a curious Yankee in Europe's court

Suyia, the orangutan, loves to swim (“Suyia, l’orango che ama nuotare sott’acqua” La Repubblica, June 25, 2010).

As of today, Australia has its first ever woman prime minister, Julia Gillard. Given the dismal statistics (here and here) on women in political leadership worldwide, it’s news that calls for popping the cork on a bottle of spumante, or maybe even two.

And from what I can tell, when the unexpected opportunity arose, Gillard simply had the courage and smarts to step forward and ask for the top job. See Guardian article today (“Julia Gillard becomes Australia’s first female prime minister” June 24, 2010).

Excerpt from the Guardian:

The 48-year-old who came under attack in 1998 when she entered parliament for being single and childless, said it was also an important milestone for Australian women.

“I think if there’s one girl who looks at the TV screen over the next few days and says ‘Gee, I might like to do that in the future’, well that’s a good thing,” Gillard told reporters.

And from Wikipedia:

In a 2007 interview, Gillard stated: “I used to think I wanted to be a school teacher. There was an English teacher at Mitcham Primary [in Adelaide], who was a real stickler for standards and grammar and punctuation but who was also very kindly. I thought teachers were good; I thought it would be a rewarding job, seeing the eyes of young people light up with new information.

I got talked out of that ambition for good or for ill by a school friend’s mother, who said, ‘No, you’re really good at arguing and debating, you should try law.’ If I hadn’t been pre-selected for the seat of Labor and run successfully in the 1998 election, I’d probably still be somewhere in and around the law; public sector law perhaps. Maybe giving tutorials, trying to pound law into other people’s heads.

And from AlJazeeraEnglish:

The title above is taken from a recent article by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Jack Fuller for Nieman Reports. Fuller offers some suggestions for journalists and/or bloggers (and political scientists) that promise to be the most helpful I’ve read in a long time (“Feeling the Heat: The Brain Holds Clues for Journalism” June, 2010).

Excerpt:

Journalists know all about responding to the next new thing. We leap like dalmatians at the sound of the fire bell. But to understand what is happening to the news audience today we need to get beyond the clang of the alarm. We have to get past the immediacy of each hot new idea and begin with something deeper and more durable. We need to understand what the transformation of our information environment has done at the most fundamental level to the way people take in news.

As are many others, I’m always searching for better ways to interact with the massive and overwhelming flow of information coming our way these days. Fuller’s article (and recently published book — online chapter excerpt here) seem to promise a bit of light and logic in this regard.

This morning as I was taking my daily walk through the center of the small town where we live, I saw an older woman, carrying a bag of groceries, pause as she reached the the top of some steps she had just climbed. She was limping a little and obviously taking a moment to catch her breath after the climb.

Two other women, coming from opposite directions, called the woman by name and hurried toward her. In a good-natured but insistent manner, the two friends began a small argument about which one would get to carry her groceries home for her.

The matter was still unresolved as I passed by, but I suspect all ended well.

Up until very recently I have been unable to bring myself to look at photos of the birds and other wildlife dying horrible deaths from the effects of the BP oil spill.

The oil company itself, however, is also trying to prevent the public from seeing some of these photos, according to an article last Wednesday in the New York Daily News (“Dying, dead marine wildlife paint dark, morbid picture of Gulf Coast following oil spill” by Matthew Lysiak and Helen Kennedy, June 2, 2010).

According to a BP contract worker quoted in the article:

There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.

It is heartbreaking to see these photos, but sometimes our hearts need to break. Otherwise how will we ever learn that we have to change our oil-consuming ways? BP certainly isn’t going to help us.

(The thumbnail above is from a story about oil stricken birds, in the Kansas City Star online last Saturday — “Birds frozen in oil: image of a desperate summer” by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer. To see the full photo and a series of others, go here.)

In this short video of a Guardian interview with young Pakistani poet and journalist Fatima Bhutto, she speaks in a compelling way about how things have gone so wrong in her country (“Hay festival video: ‘Power is violence in Pakistan’” June 3, 2010).

Embodied in her words, it seems to me, is a frightening warning for the citizenry of all countries, including my own.

Excerpt:

We have for the last 63 years of our country’s history allowed those in power to be above the law. We have laws and bills and acts safeguarding those in power, protecting them from questions, protecting them from recrimination, protecting them from the consequences of their often corrupt and criminal legacies.

And the people are protected by nothing, but held hostage by silence.

My recent piece and photo series about the world’s largest breed of cow, on Demotix.com (“The everlasting Chianina cows” May 30, 2010).