Heads of State

Don’t Mess with Dilma tells a gripping story of Brazil’s President, Dilma Vana Rousseff, her much struggled but nevertheless thriving journey, in the September 26, 2011 issue of Newsweek (also featuring spotlight articles on Women in the World). When you read about another mortal who has lived through imprisonment, interrogation as well as torture for resisting military dictatorship (yes, torture, as in being whacked, hung upside down, electric-shocked, god knows what else were there!*) and continues to live-on to serve as the Head of State despite undergoing chemo treatments, it puts your misery and pessimism into perspective. Thanks to the need to pass time while procrastinating from job-hunting, I decided to compile a list of current female Heads of State.

During my search, I discovered that in some countries, the Head of State’s portfolio doesn’t necessarily include the role of, literally, governing the State. Take England for example, where Queen Elizabeth II is the de jure Head of State, but it is actually David Cameron and his cabinet who are really calling the shots. So, I revised the title of my list to 'The Current Women Leaders Who Exercise Executive Power Or Constitute The Unit That Wields Executive Power (i.e. Switzerland)' and found 20 of such women who run the shows:

1. Argentina - Cristina E. Fernández de Kirchner, President (December 2007 - current).
2. Australia - Julia Gillard, Prime Minister (June 2010 - current).
3. Brazil - Dilma Vana Rousseff, President (January 2011 - current).
4. Costa Rica - Laura Chinchilla Miranda, President (May 2010 - current).
5. Denmark - Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister (October 2011 - current).
6. Germany - Angela Merkel, Chancellor (November 2005 - current).
7. Iceland - Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Prime Minister (February 2009 - current)
8. India - Pratibha Patil, President (July 2007 - current).
9. Ireland - Mary McAleese, President (November 1997 - current)
10. Kosovo - Atifete Jahjaga, President (April 2011 - current)
11. Kyrgyzstan - Roza Otunbayeva, President (April 2010 - current)
12. Liberia - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President (January 2006 - current)
13. Lithuania - Dalia Grybauskaitė, President (July 2009 - current)
14. Slovakia - Iveta Radičová, Prime Minister (8 July 2010 - current)
15. Switzerland - Micheline Calmy-Rey, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (January 2003 - current).
16. Switzerland - Doris Leuthard, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (August 2006 - current).
17. Switzerland - Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (January 2008 - current).
18. Switzerland - Simonetta Sommaruga, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (November 2010 - current).
19. Thailand - Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister (August 2011 - current).
20. Trinidad and Tobago - Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister (May 2010 - current)

Sure it took 160 years (since the first wave of feminist movements) for ladies to constitute about 9.9% of the world’s total political leaders, hopefully it'll take lesser than another 160 years for that amount to double, if not, triple.

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On another note...

Just earlier, I attended a career/motivational talk, Bosses in Heels, at the Intercontinental Hotel. The audience were asked a question...

Speaker: How many current female Heads of State are there in the world?
Me: [Cognition in process: By Heads of State, I think she meant female political leaders who rock'n'roll the show. It’ll be unfair for Queen E II to be one half of Australia’s Head of State - the other half is shared with the Governor General - while Julia Gillard gets criticized and disliked for running the country; c’mon, the Aussies even made a TV production on her with explicit scenes...Right!) 20.
Speaker: 20? [Looked my way] You’re ahead of your time. Anyone else?
Random dude: 1!
Speaker: There are actually about 9 current female Heads of State in the world and, of course, there will more emerging from the African countries.
Me: [Sad face - what's wrong with my '20?' Think, what would Dilma Rousseff do?].

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Footnote
* ...which also makes one wonder if Prime Ministers, Presidents and other political leaders would eagerly step up to their positions if the job requirements include ‘a minimum of 3 years experience being underprivileged, humiliatingly deprived, oppressed, battered, broiled and fried alive, but managed to gracefully rise above the living hell for the sake of the nation.’ Nonetheless, we have seen an exceptional character as such (take a guess first before clicking on the link to find out who this person is). You've gotta love this one.

Appalled.

I saw this cat leashed to a cage at the apartment block where I live. It stayed there like that for about an afternoon. I’m pretty positive that its owners are the family who lives 2 floors beneath us. And yes, the owners were at home, indoors, dwelling at about 7 feet away from the cat and the cage.

I could empathize if you were walking your cat on a street and had to pop into the video rental store to return some DVDs, which would validate your need to leash your cat to the nearest tree or lamppost. But having it leashed to a cage, where it probably sleeps, and leaving it within close proximity outside of your own compound?

Unbelievable.

What also baffles me is that the building’s rules actually prohibit pets.

What gives?!

The Malaysian Cuisine

Here're the long requested and awaited shots of food from Malaysia. Some of you might not be used to images of food like these ones, but fear not! They're very succulent (uber fresh seafood!), highly palatable and, needless to say, extremely appetizing; there weren't enough of them to go around even after we had ordered extras.

Behold! The Steamed Clams at Taiping. These babies won't hit you as impressive until you've sucked them in from their shells together with bits of the rice wine sauce.
Refreshing!

Unlike Taiping, Penang or Kg. Sg. Batang, Cameron Highlands is hardly known for its culinary landscape, except for this snack, the Glutinous Chicken Rice. One mustn't underestimate this measly lump of sticky rice. They take up to 3 hours to prepare and less than 15 minutes to be sold out!

Squiggly octopuses at Kg. Sg. Batang. We didn't even look at the menu for this dish. We simply walked into the restaurant (more like a shack), saw what the other table was having and ordered the same thing. I don't even know what this dish is called. What I do know is that the octopuses were amazing with the peanut-chilli sauce!

When done or cooked right, the Oh-Jian (fried muscles with egg) is one of the most addictive dishes that you can find in South-East and East Asia. There is no secret to preparing this dish other than using fresh muscles and eggs (without over-cooking them); anything stale would conjure the yuck-monster, which should never be a part of any dish.

These unfriendly, alien looking fruits are known as durians. A durian connoisseur (my dad) would tell you that the goodness of a durian can be determined from the pungency and bitterness of the fruit. In other words, the more intensely these fruits display the signs of "I'm smelly and bitter tasting, please don't eat me," the more likely they will get eaten, savoured and appreciated in memory.

The durians' guts...which I don't even have a word for...anyone?