zirconium

KK: She got so fed up of men coming up to her and saying, you know we'd love to have more women at the top of companies, or we'd love to have more women running things, but we just can't find the good candidates. This annoyed her so much that she wrote down a list of 10 really good women, qualified women, and put it in her purse. Every time a man came up to her and said, "It's such a shame we can't find a qualified woman," out would come the list.

I've never met a woman who is not strong, but sometimes they don't let it out. Then there's a tragedy, and then all of a sudden that strength comes. My message is let the strength come out before the tragedy.

-- Diane von Furstenberg, in the New York Times Magazine

"Did you just send that woman to a church to get help with an abortion?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

- Darcy Baxter, a Unitarian chaplain, writes about trying to find options for a woman living 500 miles from the nearest abortion provider

Oh those blasted fairy tales filling little girls' heads with romantic nonsense.

In reality, you can start out as a princess, get married, and end up sitting by the fireplace in rags at the end of a drudge-filled day.

Women, come to your senses: Plan on not getting married, and then see if anyone is good enough to convince you otherwise.

Soon after they began dating seriously, Mr. Kaul, who plays guitar and keyboard and a D.J. and producer of electronica and lounge music, was intrigued to learn that Ms. Ahuja's late father had been "really into music, like old Indian music," with one exception -- "What a Wonderful World," as sung by Louis Armstrong.

Mr. Kaul proposed to her in Hawaii last January. She had been there with her family. After her family left, the couple hiked down muddy, slippery trails to Secret Beach, whose proper name is Kauapea Beach, on Kauai.

"It's super-secluded," she said, "very 'From Here to Eternity.' "

Mr. Kaul had brought his guitar and as he tuned it, he told her he had learned a song just for her. When he told her it was "What a Wonderful World," she said, she immediately looked upon it as a thoughtful gesture marking the fourth anniversary of her father's death, which was the next day.

After he finished, he told her he had played the song for a different reason.

"I already got your mom's permission to marry you and I played this to get your dad's permission," he said. He then got on one knee.

The princess couldn't help thinking there was something romantic, something dramatic, something...strangely charming about his clumsiness, and she bent down to pick up the cup. A real princess will always pick up your teacup if you drop it -- kindness is practically their middle name -- but this was not the only reason she did so.

There was a light in the prince's dark eyes that reminded her of all the stars in the night sky.

...the queen was forgetting that any real princess has such impeccable manners that it would be impossible for her to tell her host, who had gone to all the effort of making her a bed stacked with twelve feather mattresses, that, in fact, it was the most uncomfortable night that she had ever had, in all her life.