 billion and generated an operating profit of $39 million last quarter.
ILFC pioneered the aircraft leasing business, starting with its first transaction in 1973. The business has more than 1,000 owned and managed aircraft, including 787s and A350s. Today ILFC has more than 200 employees and $4.5 billion in annual revenue.
Shares of New York-based AIG rallied 2.19% to $33.99 Friday afternoon, leaving them up almost 46% so far this year.


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Award ceremony speech
Presentation Speech by Christian Lous Lange*, member of the Nobel Committee, on December 10, 1936
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1936 has been awarded to Mr. Carlos Saavedra Lamas, foreign minister of the Argentine Republic. The prize has thus been given to a statesman.
The career and achievements of a statesman must always be examined in the context of his milieu and time; and doing so in depth is the Nobel Committee's task when it evaluates a statesman's personal contribution to the cause of peace. A few words concerning the milieu in which Saavedra Lamas has worked will therefore not be out of place.
Saavedra Lamas' country, Argentina, occupies a leading position in Latin America, a part of the world whose characteristics distinguish it in important respects from the European part where we live. For most of Latin America, Spanish is the common tongue, and the Roman Catholic faith the common religion. The Latin American nations are also united by a political bond, for all twenty have for a long time enjoyed a republican form of government, differing in this fundamental regard from the old Europe of before the World War.
Latin America has accordingly been spared many of the problems which have beset us here. It does not suffer from the problem of nationalism, nor is there racial conflict with the indigenous Indian population, its absence being largely due to the influence and example of the Catholic missionaries who approached the so-called «primitive» peoples in a spirit of understanding.
Finally – and this is by no means least important – Latin America is not, like Europe, burdened by the problem of overpopulation, for there is plenty of space in that young world. Along with Finland, our own country is the least densely populated in Europe. Only one of South America's ten countries, Uruguay, is more heavily peopled than Norway and Finland, and even Uruguay has a density of population well below that of Sweden. The consequence is that frontier disputes in South America never become as acute as they do in Europe. In fact, no other part of the world can boast such amicable settlement of boundary disputes – very often achieved by arbitration. Indeed, during the nineteenth century, Latin America became established as the home of arbitration.
In their struggle to free themselves from Spanish domination, the Latin American states had the support of their great sister republic in the North, the United States. President Monroe in 1823 made his famous declaration that the United States would not permit any part of American territory to be colonized by a European state1. This declaration was respected, and America thus escaped the fate which overtook Africa and to a certain extent Asia, both of which became the scenes of imperialist struggles between rival European powers.
The idea of a federation, or at least of organized cooperation between the American republics, soon arose. Simón Bólivar, the Liberator, was a staunch supporter of this idea, and a number of proposals and attempts to form such an association are recorded in the annals of history2. One finally began to take shape in 1889, when United States Secretary of State James G. Blaine3 called a Pan-American Conference in Washington4, the first of a series which have since taken place at irregular intervals. The eighth conference opened last week in the capital of Argentina, under the presidency of Carlos Saavedra Lamas. With the passage of time, the conferences have built up an organization which is becoming more closely knit. The Pan American Union has its offices in Washington. It has studied a number of questions of common interest to the American states; among them, public health, the laws relating to intellectual property, and communications – including the construction of a Pan-American railway which will link all countries in America from South to North. The Union has also taken a constant interest in matters pertaining to laws for peace, such as the development of international conciliation and arbitration.
In its efforts to create solidarity, the Union from the very beginning faced a serious problem: the relations between the powerful North American republic on the one hand and the Latin American republics on the other. The latter suspected that the Pan American Union was merely a convenient cover for the imperialist tendencies of the statesmen in Washington. Blaine himself, the originator of the Union, was in the vanguard of North American imperialism, a policy which was subsequently pursued with particular vigor in the Caribbean. The most pronounced representative of this North American imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt, interpreted Monroe's declaration of 1823 as conferring a right on the United States to see to it that the other states of the Western Hemisphere maintained a well-ordered government which would afford security to the North American business men in their economic ventures and financial investments in these countries. From the Monroe declaration he had extrapolated a Monroe Doctrine which constituted a potential danger to the independence of these states.
