Bronwen Maddox in The Times today reports that Angela Merkel is doing “astonishingly” well in running Germany.

Just months after an election Merkel barely won, over Gerhard Schroder, Chancellor for seven years, she now has the approval of an astounding 80 per cent of Germans. They seem pleased that their unorthodox choice -— female, from the East, Protestant, divorced, and childless -— has proved a success. “She’Â’s seen off the men in suits,” said one Western official. “It is a central moment in German unification.”

I’m not really sure that this should be a surprise. Given all of the obstacles – particularly the extremely patriarchal structure of German society – that she had to surmount to get where she did, she’s probably finding actually running the country a breeze.

That prompted me to go looking to see how other recently elected women leaders were doing.

In Liberia, there is controversy because Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has appointed the head of the electoral commission as justice minister.

The BBC’s Jonathan Paye-Layleh in the capital, Monrovia, says it is almost certain that [Frances Johnson-Morris’] nomination will be backed by the senate.
She would become Liberia’s first female justice minister – named by its first elected female leader.

Perhaps it would be better not to have done that, but I don’t suppose the country is exactly over-supplied with qualified people unsullied by contact with previous regimes.

In Chile, meanwhile, Michelle Bachelet, has kept her pledge in select a gender-balanced cabinet.

The 54-year-old pediatrician and president-elect designated her cabinet of ministers, which for the first time in history will be made up of equal numbers of men and women … Several of Bachelet’s 10 women ministers have been appointed to key portfolios, including the General Secretariat of the Presidency, in charge of relations with Congress, to be headed by socialist lawyer Paulina Veloso, and the Defence Ministry, under economist Vivianne Blanlot of the Party for Democracy (PPD).

There’s even talk that France might soon see its first female president, Segolene Royal.

And maybe America? Well I don’t believe the Hillary Clinton versus Condoleezza Rice scenario, but, hey, it would certainly make for an interesting race. Just imagine all those old white males in suits spluttering in indignant incomprehension.

Well I’ve put out begging letters everywhere I can think of, and no one has volunteered to translate my early modern Latin about Dame Helen Branch. But the fates must be telling me I should do it myself, since I’ve in recent days stumbled across The White Trash Scriptorium (including a list of Latin-English names, which I badly need), and the National Archives’ Beginner’s Latin.

Well my French studies aren’t going anywhere at the moment ….

Hat-tips to Glaukopidos and Early Modern Notes.

Australia was once a country that led the world in human rights law, and where racist comments were simply laughed out of court. Its “femocrats” were world-famous for their influence.
Now:

AUSTRALIA could become a Muslim nation within 50 years because “we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence”, a Government backbencher says.
The former minister Danna Vale is one of five Coalition women proposing an amendment to the private member’s bill that seeks to remove ministerial veto over abortion drugs such as RU486. At a news conference called by the five yesterday, she said it was important politicians considered the ramifications “for the community and the nation we become in the future”.
“I have read … comments by a certain imam from the Lakemba Mosque [who] actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years’ time,” said Mrs Vale, MP for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes.
“I didn’t believe him at the time. But … look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every year … You multiply that by 50 years. That’s 5 million potential Australians we won’t have here.”

Oh, but the opposition to the drug is purely on health grounds, the religious lobby says. It isn’t about abortion at all, really, really.

What went wrong with Australia? I really don’t know any more. I used to have theories, but it has now gone so from bad to worse they no longer seem adequate.

My 19th-century “blogger” Frances Williams Wynn is today telling a gorgeously Gothic tale of long-delayed revenge. The message seems to be beware the overly generous host.

It also contains a lovely usage of a word I’ve never seen in this context before, “peached”, meaning in Australian “dobbed”, or for those who need a further translation “told tales about/reported to the authorities”.

I find it extremely hard to believe, but the Media Guardian is reporting that the Daily Mail editor “Dacre … may now suspect that some women readers could be wearying of the masochistic hatred of their own gender that the Mail has enticed them with”. No don’t get too excited, the basis of the argument is Allison Pearson. Still, given its influence, any move towards a little humanity has, I suppose, to be a good thing.
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Bernard-Henri Levy has issued a call to arms to the American Left. He wants them to oppose the death penalty … here, here – but is there the courage to do that? What would happen if politicians actually acted on their convictions? Interesting question, since pandering to opinion polls seems to have been notably ineffective.
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The revenge of the quail: it is a rule of thumb in newspapers that you can’t make fun of something when someone is seriously injured, but since Dick Cheney’s hunting partner, and target, is about to be released from hospital, I guess I’m allowed a chortle. And to wonder if a man obviously unsuitable for being in charge of a shotgun should really be playing with nuclear weapons …

Trying to clear out my Gmail account at least (if I haven’t emailed yet I should get to you soon-ish), and am reminded of lots of excellent recent links:

Brilliant, early feminist essays (pub. 1886-1915) on Emily Dickinson’s life, letters, & poetry by: (1) Emily Fowler Ford, (2) Ella Gilbert Ives, (3) Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, (4) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (5) Susan Huntington Dickinson, (6) Lilian Whiting, and (7) Martha Dickinson Bianchi

Ellen’s recent post on the artist Angelica Kauffman. Ellen has also revamped her web resources on the poet Anne Kingsmill Finch.

A complete academic book, Historicizing Romantic Sexuality online. The site doesn’t really describe why, but hey, it is a great idea.

Then a whole journal online, the Medieval Forum. In the latest issue are articles including “Chaucer and the early Church” and “The Interactions of Papal and Royal Power in John Capgrave’s Abbreuiacion of Cronicles”.

I may have pointed to this before, but it is brilliant Internet Shakespeare editions.

The letters of an Elizabethan “intelligencer”, William Herle.

Web resources for 18th-century studies.