I don't know if the death of Anita Roddick is in danger of coming under the definition from my last post of being merely a 'human interest' story. Even if her passing doesn't meet my strict definition of 'proper news', her life certainly did. It's 32 years after the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in the UK and still board directors of big companies are virtually all men. Either women aren't up to the job or the men aren't inviting the women to join them on the board. You can make up your own mind on that, but 32 years is a long darn time and Anita Roddick's success is one reason to think it's discrimination and not lack of ability that's holding women back. And not only was Ms. Roddick's career good for women in general, it was good for the planet too. Body Shop have done a lot to make people think about recycling, fair trade, the environment - all of those things we shouldn't need to be prompted about. It's pretty clear that the world is worse off without Anita Roddick in it, even for those who didn't know her.