This interpretation drew sharp opposition from the Latin American countries, and Argentina, Saavedra Lamas' homeland and one of Latin America's most powerful and best organized states, became the leader in the fight against intervention.
It is against this background that we must look at the work of Saavedra Lamas.
He began his career as a university professor and from the university he went into politics. In his most important academic work, which has appeared in French, La Crise de la codification et la doctrine argentine de droit international, he mounts a vigorous attack against the policy of intervention, and especially against that form of it which, in his opinion, had been conceived and practiced by the United States. The change in U.S. policy during recent years, at first introduced in a mild form under President Hoover and now pursued obviously and consistently under Franklin Roosevelt5, must be a source of great satisfaction to Saavedra Lamas. This change has led him to play a more active part in the work of the Pan American Union, which is no longer suspected of being merely a camouflage for North American imperialism.
I shall not linger over the academic work of Saavedra Lamas, for it is in the political field that he has made his most valuable contribution. He entered political life at a very early age. He was scarcely thirty years old when he was elected a member of Parliament, and by 1917 he was already minister of Justice and Education. As you know, Argentina remained neutral during the World War; unlike most of the Latin American countries, it did not follow the United States into the conflict. Nevertheless, it was invited, along with twelve other neutral countries in Europe, Asia, and America, to join the League of Nations, and at the First Assembly in 1920, it took a highly distinctive position. The Argentine delegates asked that the League Covenant be amended to admit any nation to membership without prior application and without such admission's being subject to a vote. When this proposal was not adopted at once and received no support at all, Argentina withdrew from the Assembly, its seat there remaining vacant for many years to come.
Nevertheless, Argentina continued to send representatives to the International Labor Conferences6, and in 1928 we find Saavedra Lamas not only heading his country's delegation but also being elected president of the conference. In this capacity, he had reason to study the institutions of Geneva in some detail, and so acquired useful preparation for the active part he was to play in international peace politics after February, 1932, when he became Argentina's foreign minister, an office which he still holds.
Some months after he had taken up his new ministerial appointment, a bitter war broke out between Argentina's neighbors, Bolivia and Paraguay7. This war has constantly claimed his attention. He deployed his efforts in three different but converging directions. He was learned in international law; he was acquainted, through some firsthand experience, with the existing international organizations, the League of Nations and the Pan American Union; and he was familiar with the particular position maintained by the United States on questions of war and peace. So he made a comprehensive attempt to coordinate these three different factors.
Like the logically thinking «Latin» he is, he began by formulating a theoretical expression of his ideas, working out his Antiwar Pact during his very first year as foreign minister.
Its first two articles express, in slightly modified form, the same principles of international law for which the United States has tried to gain recognition: first, the condemnation of all forms of aggressive war – the central point of the Kellogg-Briand Pact 8; and second, the refusal to recognize any territorial expansion or change of boundary unless effected by peaceful means – the so-called «Stimson Doctrine», which, un der President Hoover, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson had formulated during the Manchurian conflict in 19329, and which was afterwards endorsed in the special session of the League of Nations Assembly called as a result of that dispute.
Thus did Saavedra Lamas seek to secure the invaluable support of the United States for his pact.
Both the Kellogg Pact and the Stimson Doctrine are simply declarations; that is to say, of purely theoretical nature. Saavedra Lamas' Antiwar Pact goes further: its Article 3 requires the states not involved in a given conflict, in which one or more states violate the obligations stipulated in Articles 1 and 2, to maintain «a common and united attitude» and to employ the political, legal, and economic means provided by international law to put an end to the conflict; they shall have recourse to the influence of public opinion but shall never resort to intervention, either diplomatic or armed, subject to any commitments they may have assumed under other agreements. This last reservation clearly refers to sanctions stipulated by the League of Nations Covenant. Article 4 outlines a conciliation procedure which all signatory nations undertake to follow in settling the dispute.
