Boys will be idiots

It’s been a weird week or so in the world of men and women in the, um, world. I know I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m a little befuddled by some recent news reports out of the United Nations.

It seems that Iceland and Suriname have announced that they’re hosting a conference on gender equality, to be held in January 2015. 

For men only.

Okay, look—you know I’m not making that up, don’t you?

No, no—Iceland’s Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi said, “We want to bring men and boys to the table on gender equality in a positive way.” He described it as a “Barbershop conference”, and promised “a unique conference, as it will be the first time at the United Nations that we bring together only men leaders to discuss gender equality.”

Well, where to start? Where to start?

What, exactly, does “in a positive way” mean in this context? And by including only men (and boys—I wonder a little about that), is the implication that women (much less girls) sitting around the metaphorical gender equality table would somehow produce something less than positive? Negative, even?

Is “barbershop” some new code word for “XY only”? Are they planning on breaking out into song, or trimming a little off the sides?

I can’t find where they say this anywhere, but are they afraid that if they let women in, they might have expectations of, you know, contributing to the discussion; put forward ideas, recount experiences, that sort of thing? Does that really make world leaders’ blood run cold?

Is the concern that with women in attendance the men (and boys) might not get a word in edgewise, because you know those gals can gab? Or that any attempts at condescension and other forms of testosterone-powered bullshit will be driven from the stage by shrill catcalls?

Perhaps they feel that they need to get their Y-chromosome stories in synch for when they emerge smiling through the conclave's white smoke to dictate to everyone in the world what gender equality looks like, and how and when it will be achieved? Or they just think that 50 percent of the population shouldn’t worry its pretty little head about this stuff because they have it in (strong, male) hand?

And, P.S. What’s up with Suriname being one of the sponsors? I mean, I understand why Saudi Arabia might not be leading the charge on this one; or India; or Serbia. I’m just…Suriname?

Finally—a global conference on gender equality without one of the genders present? And not only conceiving it, but announcing it with such panache, like you’re expecting nothing but kudos for the idea? Guys—what were you thinking? Could you possibly—any way at all—have been using the wrong head for this one?

Was there no female around—mother, mistress, manicurist, money manager—you could have run this by; ask, “So whaddaya think, Babycakes—cool, huh?” Or did you get that far and then just ignored the incredulous guffaws that ensued?

Well, evidently the reaction from pretty much anyone with three synapses firing in sequence has got our Suriname and Icelandic menfolk to backpedal with some degree of urgency. They have graciously condescended to amend their original plans to include allowing women (no mention of girls) to attend the conference on gender equality. Although not all the meetings.

Of course, it may just be that they were suddenly struck by the horrified realization that with nothing but males at a conference, there’ll be no one to fetch the coffees. It’s stuff like that that prods some men to action, sad to say

Where the outlines are clear

Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks, and it’s only Thursday. I’m going to try some music.

Shadows of the past

These remarkable photographs, via The Guardian, first appeared around the 70^th Anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings. But I’m still exploring them.

They’re interactive then-and-now photos, with the 1944 image superimposed over a current shot taken of the same location. Click on an image and drag your mouse. The 70-year old picture will fade to front, replacing the present-day one.

I can’t embed the interactive images here, so I’ll just give you a couple of them.

Mechanized hive of activity on Omaha Beach (near Colleville-sur Mer), 1944:

  

And now:

Royal Marine Commandos coming ashore on Juno Beach (I first thought they weren't wearing helmets, but on closer examination, what looked like berets probably are helmets, so, carry on, lads):

And the beach this year:

I love it that photographers went out and took pictures from the same point of view as the ones shot 70 years ago. Not recreating the image, updating it. I also love that so many of the 1944 photos show buildings and roads that have been pounded by artillery and other man-made disasters have been reconstructed and are still in use.

I come from Los Angeles, a place that famously doesn’t much care about the past and regularly rips down residential and commercial structures to build something completely different. So it pleases me to know that the French basically flipped both the Germans and the Allies the bird and rebuilt things just as they liked them.

