Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Human Progress is a lovely thing

The Kuwaiti cabinet decided, without warning anyone, apparently, to push through a bill granting Kuwaiti women full political rights -- voting, officeholding -- and it passed by a substantial margin. Yeah, the Islamist parties got a "obey Sharia" clause put in, but that probably won't mean more than separate polling places, in practical terms. Sometimes life surprises you in nice ways. Nothing makes me smile quite like watching democracy and freedom grow... even just a little. [Update: Here's another take, and here's some of what's left to be done]

It takes a little of the sting away. (and if you thought that stung, here's what they left out. It is impossible to trust this administration or its allies on anything.)

Speaking of Democracy and Freedom, the Chinese government just cancelled a democracy conference "apparently because it was too close to the June 4 anniversary of Beijing's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations..." They just noticed? This thing's been scheduled for a while now.....

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