The Antiwar Pact, therefore, tries to steer a middle course between the system of the Kellogg Pact and the Stimson Doctrine, which is satisfied to enunciate principles, and the far more rigid system laid down in the League of Nations Covenant. The pact rejects neither system, but opens the way to collaboration between those nations which so far have preferred the first system – especially the United States – and the states which have favored the second – the member states of the League of Nations.
His efforts to secure acceptance of his pact have proved Saavedra Lamas to be an astute and farsighted diplomat. He first obtained the signatures of six Latin American states at a solemn ceremony which he shrewdly arranged in Rio de Janeiro on October 10, 1933. By this step he won the powerful support of Brazil, the largest of the South American states, which had quit the League of Nations ten years before. Two months later, Saavedra Lamas won approval of the pact from all the American states at a special session of the Seventh Pan-American Conference in Montevideo. U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was present at this conference, as a personal guarantor, so to speak, of the new policy which the United States had inaugurated toward its sister nations on the American continent.
That same year, 1933, Saavedra Lamas had succeeded in persuading his government to change its attitude toward the League of Nations, from which Argentina had withdrawn thirteen years previously. He was now able to inform the Secretariat in Geneva that henceforth Argentina wished to play an active part in the work of the League of Nations. And since, as everyone knows, there is greater joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who have no need to repent10, Argentina, too, received its reward. It was immediately elected to the Council of the League, where it kept its seat for the prescribed three years, which ended with the opening of last September's session.
The Antiwar Pact was officially presented to the League of Nations Council in January, 1934, and was given a reception that must surely have delighted its author. The pact has since been signed by eleven nations outside America, including Norway, and to date five of these have ratified it.
We can safely assume then that Saavedra Lamas regards his pact as a kind of supplement to the League of Nations Covenant and as a primary means of bringing countries outside the League of Nations into its work to promote peace and prevent war, by imposing less rigid demands on them than those prescribed in the League's Covenant.
We have evidence of his attitude in the fact that he has submitted his pact to the commission set up by the Assembly of the League of Nations last September to investigate improved ways and means of implementing the principles set forth in the Covenant. There may well be a question of whether Saavedra Lamas' pact will be of decisive importance in the solution of this great problem. The pact becomes operative only when a war has already started; and the vital problem in the prevention of war is to find ways to intervene with peacemaking procedures before the storm of war breaks.
When the Argentine Antiwar Pact was submitted to the League Council on January 18, 1934, British Foreign Minister Sir John Simon 11 took the opportunity to point out that the pact was of particular interest since the Council had to deal, during the same session, with a serious conflict precisely «in that part of the world occupied by most of the signatory powers».
Needless to say, Saavedra Lamas had been aware of this fact all along. Paraguay, although among the first states to sign the pact, had never ratified it, and Bolivia did not ratify it until July 1, 1935. So Saavedra Lamas was unable, in the case of these two warring nations, to invoke the pact officially. He had to bide his time. But in May of 1935, he took the very course of action dictated by his own pact, approaching the Brazilian, Chilean, and Peruvian diplomatic representatives in Buenos Aires about setting in motion a common mediatory operation. A conciliation commission was set up, composed of representatives from Argentina, from the three countries already contacted, and from the United States and Uruguay, under the chairmanship of Saavedra Lamas himself; The foreign ministers of both Bolivia and Paraguay were persuaded to take part in the commission's negotiations, and by the twelfth of June, 1935, two protocols had been signed which brought hostilities to an end. The work was later completed when the two belligerents accepted a final settlement stipulating that any disagreement concerning the implementation of the peace treaty should be resolved by the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague.
It must be recognized that the principles underlying Saavedra Lamas' Antiwar Pact have stood a practical test on South American soil and under his personal leadership.
