These things are so unrelated
Firstly, I just have to flesh out yesterday’s post a little bit by mentioning that Tobias’ office oversaw the charge to cut off funding to US anti-AIDS groups that worked with prostitutes. It would stand to reason that prostitutes would be at high risk for both contracting and transmitting HIV/AIDS without access and education about condoms. Working with sex workers to limit their contact with the virus and their risk of transmitting it would also make sense, but, like many Bush policies, it we don’t like it, it doesn’t exist.
Tobias also apparently oversaw:
highly successful relationship and anti-violence programs aimed at men and boys to help them develop healthy relationships with women.
The mind boggles with jokes.
h/t: ThinkProgress
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In other news, I haven’t written anything personal for a while and I know your desire to indulge me in my narcissism is at an all-time high.
As you must surely know by now, I’m in the midst of writing a history of eight women who signed a petition for women’s suffrage in 1891 in North Carlton. I’ve been searching through wills, probate files, old microfilms of The Age and stuff for weeks. People in the 1890s were surprisingly hilarious.
Two excerpts. The first is from The Sun after James Munro, the Premier, introduced the bill for women’s suffrage, along with the petition:
The ladies owe a debt of undying gratitude to the Premier for the almost pathetic manner in which he pleaded their right to vote, on Tuesday night, and especially for his convincing poetic quotation… Without a doubt this alone would have won the day, but for that sad wag, G. D. Carter, who immediately capped it with [another poem].
I think you might be able to argue that they’re serious, but everything about that quote smacks of sarcasm to me. If they had said ‘pathetic’ they might have meant “with sympathy,” but the ‘almost’ really just makes it amazing.
Secondly, this is an extract from Jessie’s will. She’s pretty much my favorite of the women, in part, because her will is… quite specific. While Alexandra May got the piano and Olive the dining room table, William James could only receive his portion of the inheritance after the twenty-six pounds he owed his brother Stanley Adam had been deducted. Jessie wrote:
‘… such deduction is a condition to my said son William James Ferguson receiving anything under my will and not subject to any objection by him.
SNAP!
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