Richard Dawkins has set up the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. The directors are women. In the U.S. it is Karen Owens and in Britain it is Claire Enders.
http://richarddawkins.net/
founda...tion,ourMission
Oh dear, Echidne, I posted this on your blog by mistake. I'm at a computer from which I can't move it. Hope it's not unwelcome.
Bernarda, how nice. Dawkins is still wrong. "our Mission", sounds very religious in a victorian way.
She has also risen higher in power than anyone else with a name ending in a vowel in the history of the country.
If you count silent E's, I'd say this goes to either Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce, or Chief Justices John Rutledge, Salmon Chase, Morrison Waite, and Edward White.
If you're talking about non-silent vowels only, there's still Justices McKenna, Cardozo, Scalia, and Alito to consider.
Good point. I think this probably explains the fascination with her clothes, on top of the woman thing. I get the impression that the WASP-y giggling Heathers think that Italian-Americans wearing tasteful clothes is somehow wrong because it defies their prejudices.
Jeff, I never count silent e or y if it is preceeded by a real vowel. A vowel is pronounced.
Uh, olvlzl, not to be snarky but were you at a loss about what to blog today?
stucksanta, but your name ends in a vowel.
It was considered a big deal when Geraldine Ferrao was nominated for VP more than twenty years ago and there still hasn't been anyone with an Italian, Spanish, etc. name in a real leadership position in the Federal Government. My name says "Northern Europe" but I'm kind of happy to see this. I'll bet you nine-hundered words that it's just a matter of time before the Republicans come up with some phony "issue" structured around her ethnicity.
A final "y" is a pronounced vowel. Kerry and Barkley both end in the same vowel as Pelosi. It's just by accident that English words ending in /i/ are spelled with a "y" while Italian or Spanish words are spelled with an "i."
I think olvlzl has a good point. One of the mahor problems with winger mentality is the reflexive rejection of "the other." And it is being exploited by the nasties of the Repug party - the Rabid Right. "The other" is defined, usually, from an anglocentric male perspective. We can quibble about whether Kerry or Kennedy is the same or different in some structural or phonetic way; but certainly Pelosi expands our horizons past the edges of the British Isles.
Pelosi represents a kind of double threat to the idea of WASP male hegemony. Hence the louder shouting. I have every hope and expectation that Ms Pelosi will prove her mettle and good judgment, and that she will last long enough to make every reasonable American happy and proud of her leadership.
"there still hasn't been anyone with an Italian, Spanish, etc. name in a real leadership position in the Federal Government."
Well, there are two Italian-Americans sitting on the US Supreme Court (Scalia and Alito), an Irish-American (Kennedy)and two Jewish-Americans (Ginsburg and Breyer) - and Cardozo (a Portugese-American who was also Jewish) joined the court in 1932. Brandeis, the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, was appointed by Wilson in 1916. Aren't 7 of the current Supreme Court Justices non-Protestant? Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas are Catholic; Ginsburg and Breyer are Jewish. Only Souter and Stevens are WASPs.
Others:
Spiro Agnew (a disgusting person, but still Greek-American)
Mike Dukakis
John Podesta
Al Smith (who changed his name from Alfred Ferrara, his four grandparents were Irish, Italian, German and English)
William Brennan
Tip O'Neill
John Sununu
Henry Cisneros
Frederico Pena
Tony Coelho
Oscar Straus (Secretary of Commerce and Labor 1906-1909, first Jewish cabinet member)
I don't really think that Pelosi's (who is my own Congresswoman)Italian background is that notable or unusual.
"certainly Pelosi expands our horizons past the edges of the British Isles"
Um, Eisenhower?
The Continental Congress included Simon Boerum (Dutch), Frederick Frelinghuysen (Dutch), Ezra L'Hommedieu (French/Dutch), Frederick Muhlenberg (German), William Paca (Italian), Daniel Roberdeau (French Huegenot / Scottish), Philip Schuyler (Dutch) and John Zubly (German Swiss).
I've noticed a focus on Pelosi's eyes in a lot of vituperative commenting. One troll on Eschaton calls her bugeyes and Melanie Morgan said that the wingnuts are pointing their guns at Pelosi's wide and laughing eyes.
I'm not sure if this has anything to do with being Italian. I have big eyes, too, though nobody has called them bugeyes yet. More like limpid green pools to drown in, but then he tried to get into my bed.
Burritoboy: Don't forget Martin Van Buren, our Flemish president.
Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the first president who was not of English, Irish, or Scottish descent. He is also the only president not to have spoken English as his first language, but rather grew up speaking Dutch.
It could also be said that he was not born in the United States, since he was born during the Revolution.
So a good trivia question is "Which President was not born in the US and was not a native English speaker?"
However, the point about Italian-Americans in power is a good one. I bet it's only a matter of time before they start trying to link her to the Mafia.
Uh, James Monroe? Certainly the E is silent, but the O preceding it is not.
Henry Laurens, a French-American (though a French Protestant) was the third President (1777-177
of the Second Continental Congress, and thus effectively head of the government.
John Jay was also descended from a French Hugenot family, as well as being related to the prominent Dutch-American family the Van Cortlandts.
Muhlenberg was the first Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was educated in Germany, and his brother Peter was a Major General under Gen. Washington, as well as later becoming a Congressman and Senator himself.
I think you should have specified "last" or "family" name, since while "Nancy" ends with a vowel, so does the "Theodore" in "Theodore Sedgwick."
Pelosi is outstanding because she is from Baltimore. Just like Mikulski. Baltimore produces strong women candidates who are not wasps. They then proceed to kick ass. Which is awesome in its own right.
I second the Monroe comment. And what about Kennedy? And while you can debate whether or not names like Cheney and Jay and Clay end is vowels (they certainly end in a vowel sound and "ay" and "ey" are dipthongs (i.e. a form of vowel) not a vowel+silent consonant) there's no way around it: Monroe and Kennedy end in vowels both orthographically and phonologically.
Still -- the overall point about ethnicity is well-taken. Remember that Pelosi's maiden name is D'Allesandro, an even more ethnic surname than Pelosi. The bias against non-Anglo names is pervasive in politics, though I suspect that will wane as non-Anglos come to dominate the population (still, most blacks have Anglo names, which means that Anglo names do no have a direct link to specific ethnicity.)
Some years ago I read a study in which a political scientist, using the names of Presidents, developed a formula for calculating the acceptability of names to voters. It was pretty complicated, including all manners of morphemes and vowels, and I remember little of it except that names ending in the "on" or "en" are highly preferable (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Van Buren . . . all the way to Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton), and that two syllables are preferable to one. This is a clear instance of Anglo-preferability since so many english surnames end in "son" "on" or "en." (Van Buren, admittedly, was Dutch.) Names like Eisenhower and Roosevelt were tricky, and acceptable for reasons beyond the names themselves. One of the most damaging aspects of a name (along with having more than two syllables) was a terminal vowel sound. The study showed that applying the formula to Congressional races was pretty accurate. Which shows that ethnic bias is firmly rooted in our entire perception of a person's ability to lead.
Of course this may be linked as much to a desire for "sameness" (Congressional districts that are overwhelmingly Italian will elect Scarpettis and overwhelmingly Irish districts will elect O'Malleys, for instance, rather than a pervasive ethnic bias.)
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