What the Falklands, Argentina? #FdAdFriday

Oh, my. Argentina really is poking the bear. (Or rather, the bulldog.)

In this new spot for Argentina's Olympic team, field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg run through the Falklands, and (according to Yahoo! News) ends his workout "on the island's Great War Memorial, which honours British sailors who died in World War I".

The tagline then claims the islands as "Argentine soil"...

For those of you not born yet 30 years ago, at the time Great Britain and Argentina went to war over the desolate British territorial islands off the southern coast of South America. 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders died during the conflict, which the Brits won.

Argentina has never given up its claim to the islands, however, and has been making increasingly threatening statements about having another go at them.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was unimpressed by this attempt to politicize the Olympics:

"Of course in Britain we remain absolutely steadfast in our support for the self determination of the Falkland Islanders and we will always support that," he added.

"It is a rather sad stunt, it won't impress anybody in the world. We are not do going to take any actual action in response to it."

Barbie 2012

Cross-posted at Sociological Images

Barbie is running for President of The United States of America... again.

The candidate as Euro-American.

She even has a campaign Tumblr. But what is her platform?

Okay, so she's not taking any strong stands on the GOP's War on Women's reproductive rights. But she did come up with a totally awesome nickname for her campaign ("Glam-paign"). 

Apparently, however, candidate Barbie will do something no other candidate can: she will bridge the racial divide in America by morphing herself into four different ethnicities!

The candidate as African American, Asian American and Latina(?) American.

Yes, I get that this is a toy. And the Miss-America-style platitudes are to be expected from a company that wants to sell to both sides of the political divide. But it's a shame that girls don't get a chance to see that women really can change the world.

This week, Malawi swore in Southern Africa's first female head of a country. She wasn't elected as such, but as Vice President took the position after President Bingu wa Mutharika died in office. (A scenario that could have happened with Sarah Palin, had John McCain won the Presidency.)

Other women currently heading states and countries are:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - President of Liberia
Doris Leuthard, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Simonetta Sommaruga - Members of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland
Pratibha Patil - President of India
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - President of Argentina
Dalia Grybauskaitė - President of Lithuania
Laura Chinchilla - President of Costa Rica
Dilma Rousseff - President of Brazil
Atifete Jahjaga - President of Kosovo
Monique Ohsan Bellepeau - Acting President of Mauritius
Slavica Đukić Dejanović - Acting President of Serbia

And:

Angela Merkel – Chancellor of Germany
Julia Gillard - PM of Australia
Yingluck Shinawatra – PM of Thailand
Helle Thorning-Schmidt – PM of Denmark
Portia Simpson-Miller – PM of Jamaica
Kamla Persad-Bissessar – PM of Trinidad and Tobago
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir – PM of Iceland (Appointed)
Hasina Wazed – PM of Bangladesh 

The United States has yet to elect a woman to the position. And while Canada has had two appointed female Vice-Regents, we have yet to elect a woman to the Prime Minister's Office. (Kim Campbell was nominated for the position directly by her party.)

So perhaps it's time for Barbie, who has been in every federal election since 1992, to campaign a little harder. Or for North American countries to catch up with the rest of the world and nominate and elect a woman of substance who isn't seen as just "another Barbie".