CNN reports that Hicks had a bit of experience driving her father's lawnmower and tractor; perhaps that helped her maneuver the car to a safe place after her grandmother lost consciousness. In any case, both ladies are doing just fine, and Emma is being rightfully celebrated for her quick thinking.

Grandma Has Seizure, 8-Year-Old Takes The Wheel [CBS11]

The list is a bit of a mess: Batman lands at number 18, while Die Hard's John McClane comes in at number 6 (and nobody from Lord of the Rings makes the list at all, WTF). But perhaps more frustrating is the fact that only 5 women made the list, and the very first woman on the list, Jennifer Garner's Sydney Bristow, is listed as having "Any spandex clothing item, preferably red," as her best accessory. Blargh.

Alas, the ladies have been shafted again. Perhaps we should make our own list? Some suggestions: Veronica Sawyer, Xena, Lydia Deets, Coraline, Hermione Granger, Claire Huxtable, Veronica Mars, Wonder Woman, Harriet the Spy, Matilda, and, of course, Eowyn. Who are your pop culture heroines?

20 All Time Coolest Heroes In Pop Culture [EW]

The extended list is woefully devoid of women, too. While George W. Bush shockingly rang in at number 5, beating out Abraham Lincoln – ranked 6 - and God (11), Hilary Clinton appeared down at number 12, and Condoleeza Rice at 19. On a list of 23, only five were women (the other two: 20. Oprah Winfrey and 21. Sarah Palin). In previous years, Princess Diana made the cut, as did Eleanor Roosevelt and Venus Williams. When asked: "who do you admire enough to call a hero?" a cross-section of Americans unfortunately thought of mostly men. And although many of these men are worthy of our admiration, we have to wonder, where are all the heroines?

We've addressed the shortage of women on quite a few lists before, from writers everyone should read, to Rolling Stone's 100 greatest singers. We've even celebrated our recently deceased heroines. Unfortunately, in this case there is not one author we can blame. It seems that Americans in general are too hard on women, and would rather idolize the worst president in history than activist Del Martin (yes, I know she is not as well known as Bush, but she is certainly more deserving) or Michelle Obama.

However, some of our most memorable role models come from books, where there is no dearth of heroines. Perhaps it is because they so rarely disappoint us – barring the time that Jo turned down Laurie – and after the first read, they lose all ability to shock us. It is also easier to idolize a fictional character, and for some of us, more natural. Mental Floss has compiled a short list of 8 literary heroines, and although they include some really amazing characters, we know there are a lot more out there. Their list includes: Hester Prynne, Scout Finch, Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet, Karana (from Island of the Blue Dolphins), Jane Eyre, Helen Graham, and Anne Shirley (from Anne of Green Gables). We would like to add: Julie (from Jean Craighead George's novel Julie of the Wolves), Clara and Alba Trueba, Hermione Granger, Denver, Margarita, Emma Woodhouse, Constance Chatterley, and Caddy Compson.

So, who did we miss, real or fictional?

Obama Tops List of Americans' Heroes [AOL News]
Obama tops Jesus in new poll [Christian Science Monitor]
8 Literary Heroines: Sisters Doin' It For Themselves [MentalFloss]

Catanzaro is the first female (and the youngest person) to ever hold the position of ferry captain for New York Waterway, the company that owns the ferries that transport passengers back and forth across the Hudson River. When Flight 1549 hit the water on Thursday, Catanzaro "immediately … turned around and steered toward” the plane. Her crew, whom Catanzaro is clearly proud of, helped 24 passengers safely escape the freezing water. “They were the ones who were down there pulling people out of the water," Catanzaro says, "When I saw the people hugging my crew, that's one of the moments that really sticks with me."

Brittany Catanzaro, First Female Ferry Captain for New York Waterway and Hero to US Airways Flight 1549 [FindingDulcinea]

Throughout her political career, Chisholm fought tirelessly for civil rights and equal rights for women, and held strong pro-choice and antiwar convictions. After her time in Congress ended in 1982, Chisholm went on to found the National Political Congress for Black Women and spent her days as a professor of politics and women's studies at both Mount Holyoke and Spelman College. Her endless dedication to the promotion of equality earned her a spot in a National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. Ms. Chisholm died in 2005, but her work lives on, and she remains an inspiration to us all.

