Monday, March 17, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Guinness drops sponsorship of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade – CBS
CBS/AP March 17, 2014

NEW YORK - St. Patrick's Day festivities were in full swing Sunday with the usual merriment of bagpipes and beer, but political tensions lingered in the northeastern U.S., where city leaders and certain sponsors will be conspicuously absent from parades over gay rights issues.

On Sunday, Guinness announced that it would drop its sponsorship of the parade in New York City.

"Guinness has a strong history of supporting diversity and being an advocate for equality for all. We were hopeful that the policy of exclusion would be reversed for this year's parade. As this has not come to pass, Guinness has withdrawn its participation. We will continue to work with community leaders to ensure that future parades have an inclusionary policy," the beer company said in a statement.
Other beer companies have joined the boycotts, with Sam Adams withdrawing its sponsorship of Boston's parade and Heineken following suit in New York, reports CBS New York.

The move by Guinness was praised by GLAAD.
"Today, Guinness sent a strong message to its customers and employees: discrimination should never be celebrated," said GLAAD CEO & President Sarah Kate Ellis. "As a gay mom who has fond memories of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade, it saddens me that I can't give those same memories to my own kids because my family isn't welcome. Hopefully, as parade organizers realize that anti-LGBT discrimination is not supported by sponsors, or many Irish New Yorkers, they'll see that families like mine should be part of the celebration."

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio will become the first mayor in decades to sit out the traditional march Monday because parade organizers refuse to let participants carry pro-gay signs. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh wasn't marching in his city's parade Sunday, either, after talks broke down that would have allowed a gay group to march.
Still, thousands of green-clad spectators came out for the parade in Boston, and a similar scene played out in downtown Philadelphia.

In Georgia, the dome of Savannah's City Hall will be lit green, and several thousand people braved temperatures in the teens on Sunday to march with pipe and drum bands in Detroit and Bay City, Mich.

In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day provides the launch of the country's annual push for tourism, a big part of the rural economy.

"To Irish people by birth or descent, wherever they may be in the world, and to those who simply consider themselves to be friends of Ireland, I wish each and every one of you a happy, peaceful and authentically Irish St. Patrick's Day," Irish President Michael D. Higgins, the ceremonial head of state and guest of honor at Monday's parade in Dublin, said in a statement.

Ireland's head of government, Enda Kenny, became the first Irish prime minister to attend Boston's annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast Sunday.
But Kenny has resisted pressure, in both Ireland and America, to support the gay rights lobby's demand to have equal rights to parade on St. Patrick's Day and he planned to march Monday in New York.

"The St. Patrick's Day parade (in New York) is a parade about our Irishness and not about sexuality, and I would be happy to participate in it," he said in Dublin before leaving for a six-day trip to the U.S.

Parade organizers have said gay groups are not prohibited from marching, but are not allowed to carry gay-friendly signs or identify themselves as LGBT.

Some LGBT groups plan to protest the parade along Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Monday.
Other groups had planned to gather at the city's historically significant Stonewall Inn, where the gay rights movement was born, to dump Guinness beer from its shelves in protest of the beer company's parade sponsorship.

New York's parade, a tradition that predates the city itself, draws more than 1 million spectators and about 200,000 participants every March 17. It has long been a mandatory stop on the city's political trail, and will include marching bands, traditional Irish dancers and thousands of uniformed city workers.




The crowd at the parade numbers over a million people, and marchers, 200,000. I have always identified with being Irish, though we are actually Scotch Irish, or the Ulster Scots. Besides the number of people who identify in as being Irish, the Irish really know how to throw a party, and I think that must be the underlying reason for all the enthusiasm over the parade. According to Wikipedia the main difference between the Ulster Scots and people from the southern part of Ireland is that the Northern Ireland population consists mainly of Protestants of several denominations, whereas the rest of Ireland houses Roman Catholics.

As St. Patrick's Day is a Catholic holiday, it isn't surprising if the organizers of the parade prohibit Gay Rights demonstrators, since the Catholic Church is strongly against gay and lesbian activity, considering it a grave sin. People in the Protestant churches also tend to disapprove of it and be adamant about their views. I think the Ethical Humanists, Free Thinkers and those who simply have no religious beliefs are more likely to fully accept sexual differences and other social issues.

