Net nuggets No 4
Making babies
* Unimpressed.net describes how the idea that life begins at conception is a misogynist one, assuming that what is important about the child comes from the male contribution of chromosomes, thus ignoring all of the work that the woman does with her body to produce the baby.
News is all a matter a perspective
* From Iviews - "Christian Suicide shooter Kills Innocent Americans: Experts also believe that the inspiration for the terrorist act came from the belief that the killing would be forgiven." (Hat-tip to Slit.)
In the House, but why?
* Women now hold a quarter of the seats in the Australian House of Representatives, and a third of those in the Senate, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. What a pity its headline is "Women the power behind the PM".
No bag thanks
* Also in Australia, supermarkets have cut the number of plastic bags they hand out by 30 per cent, although other shops have barely started on this blindingly simple, obvious, and even cost-saving environmental measure. So why has this move not even started in Britain? I spend an amazing amount of time telling shop assistants, often two or three times: "No bag thanks. No, really. No bag!" Most look as though no one has ever said that to them before.
posted by Natalie Bennett at 3/22/2005 03:46:00 pm
8 Comments:
I enjoyed visiting your blog. Even though I'm male, I support women's rights (I was even Chapter Secretray for N.O.W. in New Jersey for two years). You should update your website though--seems to have died in November.
Please visit me at handout.blogspot.com and "keep on blogging!"
--Phil Taylor
Here (in Japan) one of my local supermarkets don't give plastic bags any more. You have to pay for them if you want one. This works on an honesty system (i.e. you put the money in a box and help yourself) and the amount is nominal, but it seems to be working. People bring their own bags.
At the other supermarkets (there are several) you have to tell them you don't need a bag.
If I had a penny for every time I have to say, 'No, don't bother with a bag, thanks'... Grrr.
Hi Phil. Thanks for visiting - I guess I should update the website - I usually only put big things there now and regular things on the blog, but I probably should at least give the site a quick makeover occasionally.
Agreed Sharon. But I suppose it is a numbers game - the staff just behave the way most customers want.
I'm always amazed in Boots (chemist/drugstore) that women will get the packet of aspirin or similar put in a plastic bag, which then goes straight into the handbag. No doubt the bag goes straight into the bin when they get home.
Why? WHY?!!!!!
Thank you for these links, they truly are "nuggets" as you describe them. I particularly enjoyed the feminist post (surprise, surprise), a real eye-opener. Whenever I read your wonderful blog I am always pierced with a twinge of envy about how much reading you manage to fit in. Sigh. On a recent visit to Manchester I came across a book which might amuse you - David M. Friedman's A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis. Although based primarily on secondary literature and lacking a proper apparatus, it nevertheless contains an amusing compendium of facts testifying to the Western male's obsessions.
Thanks Chameleon - that sounds like a great reference. It should give me some great posting material.
And to compound the excess baggage, they don't recycle plastic here.
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