Ash Wednesday

It's cold, wet and generally rather miserable out and I have to go out again, and out again to work to boot. This is shaping up to be rather a relentless week.

My Ash Wednesday reading matter exhorts me to think about my own death. I frequently do, I mean, who doesn't? Sometimes I see myself as an incredibly old woman, waiting patiently for death, like the Captain of the ship who sees all pass to the other side before she can disembark.
Then when I walk to work I imagine death is imminent.
And I wonder if I have already done what I was sent here to do.

On a lighter, brighter note, the F-Word points us to statistics that claim there is a war on women.
Quoting from that post, Laura Woodhouse says,

"Worldwide, male violence against women is the cause of more deaths and disability around the world in 15- to 44-year-olds than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined."

And yet people still refuse to believe that there is a problem or that it matters, but it is an abomination.

The rights of women in Muslim countries are always up for debate, but Turkey, a secular Muslim state, have long since banned the wearing of the headscarf in universities, fearing it might open them up to fundamentalist abuse.
Now that fear is moving them to protest since the government plans to ease the ban. Their argument is that at present, some women are kept out of Higher Education because their families won't allow them to go if they are not allowed to cover their heads.
It looks like rather circular thinking to me, surely the problem is with the families of these women and more should be done to take control away from them than to appease them in this way.
I guess that's pretty much what the Turks feel too.