For those who feel conservative circles don't have anything against women, I give you this: “In the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.” This guy appears on Sean Hannity's show. Thanks, Fox "News." At this point, I don't know how any female can bring themselves to support conservative politics. It's against their best interest, frankly. Note that I believe women have a right to support whatever politics appeals to them. Women are people. Period. However, current events make me wonder how female conservatives can manage the mental math. It really sucks.

Sigrid Ellis talks about women's roles in history being deleted and a cache of fairy tales discovered in Germany. Interestingly enough, stories in which female heros were active, boys were passive, mothers lived and fathers weren't blind to evil were "lost." They also appear to be the tales of "...the genderqueer, the non-conformative, the challenging, the transgressive."

Ten ways to inspire women gearheads over at Jalopnik is after my own heart. I am a gearhead. I may not be as much a gearhead as some of my characters, mind you, but I am a gearhead. Racing school totally rules, let's just say. More women should race. Alas, it's expensive. (As you can imagine.) Otherwise, I'd be all over that. A lot. Like, every weekend I could manage.

Lastly, my friend Courtney Stoker's tumbler account had a couple of thoughtful points in it that I wanted to bring to light. The first is about racism discussions and the second is an unlikely connection between Star Trek Voyager, an actress' divorce from a controlling husband, and the election of President Obama. It just makes me smile.

Oh, okay. I'm just going to add this last link because I think it's important to think about. "Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85%" Repeat after me: negative reinforcement does not work the way you think it does. In fact, it is far less efficient than positive reinforcement. The proof is in the results. People are complex beings. Sometimes we forget that. When I hear about six year olds being arrested and booked for disrupting class it's proof that this whole "get tough" stance has failed. In addition, those corporations that make scholastic tests designed to discover how effective schools are? Yeah, funny thing. They're motivated by... profit. Yep. And suddenly there are more and more exams being required to determine the effectiveness of our school systems and the entire mess is collapsing. How about that? Capitalism is not the answer to everything, bats and ghouls. It never has been. Can we stop believing that government is useless now? Government has it's uses. Otherwise, it wouldn't continue to exist the world over. There is no easy answer.