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More Than Amazing Meryl Streep |
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Monday, 23 February 2009 |
 As I post this from my hotel room in Malaysia, the Oscar ceremony is underway in California.
Penelope Cruz has already won the Oscar for best supporting actress, I’m watching videos of Natalie Portman and Alicia Keyes both arriving in a fabulous strapless PINK gowns (WOW), and I’m hoping my all-time favourite actress Meryl Streep will win her third Oscar for what is hailed as being an absolutely brilliant performance in her latest movie Doubt (which is nominated for numerous Oscars and which I’ve yet to see!).
I am among millions of Meryl Streep fans worldwide.
Few would argue that she is the best actress of our generation. She has a record 15 Oscar nominations (and two wins as of this minute); 25 Golden Globe nominations (six awards); and prizes from every other imaginable group and organization relating to film, drama, theatre, and television.
Regardless of whether she wins an Oscar this time or not, she is an amazing woman and wonderful role model.
See more at these links:
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Beauty is More Than Skin Deep |
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Wednesday, 18 February 2009 |
 When he first met Crusita Martinez, Cesar Muniz saw only beauty where others saw a face disfigured by a brutal acid attack.
Like many women in abusive relationships, 18-year-old Crusita paid a high price for leaving a boyfriend who told her “If you’re not going to be with me, nobody’s going to want you,” before throwing acid in her face.
Seven years later, Muniz and Martinez (who used to wish she was dead), are happily married and have just had a new baby. Read the full story by clicking below.
Bella English
The Boston Globe
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More Women May Become Main Breadwinners in US |
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Friday, 06 February 2009 |
An article in yesterday's New York Times suggests that women may come to dominate the United States workforce during this recession.
The driving force behind the shifting proportion is the fact that 82 per cent of recent job losses have befallen men, who are more heavily represented in distressed industries such as manufacturing and construction. Women, on the other hand, tend to be employed in areas such education and health care, which are less sensitive to economic ups and downs.
The article quotes Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress who says: “Given how stark and concentrated the job losses are among men, and that women represented a high proportion of the labor force in the beginning of this recession, women are now bearing the burden — or the opportunity, one could say — of being breadwinners.”
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Reuters Story Says Girls Are Terrified |
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Saturday, 31 January 2009 |
 Contrary to the stories below, Reuters reported yesterday that Afghan schoolgirls are becoming more reluctant to pursue their educations for fear of being harassed and kidnapped.
The story quoted Asif Nang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education who said, "In the past eight months, around 138 students and teachers have lost their lives and another 172 have been wounded in criminal and terror attacks."
"About 651 schools have become inactive mostly due to insecurity and another 122 school buildings have been blown up or burned down across the country," said Nang, adding the Ministry of Education was working to improve protection and security for teachers and students across the country.
Hamid Shalizi
Reuters
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Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embrace School |
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Thursday, 29 January 2009 |
 Despite threats and an acid attack on several students two months ago, the Mirwais School for Girls is thriving.
The acid attack against students and teachers (15 of them in total) was meant to terrorize the girls into staying home. It appears to have completely failed.
Today, nearly all of the wounded girls are back at the Mirwais School for Girls, including one whose face was so badly burned that she had to be sent abroad for treatment. Perhaps even more remarkable, nearly every other female student in this deeply conservative community has returned as well — about 1,300 in all.
(Susan notes: the full New York Times story is wonderful; highly recommended)
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No Sight No Barrier for Amazing Young Woman |
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Friday, 23 January 2009 |
 A visually-impared young woman emerged tops in the mid-year final exams in Dubai. Mais Ahmad Hamudi scored 97.8 per cent and was ranked among the top scorers.
"I don't think the finals were difficult," said 16-year-old Hamudi. "Of course the exam was different from what we are accustomed to. The questions looked different and indirect, but it was easy to work out the answers. It's all there in the new curriculum. One just had to think through and analyse more in these tests."
The ambitious and inspiring young woman spent a lot of time translating some of her books from written form to Braille, with the assistance of her parents and siblings. Books written in Braille are not easily supplied in schools, Hamudi says.
Siham Al Najami
Gulf News
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Pink Rocks in India Too :) |
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Saturday, 17 January 2009 |
 Posted January 17, 2009
On a recent afternoon, about two dozen women, all dressed in candy-pink
saris, gathered beneath the cool shade of a gnarled banyan to hear a
diminutive woman – referred to as “commander” – deliver what seemed
like a military briefing.
“If your husband beats you for
stepping out of the house, you firmly tell him you are not his slave,”
she said, her face beetroot-red. “You tell him that he should sit at
home and take care of the kids.”
All heads nodded in agreement.
The
“commander” is Sampat Pal, 46, a woman with little education, who heads
an all-female, pink-clad vigilante group, that strikes fear in the
hearts of adulterers, wife beaters and other wrongdoers. They are
called the Gulabi gang. In Hindi, gulabi means pink.
Since their
formation two years ago in Banda, an impoverished and lawless district
in the rural interiors of Uttar Pradesh, the Gulabi gang has gone after
wife-beaters with lathis, the traditional Indian bamboo baton. They
have also taken their fight to corrupt policemen. In this rural
landscape, where bureaucracy makes life difficult, they goad apathetic
government officials into action by shame.
Anuj Chopra
The National (Abu Dhabi)
See also:
Pink Rocks
Pink Rocks (Again)
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Australian Aviator Flew Far and Wide |
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Saturday, 17 January 2009 |
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One of Australia's most famous aviators, Nancy-Bird Walton, has died aged 93.
 Born in the New South Wales north coast town of Kew in 1915,
Walton became the first female pilot to get her commercial pilot's
licence at the age of 19.
She wanted to fly from the age of four and she was taught to take the controls when she was just 17 by Charles Kingsford Smith.
She went on to pioneer an air ambulance service for outback New
South Wales and was commandant of the Women's Air Training Corps during
World War II.
Walton also founded the Australian Women Pilots' Association and went on to be president for about 40 years.
On her 90th birthday, Qantas announced it would name an aircraft for Walton. In her remarks at the A380 naming ceremony she said: "Qantas
announced that they would name this magnificent aircraft after me on my
90th birthday nearly three years ago. And i made it my business to stay
alive until today's ceremony. And I've made it! I've made it."
ABC News
See also:
The Australian Business with The Wall Street Journal
Video of Qantas A380 Naming Ceremony in October 2008
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Helen Suzman Never Gave Up |
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Wednesday, 14 January 2009 |
 Appearances deceived where Helen Suzman was concerned.
The petite and
elegant figure, clad in two-pieces or nicely pressed slacks, her hair
Thatcher-perfect, was clearly a denizen of the northern suburbs of
Johannesburg, where discreet black domestics clipped the acacias and
golf was played at weekends.
Houghton, rich and Jewish, was indeed her
constituency, and privilege was her life. But there the comfortable
impression ended. Among the solid and overwhelmingly male Afrikaners in
Parliament, “baying like hounds at a meet”, she was noisy, rude,
contemptuous, “thoroughly nasty when I get going”.
“A vicious little
cat”, said P.W. Botha, South Africa’s prime minister, who often felt
her claws in him.
“The honourable member does not like me,” he observed
once in Parliament. “Like you? I can’t stand you,” came the spitting
reply. Verwoerd, an earlier prime minister, a man she admitted she was
“scared stiff” of, fared no better. “I have written you off,” he told
her. “The whole world has written you off,” she retorted.
Jan 8th 2009
The Economist
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