Monday open thread: Three cheers for Malala!

The phrase is: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. It's a saying of being resilient in the face of sometimes earth-shattering setbacks, setbacks from which you think you'll never recover.

Yes, my friends, that's Malala Yousafzai on the red carpet at last night's Oscar ceremony. We have all followed her life, ever since her activism for women's rights in Pakistan put her in the crosshairs of an assassin's gun what seems like a lifetime ago. We marveled at her strength and courage, at her ability to turn tragedy to triumph. Out of the darkness of a dark time, she shone forth as a light, as an example of what the human spirit can achieve, undimmed, undaunted, unafraid.

But Malala is more than a symbol. She's more than a Nobel Peace Prize winner. She's a human being. A woman. A wife. She has a life beyond her tragic circumstances. She has not allowed one assassin's bullet to define who she is. She took hardship and transmuted it into a life to be respected. She took struggle and made it into joy. No one will remember the name of her would-be murderer. She has been, is, and will be written about for years, decades, forever. 

Of course, her "cavorting" with the decadent, irreligious Hollywood crowd will further cement the opprobrium in which she's held by those who believe as does her attacker did. And it will matter not a jot. Their time is slowly but surely coming to an end. Fundamentalists, tyrants, oppressors of all kinds: their reign is being upended by a world united as never before, connected as never before, where people see that there's a better way, a more decent way, a more human way. It won't be today, and it won't be tomorrow, but the malefactors of brutal power have had their day. Humanity wants to move beyond them.

Celebrate Malala and those like her not because they survived, but because they thrive. The human spirit is stronger than those who would suppress it. 

This is your open thread.

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