NZ Prime Minister Pregnant

It's an elegant circle that starts with NZ being the first country in the world in which all women had the right to vote...continues with Ardern's election as prime minister in 2017... and now this.

Why does it matter? For heaven's sake, pregnant women used to have to go into confinement. Now they can run countries! (Plus, stay-at-home dads.)

“I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby,” Ardern said in a news conference Friday. “We are going to make this work, and New Zealand is going to help us raise our first child.”

Via Ardern's twitter...
We thought 2017 was a big year! This year we’ll join the many parents who wear two hats. I’ll be PM & a mum while Clarke will be “first man of fishing” & stay at home dad. There will be lots of questions (I can assure you we have a plan all ready to go!) but for now bring on 2018

Via Jezebel...
Ardern will take six weeks maternity leave, then return to her post. To those who have questioned her ability to work and be a new mom, Ardern said, “None of them detected I had pretty bad morning sickness for three months of establishing the government.” Hell yeah.

And finally, via BBC...
Ms Ardern, 37, is now set to be the second elected world leader to give birth while in office - and the first to do so in almost 30 years. In 1990, Benazir Bhutto gave birth to a daughter while serving as Pakistan's prime minister - in what was reported to be a first for an elected leader, rather than royal families.

For more on NZ's impressive record on women's rights and a video of Ardern's announcement, click here.

Vulnerable, Entitlement, Diversity, Transgender, Fetus, Evidence-based, Science-based

These are all important words, but apparently the CDC is no longer permitted to speak or write them. So I will, as often as possible in these increasingly repressive United States.

Policy analysts working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told on Thursday about a list of forbidden words being imposed by senior CDC officials, according to a report in The Washington Post. The forbidden words are reportedly “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.”

More here.

Little Barrier Island - New Zealand's Ark

No, New Zealand is not in the ‘poisonous grip’ of the far right

Via the Washington Post, a rebuttal...
So imagine the consternation when The Washington Post ran a column titled “How the far right is poisoning New Zealand.” Numerous journalists, commentators and politicians took to social media to express degrees of horror and ridicule. How could the “far right” have poisoned this country without any of us noticing, they asked. Some mocked it as satire-in-drag and “breathlessly ridiculous.”

...to this Nov 8 piece: How the far right is poisoning New Zealand.

Great Barrier First Island To Be Designated Dark Sky Sanctuary

Via The Telegraph...
This island of steep forested hills, wetlands and sweeping white-sand bays is completely off grid. All the residents are responsible for supplying their own power through solar, wind or gas. There are no billboards or street lights. And the complete lack of light pollution makes for a very sparkly stratosphere. 

We tried like crazy to get there toward the end of our North Island visit, but it was not to be. In 2019 I'm thinking we'll land in Auckland and fly directly there.

The Milky Way, seen from Great Barrier 

Credit: The Renegade Peach Project/Mark Russell

Jacinda Ardern New Zealand's Youngest Prime Minister in 150 Years

After an agonising day of waiting Peters announced he would support Labour because the global environment was undergoing rapid and seismic change, and he believed a Labour government was best-placed to handle the social and economic welfare of New Zealanders. 

More here from The Guardian.

Photograph: Michael Bradley/AFP/Getty Images 

Also via the Guardian... 

Who is New Zealand's new prime minister? A profile of Jacinda Ardern

Kakapo: Every One Of These Endearing Parrots Will Have Its Genome Sequenced

Via The Atlantic (full story here)...
When humans first settled in New Zealand in the 13th century, they found a wonderland of strange creatures—including a green, bumbling parrot with the face of an owl and the mien of an old gentleman. That was the kakapo—the world’s largest parrot, and its only flightless one. It had a set of endearing traits—a disc of whisker-like facial feathers, a ponderous slow-motion gait, and a habit of awkwardly climbing trees with its beak and large wings—that made it easy to love. It also had a set of unfortunate traits—an inability to fly, a naïveté toward danger, a distinctive earthy smell, and a habit of freezing when threatened—that make it easy to kill.

...the kakapo—once thought extinct—is one of the most thoroughly studied animals on the planet. Every single one of the last 153 kakapos on the planet is known to researchers. Every one carries a radio transmitter, so scientists know its position, as well as its movements and sex life.

And speaking of the sex lives of kakapo, please do not miss this video (click here to see if reading in email).