What to do with all those old runners

Wu, a review

WU: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become Living God by Jonathan Clements (Gloustershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2007)

Here is another able woman empress, administrator, commander-in-chief (China 625-705 AD) who, because she was a woman and her history was written by her enemies, has been excoriated as a terrible terrible figure largely because a woman should not do the things she did.  Only thing is, pretty much every emperor or conqueror worth their salt in history had to do the things she did.  At least Clements does acknowledge that fairly frequently in this fascinating biography.

She rose from very humble beginnings (daughter of a lumber merchant); at 14 she became the Taizong Emperor's companion/concubine, then managed to become a concubine then wife of the Taizong's son & heir, the Gaozong Emperor - and then she went on to become the only woman who ever became a reigning empress of China.

Of course she made a few enemies along the way.

And it's like Cleopatra: you never get the real story of Cleopatra because the Romans, who hated her, wrote her history  (I can't wait until they discover the hidden scrolls on her  written by Egyptian biographers and we get the real Cleopatra).

Those fearful historians (sorry, they were all men) went to Imagination Town with the stories of her witchcraft and enchantment of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony and her legendary beauty.  The fact is, there are very few likenesses of Cleopatra, and those that exist show a plug plain woman. 

This:

 

Not this:

So the fact that  a plain-jane Cleopatra was so captivating to two of the world's most powerful men makes her ever more interesting than the whole "siren" thing. 

Wu, on the other hand, was said to have been absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.  The only thing people didn't seem to realize (except for her two emperor patrons/hubbies) was that she was also extraordinarily intellectually gifted, quite a brilliant strategist and yes, if you want to use pejorative terms, a master 'schemer.' But what great ruler is not a master schemer?  These adjectives all hit 10 on the nasty-o-metre when they are applied to women.

Yes, she also had a 'harem' of strapping young lads when she was in her 70s and single, having buried her husband.  Cudos to Clements because he writes:

"But, even if the Zhang brothers were servicing Empress Wu on a nightly basis, the censorious attitude of the courtiers betrays a remarkable double standard.  Nobody would have thought twice about a similar set-up for a male emperor in his seventies.  In fact, old emperors were encouraged to spend their time with a variety of fresh young concubines, spiritually feeding on their yin essence in order to prolong their lives."

Wu, too, was accused of using witchcraft.  Sigh, yawn, ho hum: what is with the witchcraft thing?  Is that the best shot historians throughout recorded history can come up with? Every able woman in history is accused of using witchcraft, for Goddess's sake.  Hilary Clinton's enemies probably accuse her of using witchcraft (but if anyone has need of certain elixirs in the Clinton family, it's probably not Hilary).

The only thing I didn't notice in this biography was Wu taking making any effort to support fellow women in moving the up & out of the concubines' courtyards,  no surprise in an age when women were pitted against women, deadly rivals for the favour of the men, especially emperors.  Nope, they continued to be firmly anchored below the bamboo ceiling.  But I've seen America's Top Model and The Bachelor and we've come a long way, right?

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Communi-whahh?

If we really are all born equal into this world, wouldn’t that mean we all 'own' one-seven-billionth of its resources?  Yet we don’t all seem to be getting our share of the bounty.  I just read that the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales

“soon after taking office in 2006, moved against the foreign- owned natural gas and petroleum companies to take 50% of the revenues, and to make the state-owned petroleum company the administrator and, in some cases, a co-investor. Similar deals have been made with transnational capital in the iron-mining sector, and the government is in the process of negotiating state-dominated agreements for the exploitation of Bolivia´s huge lithium deposits.

“While it is true that Morales has not launched a full assault on capital, his government along with the other New Left governments in Latin America have ended the neo-liberal era in which the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank imposed free market policies, severely curtailing social spending, and enabling transnational corporations to gain unprecedented control of the region’s nonrenewable resources. 

"Now many of these governments are using the state to exert greater control of the economy and are renegotiating the terms of investment in order to capture a greater portion of the revenue for social programs and to facilitate internal development and industrialization.”

Morales calls this 'communitarian socialism.'  A convoluted-sounding name,  but this idea of having 50% of the revenues from schemes that use or consume resources that we all own, come back to the people for social programmes sounds good to me. What about our oil and gas industry--are you getting any?

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Let's commit to Canadian workers too

I just bought a pair of running shoes and when I put them on, I found a tag on them with this message:

“Committed to American Workers.  Congratulations:  You now own a pair of shoes that were made or assembled by the New Balance team in one of our five U.S. factories. New Balance proudly relies on our manufacturing associates to produce a quarter of our North American footwear worn by consumers (approximately 7 million pairs of shoes) in the U.S. each year.  We made our first pair of running shoes in 1938, and hold the distinction as the only company that still manufactures athletic shoes in the U.S.  As a company, we are proud to invest in American workers, who provide some of the greatest working spirit, commitment to advancement and ingenuity known in the industrial world. Committed to American Workers is more than a slogan or viewpoint – it is the heart and ‘sole’ of our company.”

I admire this (except for the lame pun). I realize there are problems here – that phrase ‘our manufacturing associates,’ whatever that means; the fact that only ¼ of the shoes are made in the USA; and the questions about where the other 3/4s are made and under what kind of working conditions, yadda yadda.  But still, I wish we had initiatives like this.

It’s also appalling that NewBal is the only U.S. company left who manufactures running shoes in the U.S.   The situation is probably worse in Canada – do we have any domestic running shoe manufacturers, let alone any who manufacture on Canadian soil?

As a consumer, I would like to have things labeled so I could make the choice to support Canadian manufacturers and other Canadian workers having jobs and homes. I’m all for that. Why don’t we do it?


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The Cove

The red you see in the photograph. That's dolphin blood.

Just finished watching the  Oscar-winning docu The Cove.  

It's about a beautiful little cove in Japan into which dolphins are driven every September and either captured to become show dolphins in SeaWorld-type shows around the world, or they are slaughtered in the cove for their meat.

The film makers had to go in by stealth mode to get footage of the carnage, so well guarded and off limits has this little cove been made.

Scientists who have studied dolphins now believe that they are self-aware. Meaning, when they are driven into that cove, they know what's going to happen; they can think - they can predict things, ..... they know they and their babies are going to be slain.

Could our species be any more cruel?

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