As foreign minister and leader of the Argentine delegation, Saavedra Lamas participated in the recent Assembly of the League of Nations. In recognition of his work for peace, the Assembly elected him its president. In his opening address, he alluded to the fact that the six American states, whose work of conciliation he had headed, had succeeded in negotiating an end to the war in South America, and that two of the six, the United States and Brazil, were not members of the League of Nations. He added: «The possibility therefore exists, in a concrete case demanding mediation, of winning the cooperation of nations outside our League. I see this as a significant signpost for the diplomacy of peace. We must regard it not as an isolated or exceptional occurrence but as one which will become the rule.»
In making this statement, Saavedra Lamas has set a task for the future. He is still a man in the prime of life. His recent achievements in the politics of peace entitle us to hope that his unusual energy and singleness of purpose will enable him to contribute even more to the creation of a truly lasting peace between nations.
* Mr. Lange delivered this speech on December 10, 1936, in the auditorium of the Nobel Institute, following Mr. Stang's speech in honor of the laureate for 1935, Carl von Ossietzky. Because of official duties Mr. Saavedra Lamas was unable to attend the ceremonies. The translation of Mr. Lange's speech is based on the Norwegian text in Les Prix Nobel en 1936, which also carries a French translation.
1. James Monroe (1758-1831), U.S.president (1817-1825), whose message to the U.S. Congress, December 2, 1823, initiated the Monroe Doctrine; the doctrine's two main points: no future colonization by European powers in the Americas, and no European intervention in American affairs.
2. Simón Bólivar (1783-1830), El Libertador, Venezuelan-born leader of revolts that freed various Latin American countries from Spanish control; organizer of some of the new republics and president-dictator of several. For details on attempts at con-federation, see Joseph Byrne Lockey, Pan-Americanism: Its Beginnings (New York: Macmillan, 1926).
3. James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893), U.S. secretary of state (1881; 1889-1892).
4. This conference (October 2, 1889-Apri1 19, 1890), attended by all except one (San Domingo) of the 21 American republics, established the International Bureau of American Republics, a permanent agency to collect and publish information and to promote cooperation. The Bureau, whose name was changed in 1910 to Pan American Union, became the unifying factor in an effective regional system and now serves as the general secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS).
5. Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964), U.S. president (1929- 1933). Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), U.S. president (1933-1945). Under these two presidents, any remnants of Theodore Roosevelt's policy of «dollar diplomacy» toward Latin America changed to a «good neighbor» policy.
6. Held at least once a year by the ILO.
7. The Chaco war (1932-1935) resulting from a long-standing dispute over boundaries in the Gran Chaco region.
8. Officially called the Pact of Paris and signed August 27, 1928, it was originated by Frank B. Kellogg and Aristide Briand, Peace Prize laureates for 1929 and 1926 respectively.
9. Henry Lewis Stimson (1867-1950), U.S. secretary of state (1929-1933), who protested the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, stating that the U.S. would not recognize any results of it that might be contrary to the Pact of Paris.
11. Sir John Allsebrook Simon (1873-1954), British foreign secretary (1931-1935).
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Is there a feminist spring?
Nick Ut/AP/Press Association Images
They cut a dash in the crowded hall: a gang of secondary-school girls in head scarves and bright red capes, which were emblazoned with faces of their heroes – Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou.
The girls, visitors from Mulberry school in Tower Hamlets, were taking part in Women of the World (WOW) festival earlier this year. They listened to 16-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai and presented their own views on why feminism is more relevant than ever. 'We are standing on the shoulders of those great women who came before us and championed the rights we enjoy today,' Maria Amrin, one of those given a platform, said solemnly. 'It's up to us to keep the torch blazing.'
These girls are part of what is being described as a new wave of feminism. Feminism never stopped, of course, but there is something in the air – a new surge of energy and interest. In Britain alone, the number of grassroots groups has tripled since 2010, according to advocacy network UK Feminista. It is now inundated with requests for talks and training.
