On Tuesday Senator Gloria Orwoba of UDA was kicked out of the Senate for having blood stains on her white trouser suit.
She was thrown out after complaints from her fellow senators and asked to return dressed in clean clothes.
This was a publicity stunt. The 'blood' was actually artificial colouring. The senator is pushing a motion for all girls in school to get free sanitary pads.
If the blood was real, and she indeed had had a menstrual accident, she should not have been thrown out. That would have been discriminatory.
In reality, the senator was practising effective advocacy. She wanted to get her message across. The outrage of her fellow senators clearly demonstrated the stigma that schoolgirls suffer when they have genuine accidents. In that sense, Orwoba was successful.
But since the blood was fake, was she abusing the protocol and image of the Senate? Yes, she was.
Nevertheless evicting her from the House was too extreme a punishment for what could have been a genuine accident. Such publicity stunts should not become common practice but the Speaker should have merely cautioned the senator that she should not try such a trick again.
Quote of the day: "The revolution is carried out by means of one's thought, not through one's family background."
Kim Jong-il
North Korea's 2nd Supreme Leader was born on February 16, 1941