The LGBT movement is really a political group rather than a philosophy. I back them, because I believe they are born gay, or become gay so young that there is no way for them to change. Besides, I don't think everybody should have to be like me to be allowed basic rights. I don't think they should be stifled in the way they live life and “pursue happiness.” I believe LGBTs have true love matches and can remain loyal to each other as well as straight couples can, so their recent desire to form gay marriages makes sense to me. The days when sex was strictly for the purpose of procreation have gone, whether the churches like it or not.




Report: Many Americans intend to stay without health insurance – CBS
By Constantine von Hoffman MoneyWatch March 17, 2014

A third of Americans without health insurance intend to stay that way, according to a new report. Although the most common reason for doing without coverage is the expense, 70 percent of those planning to stay uninsured did not know about the subsidies afforded under Obamacare that reduce the cost.

The report by Bankrate.com shows that, despite the government's effort to promote the new health law, also called the Affordable Care Act, many Americans seem unfamiliar with key details of the program.

"This is a staggeringly high percentage," said Bankrate.com insurance analyst Doug Whiteman. "The government has spent over half a billion dollars promoting the Affordable Care Act, and more than two-thirds of uninsured Americans still don't know about the subsidies."

Some 46 percent of those surveyed also were unaware of the March 31 deadline for being insured.

Ignorance about the tax credits ran highest among Republicans and people in the West and South. More than 40 percent of people who identified themselves as Republicans said there are no tax credits to lessen the cost of insurance, compared with 20 percent of Democrats and 33 percent of independents. Slightly more than a third of those in both the West and South say the tax credits don't exist, compared with 25 percent in the Northeast and just 13 percent in the Midwest.

Some 17 percent said they weren't getting insurance because they opposed the ACA, making that the second-most common reason cited for skipping coverage. Half of the Republicans who plan to stay uninsured said this was the main reason, compared with only 5 percent of Democrats.

Among those between the ages of 18 and 29, nearly a third said they don't plan to obtain insurance because they're healthy and don't need it. Only 6 percent of respondents between the ages of 30 and 49 said that.

In the report, Deborah Chollet, a health insurance research leader at Mathematica Policy Research, said she thinks part of the problem is that the government focused too much on getting information about Obamacare out to those under the age of the 30.
"Low-income, young families may have been overlooked. They're probably not spending a lot of time watching television, they never read a newspaper and if they listen to radio it's probably music in the car," she is quoted as saying. "In communities of color, people might hear about [Obamacare] in church, but for people who are not attached to a church, I don't know how they get the information."




"Low-income, young families may have been overlooked. They're probably not spending a lot of time watching television, they never read a newspaper and if they listen to radio it's probably music in the car," said Deborah Chollet. If this is a typical example of how US citizens are keeping up with the world, it's no wonder they don't know about important issues before us. It is also not surprising that as many as 17% think they just don't need insurance. They don't think about the possibility of being injured in a car wreck or getting cancer.

The 40% of self-identified Republicans who claim that there are no tax credits to offset the cost of the insurance, especially in the ultra conservative West and South, does surprise me. Just because they don't agree with the law doesn't mean they should know nothing about it. I personally think that many very conservative people don't follow the news or try to be educated in general, so if they are uninformed that stands to reason. I think Progressives are more likely to read and learn after their schooling is over.

The fact that many of them didn't know that March 31 is the deadline is also a problem, though they still have time to qualify. I do hope that enough people will apply in the coming two weeks, especially among the young, for the plan to succeed. Those who don't think they can afford insurance also may not be able to afford the penalties for abstaining. I'm afraid there will be much economic pain if this attempt fails. It has cost so much to set it in motion, I fear a depression if it fails.




Obama announces sanctions against Russian officials after Crimea vote
By Rebecca Kaplan CBS News March 17, 2014

President Obama on Monday publicly condemned the results a referendum in the Crimean Peninsula to secede from Ukraine as illegitimate and announced his administration was pursuing sanctions against top Russian officials as a consequence.

"We're making it clear that there are consequences for their actions," the president said. And, he warned, "If Russia continues to interfere in Ukraine we stand ready to impose further sanctions."

