Toastmasters Honors Successful Women on International Women's Day

Shurooq AlBanna competes in Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking (PRNewsFoto/Toastmasters International)

In honor of International Women's Day on March 8, Toastmasters International salutes women around the world. More than half of the organization's 332,000-plus members are females who join Toastmasters to become more confident speakers and leaders.

During her tenure as Toastmasters' first female International President from 1985-86, the late Helen Blanchard, a former civilian Navy manager, encouraged women to "commit to excellence." The trailblazer, who broke barriers in Toastmasters and in the workplace at a time when few women were leaders, said she lived by that motto. "Committing to excellence is not about something you put on. It's about something you bring out. By doing the very best I could do in any situation, it always led to better opportunities," said Blanchard.

Golden Globe Nominee Caitriona Balfe Joins Cast of 'Trust No One'

Kassianides and Caitriona Balfe taken from Simon Kassianides' instagram. Caitriona is staring in Kassianides' new movie 'Trust No One'. (PRNewsFoto/Trust No One)

Caitriona Balfe, winner of a Saturn Award and and Golden Globe nomination for her role asClaire Beauchamp in Outlander, is joining a star cast of young actors making an action/thriller movie funded through Kickstarter.

Live And Let Die: Did Michel Foucault Predict Europe's Refugee Crisis?

Asylum seekers are held at the Macedonian border. EPA/Georgi Licovski

By Stephane J Baele, University of Exeter

In March 1976, philosopher Michel Foucault described the advent of a new logic of government, specific to Western liberal societies. He called it biopolitics. States were becoming obsessed with the health and wellbeing of their populations.

And sure enough, 40 years later, Western states rarely have been more busy promoting healthy food, banning tobacco, regulating alcohol, organising breast cancer checks, or churning out information on the risk probabilities of this or that disease.

Foucault never claimed this was a bad trend – it saves lives after all. But he did warn that paying so much attention to the health and wealth of one population necessitates the exclusion of those who are not entitled to – and are perceived to endanger – this health maximisation programme.

Biopolitics is therefore the politics of live and let die. The more a state focuses on its own population, the more it creates the conditions of possibility for others to die, “exposing people to death, increasing the risk of death for some people”.

Rarely has this paradox been more apparent than in the crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum in Europe over the past few years. It is striking to watch European societies investing so much in health at home and, at the same time, erecting ever more impermeable legal and material barriers to keep refugees at bay, actively contributing to human deaths.

The One:12 Collective Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice Wows Collectors

The new line of collector-grade, super articulated action figures from The One:12 Collective is a "game changer" according to collectors. (PRNewsFoto/Mezco Toyz)

During their annual Toy Fair Preview at their world headquarters in New York last week, Mezco revealed their latest additions to The One:12 Collective, Batman and Superman from the Dawn Of Justice.

Why Leonardo Da Vinci Would Have Aced The Internet Cat Craze

By Gabriele Neher, University of Nottingham

Leonardo da Vinci may have been ahead of the curve in aerodynamics, anatomy and mechanics, but he also possessed an incredible foresight for another modern staple: cat obsessions.