After years in the long grass, feminist concerns – control over our bodies, opportunities and value, share of labour and freedom from violence – are gaining traction among young women, politicians and the media.
Women around the world are mobilizing, using a hotch-potch of different methods to make an impact. US feminist Jessica Valenti describes the current surge as 'self-directed and loosely organized; fast-moving micro-movements without institutional leadership'.
New media has turbo-charged the old adage 'the personal is political'
Daring, in-your-face activism is booming. Russian anarchists such as Pussy Riot have become household names, and the 'sextremists' Femen have rediscovered the power of baring their breasts as a confrontational means of attracting attention. With media coverage guaranteed, their method has been adopted from Mexico to Tunisia to Germany.
Women are fighting similar battles as before but the tools and terrain have shifted. For one thing, new media has turbo-charged the old adage 'the personal is political', enabling consciousness-raising on a mass-scale.
'It's an exciting time,' explains anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) campaigner Nimko Ali. 'The internet gives you that instant ability to acknowledge things.
'You're thinking that it's only you that's been groped on a train but then you find out there are thousands, millions of us who had the same kind of experience. It's not a feminism that's shut away in books in libraries – this new wave of feminism is in real time.'
Today's activism often has a creative, inclusive, playful twist (see 'Sticking it to the Man' boxes below). But don't be fooled. The issues feminists are tackling now are deadly serious, the challenges intense. As Delhi was branded 'the capital of rape', it also became the capital of protests against rape.
Unfinished business
Women's rights activism was never going to be a 100-metre sprint to the finish line. It is perhaps better characterized as uneven progress that moves in fits and starts – more like a relay race.
And the new feminist energy comes at a time when key victories of the past are on shaky ground. Take our ability to control our own bodies through contraception and access to abortion – core demands of 1960s and 1970s second-wave feminism.
Today, 65 per cent of women worldwide have access to some form of contraception and deaths during pregnancy and childbirth have dropped 45 per cent since 1990. Gains are, however, fragmented and unequally distributed. Maternal death remains the starkest indicator of inequality across the world – both the North-South divide and that of class within countries. In the US, black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.1
Gains in the area of reproductive rights have proved fragile and reversible. 'I can't believe we're talking about this in 2014!' says Joni Seager, a feminist geographer of 20 years standing, who has watched the access to abortion closing down in her native US. The New York Times reported that 22 states adopted 70 different restrictions in 2013. 'It's a very serious, intense struggle, being fought inch by inch.'
Reactionary religious conservatives are trying to turn back the clock, all over the world. The influence of the Catholic Church sees Spain set to introduce tough new abortion laws. And in El Salvador, 17 women are serving up to 40 years for 'homicide' after pitching up at hospitals haemorrhaging from 'suspicious' miscarriages.
In Iraq, Muslim Shi'a principles inform a draft law – currently being considered by parliament – that would lower the age of consent to nine, legalize marital rape and grant custody over children to fathers in case of divorce.
Deena Mohamed, a 19-year-old Egyptian graphic designer, created the veiled webcomic superheroine Qahera ('conqueror' in Arabic) in 2013. She combats misogyny and Islamophobia in equal measure.
One comic strip targets the topless Ukrainian 'sextremists' of Femen. 'They stereotype, dehumanize and exclude Muslim women from their version of feminism and liberation,' explains Mohamed on her Tumblr blog . 'It has little to do with their nudity – I don't care about that and neither does Qahera.'
Qahera also metes out retribution to Egyptian men who sexually harass women, foiling attacks and suspending perpetrators from lamp-posts.
Street harassment is growing in post-revolution Egypt, and is an enduring focus for women. Harassmap uses online tools to record incidents; Graffiti Jarami reclaim women's right to occupy public space by spray-painting powerful women on to walls, while female and male members of Imprint, founded in 2012, patrol Cairo's metro and city streets in high-visibility jackets to deter attacks and raise awareness.