The administration has maintained for weeks that the vote was a violation of the Ukrainian constitution and therefore illegitimate. In his statement from the White House Monday, the president said it would not be recognized by the international community.

"Continued Russian military intervention in Ukraine will only deepen Russia's diplomatic isolation," he said.

The new penalties build on an executive order from the White House earlier this month that imposed visa restrictions on pro-Russian opponents of the new government in Ukraine, bringing the total number of individuals facing sanctions to 11. Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the order described the targeted individuals as "cronies" of the Russian government and arms industry who had had taken a leading role in envisioning or implementing the referendum strategy, including former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

"Today's actions send a strong message to the Russian government that there are consequences for their actions that violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including their actions supporting the illegal referendum for Crimean separation," the White House said in a statement. A senior administration official later called the action, "far the most comprehensive sanctions applied to Russia since the end of the Cold War."

The European Union also announced Monday it would freeze assets of and ban travel for 21 officials in Russia and Ukraine. Although that list has not yet been released, a senior administration official indicated there would be some overlap between the two groups.

"We urge our counterparts and financial institutions around the world to shun these individuals," a senior administration official said.
Although the White House is using the sanctions to punish Russia, it is still seeking a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. After the results of the referendum Sunday - in which 97 percent of voters backed secession and an ultimate reunification with Russia - Mr. Obama spoke with Putin to reprimand him for supporting the referendum and say there could be no resolution so long as Russian troops continued to remain inside Ukraine and conduct military exercises on the border.

The president said Monday that that the U.S. would "calibrate" its response based on whether Russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the situation.

Mr. Putin has shown no willingness to back down, however, and is scheduled to address the Russian Federal Assembly Tuesday and is widely expected to recommend formal annexation of Crimea, according to the administration.

The Crimean Peninsula had been a part of Russia until Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the U.S.S.R., gave it to the Ukrainians in 1954 to mark the 300th anniversary of Russia's acquisition of Ukraine in the Treaty of Pereyaslav.
Vice President Biden is set to travel to Poland and Lithuania this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine with officials there.

The sanctions order targets:
- Vladislav Surkov, a Putin aide
- Sergey Glazyev, a Putin adviser
- Leonid Slutsky, a state Duma deputy
- Andrei Klishas, member of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation
- Valentina Matviyenko, head of the Federation Council
- Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation.
- Yelena Mizulina, a state Duma deputy





The freezing of assets and travel bans of the EU are the only specific measures mentioned in this article, along with a US travel restriction posed earlier this month. I wonder if it would help if we moved a warship or two and maybe some troops into Eastern Europe and did some military exercises of our own near the Ukraine borders. There is unrest inside Eastern Ukraine, too, during the last few days, with some of the pro-Russian population calling for Russia to send in “peace-keeping forces.” Maybe we need to get NATO to send some peace-keeping forces of our own into Western Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine would have to invite us in. I think Russia only respects force. That is their way of life.




Faith Salie: What's the reality behind "senior moments"?
CBS News March 16, 2014

Turning one of the minuses of aging into a plus is the task Faith Salie has assigned herself this morning:

I'm sure you remember the recent study that reveals that elderly brains slow down because older folks know so much. You kinda remember it? No?
Well, don't feel old; feel knowledgeable!

Scientists have discovered that, as we age, our brains act like computers with fuller and fuller hard drives. So when we're trying to recall a fact or a word or a name, it takes us longer, because -- to put it scientifically -- our brains hold a lot of "stuff."

Whippersnappers simply don't know as much, so their roomy brains find information with more -- oh, what's the word? Uhm ... alacrity! That's it!
You're not forgetting; you're sifting.

This should be of comfort to anyone entering middle age, or living in middle age, or who is middle age-adjacent.

And it might explain why, during this year's Oscars, John Travolta introduced actress and singer Idina Menzel as "Adele Dazeem."

Maybe it was a problem with his eyesight or with the TelePrompter. But John Travolta is getting old, despite what his hair is trying to tell us. He's an A-lister who's worked with lots of big names, so his 60-year-old brain had to rummage through Gabe Kaplan and Olivia Newton-John and Uma Thurman and Kirstie Alley to get to Adele Dazeem.

