Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

Ending prohibition works…

October 14, 2006 – 9:58 am

A more liberal approach to marijuana use over the past three years has cut the number of users in England and Wales by 600,000.

An estimated 2.775 million people aged from 16 to 59 in England and Wales used cannabis in the year up to April 2006 – 8.7 per cent of that age group. This is the lowest level in the past 10 years when figures have been collected by the British Crime Survey….
Even in 16 to 24-year-olds, where drug abuse is more commonplace, the use of cannabis has significantly declined. In 1998, 28.2 per cent of that age group were estimated to have taken cannabis. That figure has dropped to 21.4 per cent, or 1.338 million, in the past year.

Some degree of commonsense has prevailed and the effects are obvious. Now if only the commonsense could be extended to total decrmininalisation…

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Pepys’s abuse – it probably went on for years

October 14, 2006 – 9:55 am

Of course that’s not how The Times puts it, at least not in the headline or intro – using instead “lost lover” and “Deb the maid” … and they wonder why they have trouble getting and keeping women readers.

Nonetheless, there is an interesting story, even if it is one, quite likely, of continuing abuse by a much older man of a young woman almost entirely within his power.

Research now shows that Pepys re-established contact with the maid’s family three years later and suggests that the dirty diarist had the opportunity to resume the affair….
Willet married Jeremiah Wells, a theology graduate, in January 1670. Wells soon wrote to Pepys to ask if the writer could use his contacts in the Royal Navy to get him a job. Pepys obliged, securing Wells a job as a ship’s chaplain. The diarist therefore knew not only where his old flame lived, but also that her husband was away at sea.
Dr Loveman said that there was no direct evidence that Pepys returned to his mistress, but it would not have been out of character. “Given Pepys’s past obsession with Deb, his continued contact with her family raises suspicions about the nature of their relationship,” she said.

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Up in smoke, and shrivelled up

October 14, 2006 – 12:18 am

In Victoria, Australia, an open-cut coal mine is on fire, and expected to burn for days. (Plenty of greenhouse gases there – the sort of positive feedback mechanism the scientists are getting worried about.)

It is just one of 230 fires in the state, and its neighbour, NSW, is also expecting a great number as the same weather conditions reach it.

It is October. Early October. That never used to be fire season. But judging by someone to whom I was speaking yesterday, Australians really are getting worried about this apparent effect of global warming – as they are about the wheat crop, likely to be less than 50 per cent of last year’s, an estimate that is falling even lower by the day.

World wheat reserves are at their lowest level since 1981.

“The concern now is what happens next year. If we have poor conditions for growing wheat again, supplies could get very tight and we might see some demand rationing,” said Dan Cekander, grains analyst at Fimat.
James Barnett, grains analyst for Man Global Research, part of the Man Group, said there was more concern in the global corn market after the USDA cut crop estimates in the US by 209 million bushels to 10.9 billion after it said that 800,000 fewer acres were growing corn than had previously been expected. The US is the world’s largest corn grower.
“We are looking at a structural change in the corn market, because demand is going to increase next year from the ethanol industry, and we might not be planting corn in enough acres to satisfy that demand,” said Mr Barnett.

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Friday Femmes Fatales No 69

October 13, 2006 – 11:58 pm

OK, I give up – I’m afraid Friday Femmes Fatales is going to have to become an “occasional” series rather than a weekly one. (I’m going to aim for but not promise fortnightly.) I just can’t spend any more hours at the computer than I do now. (But — small bribe — if you send in lots of nominations it could be more regular!)

Now that my little whinge is over, on to the ten great female bloggers with ten killer posts…

Regular readers will know I aim to promote women bloggers even when I don’t necessarily agree with them, so I’ll start with Jo22 on I Can’t Fly, and her take on Jack Straw and the Muslim veil issue.

But I entirely agree with the sentiments of the blogger on Politics’n’Poetry, who highlights the environmental misdeeds of the Saskatchewan Power Corporation (Canada).

Staying green, Anna on Bitchinspin, who’s obviously a far more serious cyclist than I, reports on a university free bike scheme. Amazingly it seems, they aren’t being stolen!

I’m equally in tune with Kuri on Thought Interrupted, who picked up and reshaped the currently popular meme to make it five things feminism still has to do.

Ronni Bennett (no relation, that I know of) on Time Goes By, subtitled “what it’s really like to get older”, wonders how plastic surgery comes into the ‘women’s health category’, concluding “they’ll force us to become grotesque simulacra of youth to not offend their delicate sensibilities of what is attractive”.

On the superb group blog Our Bodies Ourselves, Christine C. contemplates that old question: can men be feminists?. One powerful obituary certainly supports that possibility.

On another question that keeps being asked – what is university (college) for? the Blue Gal provides some great stats, and interesting thoughts on the changing American experience.