Yeah, maybe it shows a little trace of reluctance to move on, but it works for them.

(I saw a lot of this in the parts of France that had been leveled between 1914-1918. Arras, Amiens, Verdun, Reims, Soissons: there’s a continuity to their architecture—particularly in Flanders—that is indicative of a refusal to be defined by destruction.)

And I also love that there are applications now that allow these sites to superimpose one image over the other and give the viewer the power to switch between them. Because it's so much more powerful to view the transition between past and present.

The Atlantic also has some of these photos, along with a lot more. Their interface doesn't give you quite as magical a transition, but visit their page and see if you aren’t stopped in your tracks, too.

Eco economy

The board of the condo complex where I live has changed landscape services. I suspect the decision was based solely on cost, because the other guys did a great job. Not only were they efficient at tidying up the common areas and pruning shrubbery around the parking lot, but they also planted and tended annuals.

There was a team of about four to six (depending on activities planned, I guess) out here every Tuesday morning. An hour of leaf blowing, then the trimming and the like, and then on to their next regular gig. On days when they were swapping out the annuals, they’d be here a little longer, but they weren’t running their leaf blowers constantly.

The new service, which comes midday on Mondays, consists of one middle-aged Caucasian guy with a canvas hat, a notepad and a supervisorial attitude, and one Latino with the leaf blower. Because it’s only him doing the actual, you know, work, that roar goes for about three hours, with the attendant gas fumes. I don’t know how it works out, but most of the leaves must be at my end of the area, because it’s right outside my bedroom window for all that time. It's like living in an oil refinery.

I notice that they’ve stopped the practice of putting in the annuals; instead the areas under the trees are just dry patches of hard dirt. Very fetching. Not.

But I’m sure the board got the lowest bid possible, so they must be happy.

Gratitude Monday: Feathered friends

One of the things for which I’m really grateful is that, to a large extent, there’s a co-existence between the various forms of wildlife here in the Valley they call Silicon. By which I mean that you find the furred and feathered set right next to the geeks and freaks.

One example is a pair of ducks that has chosen an office building in Mountain View to hatch its brood for several years. The building (which I’ve mentioned for less feel-good reasons) probably dates from the 70s or 80s. It’s constructed in an irregular fashion around an open-air atrium, which is landscaped with a faux pond and stream. I suppose in flusher times, there was water constantly flowing from the fountain at one end, but I haven’t seen that in the three years I’ve occasionally visited the place. And given our drought, I’m surprised any is left at all, and that the place is not teeming with mosquitos.

But although it’s often sludgy, evidently there’s enough water to suit the ducks, and they can hide their nest in the shrubbery, which probably doesn’t get disturbed that often by any gardeners.

I don’t know when they arrived this year, but in May, I first saw Mama and her seven lovely chicks:

You’ll notice that Mama keeps close tabs on the fuzzballs, and she never once lets me out of her glare. If her wings ran to fingers, she’d be giving me that “I got eyes on you” gesture.

A few weeks later, we were down to six babies, and a while after that, there were only two.

I was sitting on one of the benches across the water one day, occasionally taking pictures of the birds on the pond and listening to one of the office holders blaring into his mobile phone on the balcony—evidently he’s quite the yachtsman and had several outings in the works. Anyway, when he finally hung up, he and I chatted about the seasonal residents.

The cap’n thought that crows likely got the small ducklings—other predators wouldn’t be able to get in at ground level, because you need opposable thumbs at height to open the doors, and raccoons or cats would be unlikely to draft on human traffic. Must have been something fierce, though, to overpower Mama.

He also said that they put out oats for the family to supplement whatever the largely absent Papa brings them. “We looked up on the Internet; they can eat oats.”

The surviving ducklings seemed to do well—appear to be females to me, but all I have to go by is that they look like Mama.

They left last month, although I’m told that one more fell victim to some sort of predator, so it was just Mama and one. Kind of a high mortality rate.

But—I have to say that it’s been quite a nice experience to follow the little family for four months, and to know that their human neighbors were looking out for them in a non-invasive NorCal kind of way.

I’m grateful for that.