'Freedom from violence' was another rallying cry of second-wave feminism. It's hard to tell whether there is more violence against women today – or more reporting of such cases. Either way the rates are steady or increasing.
The US writer Rebecca Solnit believes we are in the middle of a pandemic. Often it can feel that way. Take, as a sample, news coverage in the last week in May. Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in California, justified by girls denying him the sex to which he felt he was entitled; a 25-year-old pregnant Pakistani woman was stoned to death outside courts in Lahore by her own family for refusing to agree to an arranged marriage; and two Indian cousins aged 14 and 16 were gang-raped and hanged as their parents pleaded in vain for police to act.
The stories are heart-breaking and hope-sapping. Yet one Pakistani woman, Ghansia Rashid, blogging on Bolo Bhi, interprets her country's 'honour' killings as evidence that patriarchy is 'breaking' – failing to stem the tide of growing numbers of rebellious women who defy convention to marry for love and live on their own terms.
Buthina Khoury, a filmmaker who has condemned 'honour' killings in the Palestinian Authority, also sees a positive aspect to the rise in reported cases of such attacks. 'It means people are acknowledging that it's happening. That is part of dealing with it – before it was hidden and taboo.'
Disputed or otherwise, domestic abuse continues to plague all societies. The percentage of women affected ranges from 23 per cent in high-income countries and hovers around 36 per cent in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Campaigners in Australia, where a woman dies every week at the hands of her partner, are talking about a 'national emergency' after six women and children died in one week last Easter.
One step forward...
On the face of it, employment rights for women are an area of considerable progress. We've broken into new occupations, and made up half the workforce during the last 20 years. But writer and activist Beatrix Campbell has described how the advent of 'neopatriarchal neoliberalism' ('an ugly name for an ugly deal') has left women across the globe concentrated in low-paid, precarious work and a persistent gender pay gap.
An impressive 135 countries now enshrine maternity leave in law. But most women who juggle work and childcare will testify to the statistics that place domestic labour firmly in women's court. Men are taking on more, yet if current trends continue, women in the West alone will have to wait until 2050 for a 50:50 split.2
Other gains are on more solid ground. The field of education has seen the biggest steps forward. Globally, as many girls as boys now attend primary school, and equal secondary enrolment is not far off.
When it comes to political power, the advances are near universal. Only Saudi Arabia and the Vatican still withhold the vote from women, while Africa currently has two female heads of state.
Legal progress is indisputable. Sexual harassment was so widely accepted that there was not even a name for it until the 1970s. It gained legal status in the US in 1986, and now, in 2014, close to two-thirds of countries have laws against it; sexual violence is recognized as a weapon of war and prosecutions have been brought.
Lesbian and transgender people have fought successfully for more rights and visibility. Women in most parts of the world now enjoy greater automony and life choices than before – rights to property, to our children, to careers – that we now take for granted.
Patriarchy rebooted
Yet fighting patriarchy can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. As male privilege is eroded in one sphere, it crops up in a new guise. In the West in particular, cultural sexism seems to be making a comeback. 'For a while we thought everything was OK,' says Chris Blache from French feminist outfit La Barbe, 'but it turned out it wasn't the case. We have gone back on many values.'
For one thing, the gender binary is back. The craze for unisex parenting in the 1970s has long gone. Multicoloured stripes have given way to rigid pink and blue, and we are seeing the triumph of a gendered, highly sexist toy market.
The trend took off in the 1980s. For girls, it's femininity on steroids – they are sold glittering princess gear and cooking pots while boys get action toys and construction sets. Children get a clear message about what is appropriate for boys and girls to do, which forms expectations later in life. As young as three years old, children police the boundary and stigmatize those who cross the line.
This is not just a Western malaise. Nursery workers as far afield as El Salvador are consciously working to counteract the gender stereotyping that comes with imported toys.3
'Do we want to be the Barbarians at the gate or the people in the boardroom? I say both'
On hand to back up these divisions is what neuroscientist Gina Ribbon calls 'neo-phrenology', a rash of literature on 'female brains' or men's innate 'capacity to read maps'.
