Philobiblon

I think the result is about right, but you be the judge.

Your Brain’s Pattern

You have a tempered, reasonable way of thinking. You tend to take every new idea in, and meld it with your world view. For you, everything is always changing. Each moment is different. Your thinking process tends to be very natural – with no beginnings or endings.

(Via: Triple Pundit.)

Having just flown back from a week in Biarritz, I was feeling a bit guilty about my greenhouse gas emissions – it would have been technically possible to take the train, but at more than 10 hours the journey seemed just a bit too long to be practical.

Personal political reminded me that I meant to do something about it, in donating to a project enough to cover the emission from my flight. She took me, indirectly, to Climate Care, where I was a little surprised to find only £5 would cancel out the guilt.

I sit at my desk now, looking out on a blue autumn sky with puffy clouds, which are being dodged by the planes swinging around on final approach to Heathrow, disappearing behind the Euston Tower. If everyone on each of those paid in full for their flight, it wouldn’t end global warming, but it would certainly help to make a difference.

I haven’t been involved in one of these before, but it certainly looks interesting, even if primarily meant for the classroom. It might even help with some answers to yesterday’s “seven out of 159” equation.

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University is happy to announce that our website Women in World History (http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/) will host four month-long online forums in 2005-06.

These forums will give world history teachers the chance to talk about ways to teach issues surrounding women and gender in world history, and how to access classroom resources, including online primary sources. An educator with high school classroom experience and a historian will moderate each forum. Each forum will be an accessible email listserv that allows all participants to post comments and see all responses.

The first forum begins October 1: Women in World History, moderated by Merry Wiesner-Hanks (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Heidi Roupp (Former President, World History Association)

Today’s Guardian centre-spread picture of all of the world leaders at the UN summit (and not all of them are the top leaders) makes a depressing sight.

There are – count ’em – seven women out of the 159 total. For the record they are:
Gloria Arroyo, President of The Philippines
Khalida Zia, Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, President of Sir Lanka
Tarja Halonen, President of Finland
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia
Truong My Hoa, Vice-President, Vietnam
Fausta Morganti, Captain Regent, San Marino

So that’s five national leaders – where are all those “men’s rights” types who claim women are taking over?

(You do have to feel sympathy for the poor protocol officers who had to muster that lot and get them in line, without putting sworn enemies too near each other, and all pointing in the one direction. For those who are sarky about UN diplomats, just imagine that job.)

The best thing in The Independent most weeks is Travey Emin’s “My Life in a Column”. Gloriously irrerevent, utterly unashamed and open, there’s nothing quite like it. Women traditionally don’t write like this:

“It’s like wishing your arse smelt of lemon, imagine what lemons would smell like.”

(And yes that should be a semi-colon, but still …)

Unfortunately she’s on a subscription system, but you can read the first part of this week’s column here.

And if you have somehow managed to avoid her story – it is true she is a media tart of an artist – there’s an outline of her career and lots of links here. (And the best of her art is also brilliant.)