This full-brain theory also sheds a new light on politicians. For example, maybe Rick Perry, who seems poised to run again in 2016, knows a lot more than we thought. Barack Obama, too; his mental mainframe seems pretty stuffed. Hillary Clinton, too; her mental mainframe seems pretty stuffed.

So embrace those "senior moments" and start thinking of them as "seniority moments." You wouldn't want to take your hard-earned hard drive to some Genius Bar and have it wiped to make your brain faster, would you? Think of losing the name of your first grade teacher, or your favorite line of poetry, or any of those '70s movie quotes.
Look, I'm no scientist, but I'll dare extrapolate and say that it's pretty obvious that the more you struggle to recall something, the smarter you are!
Try to remember how brilliant you are the next time you can't find your glasses.


“You're not forgetting; you're sifting.” Given the fact that I can eventually come to the information I was searching my memory banks for, I think it probably really is a “sifting” process. The following refers to a study on this subject which gives some more information: http://www.ketknbc.com/news/new-study-suggests-an-elderly-brain-can-overload-o.

Tyler , TX (KETK) — As we get older we might have some "senior moments," and have trouble remembering things.  While some might've suggested this was because of old age, a new study says its all of the information an elderly brain holds that causes a brain overload and a decrease in memory.

These scientists believe the brain is like a computer, and the more information put into it, the slower it becomes.  "Our memories, our brains do age, they do change," said neuropsychologist Barry Rath.  He believes age does affect memory, but not because of the amount of information it stores.  "Our brains are much more complicated than computers, more directive, and proactive than a computer," said Rath.
Rath thinks its the process of finding the information that slows it down.  The more information we have, the more we may consolidate it and organize it.



This article, blaming the slow recall of specific facts, words or names on the way the brain has “consolidated and organized” its information, makes sense to me. When I get a multitude of files on my computer desktop so that I can't find what I want, I start setting up folders in which the individual files can fit. I have to be very careful to choose my headings by logic, or I won't remember later where I put my files. How I organize them is of crucial importance.

I must say, though, I have never had very good memory for names until I get to know the person, or in the case of an author or actor pay attention to their works. If I can't do a particular task soon I may forget about it. That's why I do make lists. I keep a miscellaneous paper file for information on things I have to do, and when I make a list I put it into my handbag. I try never to lay it down among other papers on a flat surface where one thing after the next will get piled on top.

When I can't think of the word that was just on the tip of my tongue to say, generally all I have to do is pause for several seconds and RELAX. Then I will shortly get access to the word in most cases. I will likely say, “Senior moment!” to the person I'm speaking to and if they are in my own age range they will understand and laugh. When I can't for the life of me think of the actor I really love, if my computer is on I just Google what I can remember about the movie he was in and hit search.

For the most part I can still function fully, and continue to explore and learn. I don't have to be on Jeopardy any time soon, so I will be fine. I have no doubt that my memory will eventually seriously decline, but hopefully not before I'm eighty or so, and I will be in a rest home by then. I have a theory that if I keep adding new information to my mind the process of new learning will keep the old memories “stirred up” and updated, so I can still make sense of the world reasonably well.




­The Dark History Of Green Food On St. Patrick's Day – NPR
by Maria Godoy
March 17, 2014
­
Green food may mean party time in America, where St. Patrick's Day has long been an excuse to break out the food dye. But in Ireland, where the Irish celebrate their patron saint on March 17, green food has bitter connotations that recall the nation's darkest chapter, says historian Christine Kinealy.

The reason, Kinealy explains, is the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, which forced so many Irish to flee mass starvation in their homeland in search of better times in America and elsewhere. Those who stayed behind turned to desperate measures.
"People were so deprived of food that they resorted to eating grass," Kinealy tells The Salt. "In Irish folk memory, they talk about people's mouths being green as they died."

At least a million Irish died in the span of six years, says Kinealy, the founding director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Which is why, for an Irishwoman like Kinealy, who hails from Dublin and County Mayo, the sight of green-tinged edibles intended as a joyous nod to Irish history can be jolting, she says.

"Before I came to America, I'd never seen a green bagel." She says. "For Irish-Americans, they think of dying food green, they think everything is happy. But really, in terms of the famine, this is very sad imagery."

