Happy International Women's Day Open Thread.

Bjork, that scamp, has managed to cheese off the Chinese:

SHANGHAI (AFP) March 7 - China pledged Friday to impose tougher curbs on foreign artists after pop star Bjork sang in support of Tibetan independence in Shanghai, warning similar actions could lead to them being blacklisted.

“We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on its website.

“We shall never tolerate any attempt to separate Tibet from China and will no longer welcome any artists who deliberately do this.”

A video on the Internet site YouTube shows the Icelandic singer closing out her concert in China’s financial hub last Sunday with the song: “Declare Independence,” during which she yelled “Tibet!” several times.

Communist China has ruled Tibet since 1951, after sending in troops to officially “liberate” the devoutly Buddhist region a year earlier.

“Some artist deliberately turned a commercial show into a political performance, which not only broke Chinese law, but also hurt Chinese audiences’ feelings,” the statement said.

The rest of the article is here.

Boy, I cannot tell you how much I’m bothered by the idea that Bjork “hurt the feelings” of the “people” (read: dictatorial, oppressive, brutal regime) of China when she did this. Makes me just wanna… sing.

Bjork: “Declare Independence.”

You go, grrrrl.

And Happy International Women's Day to unruly women everywhere.