'Despite irrefutable evidence that brains are elastic and change according to what's going on around us,' she reports, 'scientists and journalists insist on elevating those studies that ignore the "drip, drip, drip" of gender stereotypes.' The biological determinists send a clear message: there are essential differences between men and women, which cannot be overridden; inequality is inevitable.
At the same time, there is greater pressure than ever to conform to beauty ideals. A bugbear of feminists since Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Women, these images have become ever more powerful – narrower and increasingly defined by the sex industry.4
No girl is too young to be sexy. US clothing retailer Abercrombie and Fitch has come in for criticism for marketing 'push-up' bikini tops to girls as young as seven. By way of concession, they rebranded them 'padded'. (This is a firm that sells thongs printed with words like 'eye candy' and 'wink wink' in their kids' range).
Paradoxically, 'looking good' is marketed to girls as the path to self-expression and independence – ideals that feminists taught us, but without consumerism and self-objectification in mind. The obsession with looks as a marker of success takes its toll on self-esteem, with around 40 per cent of British girls aged 10 and 11 wanting to lose weight.5
In a globalized world, body image quickly becomes every body's problem. The same anxiety is reflected throughout Canada, Australia and the US, while a study of girls exposed to Western ads in Fiji showed they were quick to adopt the punishing culture of physical vigilance, becoming 60 per cent more likely to develop eating disorders.6 The attractive, pale, high-achieving woman is also a powerful brand across Africa, China and India.
Old problems, new twist
Meanwhile, new technology has propelled pornography – long a source of division in the feminist movement – into new spheres, one of which is the playground. I remember the frisson at primary school when kids passed round thumbnail images of women in bras, ripped out of catalogues. Now the material is likely to be a little more explicit.
'Boys as young as 11 are watching porn and learning that sex is something you "do to" a girl,' explains Sophie Bennett, who runs UK Feminista's schools programme.
Technology is bringing new ways of mediating sexual pressure. A study into sexting (sending explicit pictures by mobile phone) by the National Society for the Protection of Children recorded how boys – under pressure to brag and compete – coerce girls to send pictures of their breasts and other body parts. Once these images exist, sexting quickly turns into 'shaming' and sexual harassment.
Technology has also carried porn deep into rural India. New Internationalist writer Mari Marcel Thekaekara says 10-year-old boys are downloading violent images on to their mobiles for as little as two rupees (4 US cents). She worries that this has led to sadistic rapes of young girls, in a country where any discussion of sex is still deeply taboo.
While these new forms of misogyny have sprouted and taken root, a generation that rejected feminism has lost the means to talk about it. Sociologist Philip N Cohen tracked the use of words 'sexism' and 'sexist', in books over time. He relates how, after rising to prominence in the 1970s, they peaked in the 1990s, 'and then, once again became less common than, say, the word "bacon".'7
The need for a new analysis could be what is driving this renaissance. A generation of women are finding that reality doesn't live up to the equality enshrined in law.
A jolt
If earlier expressions of feminism dug deep into the root causes of oppression, this chapter majors on deeds; it is pragmatic, brand savvy – and taking aim at the many-headed hydra of patriarchy wherever it rears its ugly head.
'In the past couple of months,' recalls Canadian blogger Jarrah Hodge, 'I've been to rallies against the closure of an abortion clinic in New Brunswick, campaigned for justice for missing and murdered indigenous women, and critiqued media reporting on sexual assault and the representation of women in Star Trek.'
The internet is choked full of feminist blogs and bloggers of all stripes, political persuasions class and race. Hodge's diary of events is also symptomatic of another powerful thread of early 21st-century grassroots feminism: the need to act for all women, not just privileged white ones. 'A real achievement of the feminist movement now is that we have connected up across class and cultures; including LGBTI people and straight men,' reports 26-year-old Ecuadorean activist Adriana Garrido.
