AKotW 3/11

And hello again!  It's like we were never gone at all.... this past week was another quiet one for discussion, so let's just lay out what we have.

Asshats of the Week:

The Ring of Fire.  Thanks loads, you freaking jerk.  Hundreds, maybe thousands dead, Japan devastated, and to top it off you leave us without a handy human scapegoat that lets us think that maybe suffering is somebody's fault, maybe there's a way to avoid it, maybe the world is not just a cruel and random place.  Way to go, you horrible little geological phenomenon.  This is all your fault.

Our old enemy Gaddafi, who can now officially add Now Rivaling Natural Disasters! to the end of his resume, which we hope he has cause to use very soon.  In addition to continuing the bloody back-and-forth fight with the protesters who have now been upgraded to "rebels," thus suggesting that instead of a relatively peaceful transfer of power we're going to have a black hole of civil war in that country for years to come, he also captured and tortured BBC journalists who were attempting to get any kind of story besides "Gaddafi is winning and also a great guy."  Every week, we the blog think "eh, maybe someone other than Gaddafi should be nominated," and every week, he raises the bar.  That's what makes him a champion.


Asskickers of the Week:

Hillary Clinton.  OK, confession time.  Friday was National Women's Day, or something, which We the Blog thought was a really stupid tokenist kind of way to pay tribute to half the population.  But you know what?  Let's look back at our own list and...oh.  (Seriously?  The only women we have in either category are the Thin Mints lady and that pink pop-psychiatrist?)  Apparently this is still kind of an issue that needs to be addressed in big flashy ways.

So is Hillary Clinton getting this mostly because Newsweek did an issue about women's issues and she was on the cover, thus reminding the blog she exists and is doing great work?  Absolutely.  But of course, the whole problem of the invisibility of women is Hillary Clinton's business.  She's now logged more miles of travel than any previous Secretary of State and is working to make sure that women's rights are human rights wherever those issues come up (so, everywhere).  Recently, she's been working to ensure that the revolutions in the Middle East don't just end up setting up new, different oppressions for half the population.  But she's been working tirelessly (well, actually probably she's pretty tired) to keep women part of the discussion worldwide, which is not an easy thing to do and an even harder thing to keep doing when other pressing issues threaten to push women to the back burner...again...until there's a better time to deal with them....  Keep kicking ass, ma'am, we're counting on you.

Another intangible nominee: the Japanese building codes and evacuation procedures.  One of the only bright spots in the horrendous disaster in Japan is that the 8.8 earthquake, the world's fifth most powerful since 1900, did not bring down the Tokyo skyline.  After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Japan worked to update its public knowledge about earthquakes and updated its building codes to some of the most stringent in the world, and although the death toll is still being calculated, there seems to be a consensus that the buildings built after this education blitz saved lives.  Applied science and public education: it seems like a good idea.  And certainly we're glad that it has had some effect in softening the blow for the population of Japan. 

Also nominated: Zahida Kazmi, Pakistan's first and only female cabdriver.  Cab driving is a dangerous prospect in Pakistan, as is being a woman.  Zahida's mother and children have more or less cut her off, but the other cab drivers have embraced her presence and she's now well-known and respected as a driver.  If it were not such a horrible pun, we would applaud her success in going down such a rough road.  Well done, ma'am.


Now.... back into the breach.