Of course, Americans have long embraced St. Patrick's Day traditions that might bemuse the folks back in Ireland, where festivities are a lot more subdued, Kinealy notes.

For instance, St. Paddy's Day Parades? Those originated here in the late 1700s. (George Washington was known to give his Irish soldiers the day off so they could join the celebrations, she says.)

And that quintessential dish of the holiday, corned beef — it may be delicious, but it's most definitely not Irish.

As Smithsonian.com noted last year, in Gaelic Ireland, cows were a symbol of wealth and a sacred animal, kept more for their milk than their meat – which was only consumed once an animals' milking days were over. In the Irish diet, meat meant pork. It wasn't until Britain conquered most of Ireland that Irish "corned beef" came into existence — to satisfy the beef-loving English.

"Ironically, the ones producing the corned beef, the Irish people, could not afford beef or corned beef for themselves," Smithsonian notes.

Funny enough, the Irish didn't learn to love corned beef until coming to America – where they picked up the taste from their Jewish neighbors in the urban melting pot of New York City.

But these days, even the Irish back in the homeland have to come to accept this Irish-American dietary quirk, Kinealy says. As tourist season revs up and Americans head to the Emerald Isle to celebrate St. Paddy's Day, "a lot of pubs in Ireland will offer corned beef because they know the tourists like it. It's come full circle."




I have heard before that the Irish had to eat grass to fill their stomachs. The problem with having just one or two basic food staples, other than the lack of variety in vitamins that are available, is that if the supply fails, there will be starvation. One of the fears that I have about global warming is that drought will overcome most of the South and we won't be able to grow much in the way of crops. Of course we also may not have enough clean water to drink, unless we get ready to start desalinating ocean water and piping it inland.

With the very high population of the US today, food and water won't go very far in such a case. I can imagine a sci fi scenario of that sort with only the very wealthy being able to eat. Of course, now that I recall, that movie has already been made – Soylent Green. Check it out on the Internet if you haven't seen it. It was a really great story and powerful acting.




­Which Place Is More Sexist: The Middle East Or Latin America? – NPR
by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro
March 16, 2014
­
A semi-naked woman in a sequined Carnival costume. A veiled woman with only her eyes showing in a niqab. Two stereotypes of two vastly different regions — Latin America and the Middle East.

On the surface, these two images couldn't be more diametrically opposed. What could the two have in common, right? What a woman wears — or what she doesn't wear, in Brazil's case — is often interpreted as a sign of her emancipation. The veil, for many, is a symbol of female oppression; the right to wear a bikini, one of liberation.
As a woman and a foreigner who lived in Baghdad and Cairo and worked throughout the Middle East for years, I always felt the need to dress modestly and respectfully. Frankly, my recent move back to Latin America was initially a relief. Brazil is the land where less is more — and it was wonderful to put on whatever I wanted.

But underneath the sartorial differences, the Middle East and Latin America's most famously immodest country both impose their own burdens on women in the way they are treated and perceived.

On a recent balmy afternoon, I was sitting at a seafront kiosk watching Brazil's carnival coverage on the biggest broadcaster here, GLOBO. Suddenly, a naked woman popped onto the screen during a commercial break. She was wearing nothing. Literally nothing except a smile and some body glitter. Called the "globelleza," she is the symbol of GLOBO's festival coverage, and she appears at every commercial break.
Later programming showed a contest where women from various Samba schools — all of them black — were judged on their dancing and appearance by a panel that was all white. They all had their measurements read out for the crowd. But when one woman said she was studying at one of Brazil's premier petrochemical departments to eventually work in the oil and gas industry, the male judge smirked in surprise.

And that's the thing about Brazil: It has a female president, and women are well-represented in the work force. This isn't Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive, or Afghanistan under the Taliban, where women could not study.

And yet it is one of the most dangerous countries to be female in.
Statistics show that about every two hours a woman is murdered in Brazil, a country with the seventh highest rate of violence against women in the world.

This juxtaposition of sex and violence isn't new, according to Rosana Schwartz, a historian and sociologist at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo. Brazil imported more slaves than any other country in the Americas, and slavery was only abolished in 1888.