Turning more personal, although still eminently political, Liz Connor reflects on being a teenage bulimic. She reflects how this is merely the other side of overeating: ”
With any addiction self-loathing and self-comfort become bound within a mutually sustaining, closed system.”

After that, some healthy, sensible eating – Jennifershmoo on Vegan Lunch Box offers (with pictures) vegan bento. (I have to admit that after eating almost entirely vegan at the recent Green Party conference I felt remarkably healthy considering the other ways I was abusing my body – e.g. alcohol and lack of sleep. But still not sure I could stick it full time.)

Finally, to finish, the one post you really, really must read here – leave on an inspirational note: The Sappho Manifesto tells the story of Elizabeth “Lizzie” Jennings, a 24-year-old schoolteacher, and apparently unlikely revolutionary.

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If you missed the last edition, it is here. (If you’d like to see all of them as a list, click on the category “Friday Femmes Fatales” in the righthand sidebar. That will take you to a collection of 650, and counting, women bloggers.)

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment. It really does make my life easier. Or don’t be shy – nominate yourself! (Thanks to Penny and Val who sent in nominations this week.)

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Call for nominations – Carnival of Feminists, the anniversary edition

October 12, 2006 – 10:48 pm

The upcoming carnival on October 18 is No 25, and on a twice-monthly schedule, that means that it the first anniversary edition. It was one year ago (give or take a few days) that I started the carnival, and I thought it was reasonable enough to host my second one on this anniversary.

It will be the first repeat of host – testimony to the delightful enthusiasm with which the carnival has been embraced. For that I can only say an enormous thank you to everyone has hosted – and everyone who has nominated, commented and otherwise participated.

I’ve tried to organise the carnivals with a very light hand – because I think the great value of blog carnivals is the different angles and approaches that each host brings to each carnival; otherwise they are likely to become rather monotonous, covering the same ground among the same clique. (This is one reason why I haven’t – although it has been suggested – started an email list reminding previous contributors about each submission deadline.)

There have been a few controversies and rows – perhaps inevitably – but not nearly so many as I had feared. We sometimes get worried about the tendency of the feminist blogosphere, as with feminists more broadly, to get caught up in internal arguments, but experience of the carnival suggests healthy conversation and debate is entirely possible, and indeed the norm.

I’ve got a few regrets – I’d love to see an African blogger volunteer to host a carnival (or indeed a South American – those are the two main parts of the world we haven’t visited); I sometimes think I should do more promotion work, but struggle to find the time – but not many overall.

Carnival No 25 will have one special theme, which seems appropriate, – “feminist blogging”. You might care to reflect on your experience with the carnival (in any role, from reader to host), or more broadly on what feminist blogging can, or can’t achieve, or what it has meant to you.

BUT nominations on any other feminist subject are also highly welcome.

As ever – please help to spread the word about this!

Work commitments mean it may be late on Wednesday night before I can post the carnival, so I’ll be leaving nominations open until Tuesday night. But that doesn’t mean you HAVE to leave it to the last minute…. Please email me on natalieben AT gmail DOT com, or use the Blog Carnival nomination form.

Thanks!

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The new, the old and the surprising…

October 12, 2006 – 10:26 pm

Europe’s first new mammal to be discovered in 150 years is Mus cypriacus, or if you’re being familiar the Cypriot mouse. Of course people knew that they were there, but not that it was a separate species – a reminder of how little we still know about the natural world, even in the most-studied region of it.

A rather delicious little piece of historical irony – a group of Maori are claiming British pensions (which give the comparative level of the NZ dollar versus sterling would come in very handy).

The claim is based on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, the document that handed sovereignty over New Zealand to Britain, ruled at the time by Queen Victoria.
Article Three of the treaty guarantees Maori “the same rights and privileges as British subjects.”

You might call it the price of empire.

Then a surprising (if perhaps only temporary – due to share prices) fact out of China – the richest person there, topping the list of billionaires, is a woman.

Ms Zhang, the 49-year-old founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which buys scrap paper from the United States for use in China, shot from 36th to pole position in the annual China Rich List compiled by Hurun Report, the luxury publishing and events group, making her the first woman ever to top the Rich List.
“She is the wealthiest self-made woman in the world,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, a researcher who has been compiling the rich list for seven years. Her fortune trumps that of US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey and the Harry Potter creator J K Rowling. Her wealth was estimated at £202m last year, but the share price of Nine Dragons has tripled since she listed her company on the Hong Kong stock exchange and the market for recycled products is growing at a furious pace.
The previous incumbent, Huang Guangyu of China’s biggest electronics retailer, Gome, has been knocked into second place, with his personal wealth thought to be £1.3bn.

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