Are We Trying To Make Enemies?
When Bush hitched his wagon to the Musharraf camp in Pakistan, and stuck to his guns (so to speak), mightn’t he have possibly expressed some concern about the safety of Benazir Bhutto?
Still Sticking
Even with the shocking assassination of Bhutto, this administration still refuses to even acknowledge that they might have possibly made another alliance mistake.
As all the television pundits trample over the despair and bereavement of Ms. Bhutto’s killing to discuss the impact of her death on the U.S. primary caucus in Iowa, they keep asking which candidate is more prepared to deal decisively with this kind of diplomatic nightmare. I haven’t heard one of them mention how ill-prepared the current president is to deal with the situation.
On a related note, I am asking myself why the assassination of a woman seems so much more awful to me than a similar male assassination might have been. I would like to believe that if a man had been so outspoken and critical of the Musharraf dictatorship in Pakistan, that his assassination would have been equally as shocking to me, but I’m not sure that’s true.
Current Knitting
Not wanting to commit to a large, complex project, I decide to focus on the pair of mittens using the remaining Alpaca Herd Jacket yarn.
Thaddeus sniffed dubiously at the idea of mittens, so they morphed into gloves. I worked them on the fly, so they’re not perfect, but the look acceptable and they sure are warm. As you can note from the “in progress” picture, the gloves (including each finger) was knit in the round on double-pointed needles.
Readers’ Comments/Questions
Kenny bemoans all the “knitting porn” in my last post, and then asks, “BTW, do you like my new hat?”
Yes, very much. If folks haven’t gone out to see it, you should. For his first design, it is very nicely done.
oh joe, you’re too kind!!! Thanks for the link!
I think that the feeling that it is somehow worse to see a woman assassinated is the vestigial remnants of a patriarchal worldview. I think most have us still have it lurking in our subconcsious. Hopefully it will lessen with each generation.
On the fly, he turns mittens into gloves, and the gloves look great.
Sigh of admiration.
Your fan,
Franklin
making enemies=perpetual war=massive war profiteering
I think it works for Chenny and Co.
I’m hope it can turn around next year, meanwhile I keep knitting to try to stay sane.
and never mind how they set off his lovely hairy forearms in the WIP pic =)
I was struck by the assassination more because she was a woman, that is true. But with being a very active feminist, I see hard hard it can be to open new doors, and she was working very hard to do so. Her assassination negated a lot of that progress, but hopefully someone else can stand on her work and move in, and move up.
I agree with Sarah. The shock with me was in the set-back to Pakistan in terms of both democratic process and women’s rights. She was the first woman PM in a Muslim country and very courageous in her personal life. I may not have been so shocked about a male leader being assassinated (although having said that I was deeply shocked by Rabin’s assassination and for somewhat similar reasons) but it also probably would not have been so newsworthy and not hearing so much about the other opposition leaders means we don’t have that same connection to them.
I also feel a little sad that her son is now going to be a target as well.
Happy New Year (doesn’t seem quite the context for it really but nonetheless).