"The female slaves were used as sexual objects to initiate the master's son's sexuality or to satisfy him. And the result has been that until today, Brazilian women are seen in a sexist way, in a more sexualized way, because she was used as a sexual object for so long," Schwartz says.

The legacy still affects women of every class and race here.
In many parts of the the Middle East, however, women are mostly hidden away at home and, in the most traditional countries, are not allowed to have unsupervised contact with men outside their families. Female genital mutilation, where a woman has her clitoris removed, is still practiced in many parts of the Middle East.

Pressure To Conform
Brazilian women don't face the same kinds of restrictions.
In Brazil, women are second only to the U.S. in the amount of plastic surgeries they have and in the number of beauty products they consume.

In a recent article talking about vaginal reconstruction — yes, Brazil is a world leader in that cosmetic surgery, too — psychoanalyst Regina Navarro noted that there is a huge amount of pressure in Brazil to conform to an ideal.

"Women want to adapt to what they think men want," she told Brazil's Glamour magazine.
I recently spent some time at a leading international modeling agency in Sao Paulo. During the afternoon, waif-thin models came in with their amateur portfolios and big dreams. The girls were all in their early to mid-teens.

The main headhunter told me confidently that all young boys in Brazil wanted to be soccer stars, and all young women aspired to be models.

You can go to schools here and quickly learn that little girls are not encouraged to become the next Ronaldo. While Brazil is a global force in men's soccer, women's soccer in Brazil is almost nonexistent. But girls as young as 6 or 7 know which models are on the cover of magazines.

Which brings us to the recent controversy over Adidas. Clever marketers (presumably male) came up with two shirts that the World Cup sponsor was selling in advance of the games later this year.

One shows a woman in a bikini beside the slogan "Looking to Score in Brazil." The other says "I (Heart) Brazil," with the heart in the shape of a woman's backside in a thong bikini. After Brazil complained that the T-shirts were sexist, they were pulled.
But the objection smacked of selectivity, if not hypocrisy.

A column in Brazil's biggest daily, Folha de Sao Paulo, said: "Compared to the naked woman dancing on GLOBO TV every day during carnival, this is nothing. My 5-year-old daughter asked, 'Why is that woman dancing naked on TV, Dad?' And I had to explain that she was very warm. Our carnival coverage focuses exclusively on the female body, so by that standard these T-shirts are pretty tame."

The 2022 World Cup will be played in Qatar, a country that is not known for its sex appeal. Women's activists often target the Middle East for its policies toward women. But as living in Brazil has taught me, for women, even having all the freedom in the world can be its own cage.




Brazil, a country with the seventh highest rate of violence against women in the world, and with a woman being murdered every two hours, rivals the worst countries of the Middle East in the place of women. Women are viewed in a highly sexualized way in all segments of society rather than just among the poor, with violence going along with that. According to psychoanalyst Regina Navarro women are highly pressurized to conform to an ideal which the girls think is what men want. The dancer who said that she wanted to get a technical education in the oil industry was sneered at by the judge. At least that one young woman had a high goal for herself.

Brazil “has a female president, and women are well-represented in the work force” but most girls aspire only to be models, while most boys want to be soccer players. It sounds like neither sex wants to be scientists or achieve other highly intellectual goals, for the most part.

Unfortunately, that sounds like large segments of the US society, and I honestly think that is what holds the US students back from achieving very well in school. They are geared toward “bling” and status seeking rather than developing an enjoyment of learning, and so are their parents. We are too shallow as a society and we pass that tendency on to our children. Luckily most young women are not as sexualized here, I don't think. You certainly don't see nude women covered in sparkles on our television here, which apparently the populace there finds not the least bit disturbing.

There is still a definite “glass ceiling” in the pay scale for women in this country and in the best positions they can achieve on the job. The Hillary Clintons here in the US are exceptions to the rule. She is so assertive, intelligent and well-educated that she is almost formidable, and there are other strong women in national and state political offices, too. Still I would like to see more of that in business settings, where most of the women are still little more than secretaries today. I want to see more female CEOs and secretaries who make $40,000.00 a year like the men. Woman's place in society is an ongoing struggle in most countries, but at least we are conscious of it as a problem now.