For the good - please go check out the Musa blog where I'm talking about Transpecial and why I write speculative fiction. Oh, and there's a link to an excerpt there too.
Unfortunately, I'm somewhat distracted from it all right now. As any regular reader knows, I'm a dual citizen - United States and United Kingdom.
Today, my birth country lost one of the most important political figures of the 20th century - former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. She was Ronald Reagan's "comrade-in-arms" and close friend, and represents the sane conservatives so hard to find this day. (Until, that is, she tried to implement a poll tax, which is the British political equivalent of invading Russia).
I don't agree with everything she did. I certainly didn't like her - not many people did. Her "Iron Lady" nickname was given to her by Soviet journalists. My dad once called her "The Iron Fist...in the Iron Glove" - and he, a solid Tory, did like her.
She was not a feminist...and, in fact, has also been known as the female political leader who did the least for other women. At the same time, there is an entire generation of young Brits to whom her face was in the dictionary next to "person in charge" - and I suspect even in silence she did a lot for women's rights simply by being who she was. Including being notorious for hitting people with her handbag. The IRA gave her the great honor of trying to kill her (always a compliment, if you think about it) in the Brighton bombing.
After her fall from grace (poll tax!) she moved to a different political arena, spending some years working in Brussels with the EU. She was granted a barony by the crown, but vanished from the public eye a decade or so ago amidst rumors of ill health.
Today she suffered a massive stroke and passed. I like to think she's somewhere in the afterlife sipping tea with her good friend Reagan...and complaining about what the theocrazies have done to the conservative movement.
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