Go Quota!

There are many reasons why quotas are no good. For one, they are “unfair” to those they disfavor, but also they are unfair to those they are intended to favor, because they tend to provide fertile grounds for office gossip.

And yet, they do what we have failed to do in any other meaningful way. They break through entrenched networks, racism and sexism, or, more generally speaking, they encroach on hiring practices that for eons now have favored the white male.

In fact, considering women and their particular life cycle which, as we all know, can impinge uncomfortably on their careers, I would actually propose an even tougher quota system.

Given that the most important time for women to make good money and move up on the career ladder is right when they come out of education, a strict quota system ought to secure their swift promotion at that point in their professional lives.

For one, if women get a head start and remain motivated, they may be far more likely to return to their swivvel chairs once their childbearing years are over. But also, it would give them a chance early on in their lives to make contributions to their pension funds.

This is crucial not only for personal but also for economic reasons as most countries around the world, including the US and Germany, don’t give any credit for the time women spent in child rearing - a blatant “oversight” which greatly contributes to high poverty rates among women in old age.

Quotas may not be fair, and they are definitely not a preferred option, but they are a decent plan B, where reasons beyond reasons blurr our decision-making.

Gunshots

About a week ago I tuned into BBC Four for a report about Ivory Coast. We listened to a group of women who had gathered in a square demanding to be heard. This filled me with joy and I was cheering them on from our kitchen with Zoe joining in. Not that often women risk their lifes and that of their loved ones to speak up against wrong doings. But every astonishing time that they do it, it fills me with great pride. However, our chanting came to an abrupt end when rounds of gun fire could be heart. It felt, as if I we were under fire as well. My heart stopped for a moment and I looked over to Zoe. She had tears in her eyes, unable to utter a word.

Hating it...

Two point four million GBP is what a UK banker receives on avarage as a bonus each year. At HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland, it’s a bit less - just over a million. Still that’s pretty decent for government employees - because that’s what they are now, after they burnt through their money and had to be bailed out with tax payers´ money. Somehow I get the feeling that they really must hate their job, if they think they deserve that much. Maybe one ought to feel sorry for them...

Waiting to hear...

I am wondering whether Fred will reconsider his laudatio to nuclear energy or whether in his good old die-hard Republican manner, he will claim that Fukushima is just a big press campaign, launched by the anti nuclear energy lobby.

This is It !

It’s happening. Mid-life. At forty-one, solidly arrived on the other shore, life feels just a tiny bit more like a gigantic wet towel. While the twenties were full of arrogant energy, ideas and goals, the thirties abounded in a can-do attitude that resembled that of a frost bitten summit chaser. Joggling double and triple days, childhood illnesses, and family feuds, that decade was not an easy one, and so it comes as no surprise if the aftershocks can still be felt at this end....

There is a mental fatigue now that seems to linger which is only topped by the exhaustion of everyday life that hasn’t let off as babies turned into pre-teens. What is this? One asks while checking ones mid-section on a dreary morning...I didn’t use to look like THAT!! And what’s with the grey curly hairs sprouting everywhere - can’t pull all of them out (or can I?)...not to mention the sneaky woodworm that has slyly dug its way through our faces. Where was I when all of this happened?

These days, long nights are no longer a sign of vivacious energy, but a blatant mistake. Headaches, a stiff back and an acting up ischias are reminders that we need to take better care of ourselves....pick up yoga, pilates, nordic walking. And alas, chocolate is not as quickly metabolized as before and will need reconsideration. Darn.

And then there is our other half - if they stuck around until now. This is the time of reckoning and many will in the end reckon that it is time to move in separate directions, leaving afore mentioned children and mortgage payments in their wake. For those who are more inclined to reconcile, there remains the certainty that this is it. This is their life, these are the recurring issues, and ongoing annoyances and very little is going to change. Not for better but maybe for worse.

Do you remember the Game of Life? It was a board game, that made it onto almost everyone’s shelf in the eighties. Players moved through their fictitous lives in little baby pink and blue cars to end up in either a semi-detached (oops!) or grand mansion (congrats!) at the finishing line, depending on the amount of personal bankruptcies and lottery cash ins they happened to come accross on their journey.

I loved that game, especially the part where one had to spin the wheel to see how many children were to travel along in the car - I always hoped for twins. Well, I know better today. And for whatever its worth, that’s an insight one rarely gains before turning forty.

Human Intarrogance

Like a mad charlatan concocting ever more colorful potions of questionable content and potentially hazardous result, we are coming up with outlandish cures for the ailments that are plaguing human civilization. Gene manipulated foods to save the starving millions, nuclear power plants to support their pampered lives, invasive treatments to prolong them....when really the only life prolonging remedy would be to have fewer of us around in the future. But now the US government is cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and hopes to put a dent into the national deficit that way. Another one of those cures, it seems. Let’s just hope it doesn’t kill the patient.
PS Happy Women's Day...

Adelante!

So Austria is dying out, and so is Italy, only outpaced by Germany, and so governments there are groping around for ways to get women to crank out more babies, or else Europe the way we know it will cease to exist. Just imagine vast sums of money are paid so young women won’t feel that they have to choose between having a child or earning money. At least for the first years.... They must be just pooping their pants if they go that far! Paying mothers!!!

But what are they so afraid of? Western culture disappearing? People looking a little less white? Languages dying out? Nobody there to cultivate a decent Bordeaux anymore?

Language always changes - as much as the Académie Française tries to keep French pure by forbidding the use of foreign words (and thereby making French an even more awkward language) youth culture will forever be stronger and push the limits. And, yes, that youth will increasingly consist of more and more second and third generation immigrants.

And with regards to our culinary tradition...most of the Bordeaux we drink nowadays isn’t even produced in France anymore, the same with pâté and Pinot and with regards to looks...well look again. A little stirr up would certainly not do any damage.

And what culture is that we are talking about? Countries around Europe seem to be in a race to shed their herritage. Six lane highways are criss crossing the country sides of France, Italy and Germany. Only the poorest regions get spared. Discounters and supermalls seem to have become the main point of attraction. The medieval towns in their forgotten midst are slowly falling to pieces. It’s not where the jobs are, you know.

So while we are slowly morphing into a more or less amorphous 21st century shape, I would say let’s hail any good idea from the outside - the Maghreb seems to be a place where things are happening...open the doors. Let’s just hold on to some of our legal and constitutional framework.

Like that we all might be better off in the end.