As Gloria Steinem notes, "Perhaps the best indicator of her campaign's impact is the effect it had on individual lives. All over the country, there are people who will never be quite the same: farm women in Michigan who were inspired to work in a political campaign for the first time; Black Panthers in California who registered to vote, and encouraged other members of the black community to vote, too; children changed by the sight of a black woman saying, "I want to be President"; radical feminists who found this campaign, like that of Linda Jenness in the Socialist Workers' Party, a possible way of changing the patriarchal system; and student or professional or "blue-collar" men who were simply impressed with a political figure who told the truth as she say it, no matter what the cost."

But beyond politics, Chisholm herself once spoke about how she'd like to be remembered: "I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself."

A clip from the Shirley Chisholm documentary, Unbought and Unbossed, below. Note how Walter Cronkite handles Chisholm's entrance into the race: a symbol of the type of barrier that Chisholm worked so hard to break down.

Shirley Chisholm: The Ticket That Might Have Been [International Museum Of Women]
Shirley Chisholm [Wikipedia]
Shirley Chisholm [The Visionary Project]
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm: For The Equal Rights Amendment [American Rhetoric]

"I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another."- Ellen Goodman


"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers."- Susan B. Anthony


"I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality."-Alice Paul


"At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else."-Shirley Chisholm


"Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations." -Elizabeth Cady Stanton


"If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time."- Marian Wright Edelman


"The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics." -Emmeline Pankhurst


"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."- Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, 1876


And finally, to end another lovely weekend, there is this:

All pics via AP and Getty.

On Imagination

Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
How bright their forms! how deck'd with pomp by thee!
Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.
From Helicon's refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.
Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
Till some lov'd objects strikes her wand'ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.

Imagination! who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring though air to find the bright abode,
Th'empyreal palace of the thund'ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind;
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.

Though Winter frowns to Fancy's raptur'd eyes
The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
And bid their waters murmur o'er the sands.
Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
And with her flow'ry riches deck the plain;
Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
And all the forest may with leaves be crown'd;
Show'rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.

Such is thy pow'r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov'reign ruler Thou,
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.

Fancy might now her silken pinions try
To rise from earth, and sweep th' expanse on high;
From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies.
The monarch of the day I might behold,
And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.

Phillis Wheatley [Wikipedia]
Works of Phillis Wheatley [Project Gutenberg]

Cavell's execution is seen as one of the turning points of World War 1: the British government was able to capitalize on the overwhelming public outrage surrounding her death by creating anti-German propaganda that bolstered military support in the United Kingdom and public support for the Allied cause in the United States, which had not yet entered the war.

In a time when patriotism is still being watered down to the kind of pin you wear on your lapel, it's important to remember what a real heroine looks like. And Edith Cavell was one; not only for her bravery, for her strength, for her willingness to put the lives of others above her own, but for her ability to hold these beliefs and act upon them without resorting to hatred for others in order to bolster them. Edith Cavell stayed true to her beliefs until the end, knowing that it wasn't just patriotism, but patriotism and the knowledge that her actions brought some good into the world that would give her the peace she was looking for before she met her fate. For you can try to conjure up ideas of patriotism all you want, but if your heart is in a bad place, and you're using "patriotism" as a means to create more hatred in the world, there's nothing heroic about your actions at all. And that's a lesson certain politicians could certainly stand to learn right about now.

Edith Cavell [Wikipedia]
"The Heroine Who Humbled Me" [Nightingale Declaration]

I can only hope the newspaper can monetize some of that traffic and get reporter Hamed Thabet a raise.

Noujoud Nasser's is not an unusual case in Yemen, where poor people — and most are poor — often sell their kids to old pervs to make ends meet; in Nasser's case her dad went a little crazy after losing his job as a garbage truck driver and being forced to beg for a living. But Nasser is the first minor to go to court herself to ask for a divorce; her family members didn't dare. Nasser's husband and dad have both been arrested — though the dad has since been released — which may be why Yemen isn't the worst place to be a woman, though it does rank 138th out of 140 on a list of Best to Worst places to be a mother. (Niger and Sierra Leone are worse.)

In other Yemeni news, a branch of Al Qaeda took credit for bombing an expatriate compound in the capital city of Sanaa, so ambassador Tom Krajeski evacuated the nonessential staff.

For the First Time In Yemen, Eight Year Old Girl Asks For Divorce [Yemen Times]
Related: Early Marriage Hampering Country's Development
Earlier: The Ground Rules For Wifebeating, Brought To You By The Yemen Times

But one among us asked of a man she was seeing, "If I had to become a refugee, could I do it with him?" In my friend's case, the guy flunked and was given the boot. But that question, that standard, has remained with me. If you lost your creature comforts, if Katrina struck your neighborhood, who could make you laugh, care for you, remain curious about you and retain your curiosity?

Why Can't We [Nation]