Abercrombie and Fitch has marketed up 'push-up' bikini tops to girls as young as seven
The new activism is also united in a powerful rejection of violence. The most dramatic protests have taken place in India, where the brutal rape and murder of a student in Delhi sparked outrage on an unprecedented scale. The activist Kavita Khrishnan has spoken of a new wave of 'deep introspection about how we end up sustaining violence and discrimination against women'.
'It may be the first time in decades,' commented the author Nilanjana Roy, 'that we are exploring those fault lines – of caste, class and gender – in such a mainstream fashion.'8
Feminist groups in the Global South will often be fighting different battles compared with those in the North. Many pursue 'strategic litigation' – ways to enforce laws and set precedents around rights and protections – showing great courage and perseverance in troubled, violent places such as Colombia or Afghanistan. They are increasingly globally connected – internet activism has forged a powerful new solidarity.
Take the case of Liz, a 16-year-old Kenyan girl with learning difficulties who was left physically disabled and incontinent after being gang-raped and dumped in a pit latrine.
When Kenyan women's rights groups heard that the perpetrators' punishment was to cut the lawn of the local police station they started a protest petition on campaign site Avaaz. It went on to collect 1.6 million signatures. Kenya's public prosecutor has since upgraded the charges and a new trial was due to start in June.
Other nascent campaigns are getting a taste of victory – such as the successful battle to force Facebook to remove misogynistic images and comment. Tactics and tools are quickly taken up and shared. Each win builds confidence and is a step towards bigger changes.
Reasonable and revolutionary
It feels as if feminism has a more populist bent today. It's alright to be feminist and like Beyoncé. Men are increasingly encouraged to join the struggle for gender equity. There are pushes for more women on corporate boards or to run for high office.
'It's not what we in second-wave feminism thought we would work on,' chuckles Joni Seager, 'but I think it's complementary in a "small steps" kind of way. It opens up the old debate: do we want to be the Barbarians at the gate or the people in the boardroom? I say both.'
Malala Yousafzai warned her peers, the Tower Hamlet girls, that both the 'developing' and what she described as the 'modern world' discriminated against women. 'In India and Pakistan, people say it openly, but here [in Britain] it's kept hidden. Now we need to highlight it.
'Women need equality in practical life – real life.'
If we want the transformative, far-reaching changes imagined by Malala, it is the strong feminist movements that hold the key to change.
These organizations are more effective at combating violence than either political parties or wealth, according to a 40-year study conducted in 70 countries.9 Feminist groups are operating at the coalface of patriarchy in its most brutal manifestations, and should be the target of funds and support.
The foundations of feminism are strong. In Brazil (see above), feminist NGOs are monitoring the implementation of domestic violence legislation; while one young woman's anti rape-culture stance – featured on the front of this issue – goes viral. The latest groundswell of anger brings new approaches, which can tap into the older wisdom, and has the chance to effect real cultural and political change.
These women will take us to the next stage on the journey: to a world that values women; where girls love the bodies they are born with, where rape is treated as if it mattered, and care is shared and valued.
- Huffington Post Maternal mortality infographic.
- 'Why women are still left doing most of the housework', May 2011, Oxford University press release.
- 'An early start for gender equality', Plan Canada, October 2011.
- Natasha Walter, Living Dolls – the Return of Sexism, Virago, 2010.
- Young People into 2013, The Schools Health Education Unit.
- Anne Becker, 'Eating behaviours and attitudes following prolonged exposure to television among ethnic Fijian adolescent girls', The British Journal of Psychiatry (2002).
- Philip Cohen, 'The Banal, Insidious Sexism of Smurfette', The Atlantic, August 2013.
- 'Viewpoints: has the Delhi rape case changed India?', BBC News, September 2013.
- 'The civic origins of progressive policy change: combating violence against women in a global perspective, 1975-2005', American Political Science Review, (Issue, Volume 106), August 2012.
This article is from
the July-August 2014 issue
of New Internationalist.
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