Kristof has a column in todays NYT that is typical of what fills newspapers on Thanksgiving and all through the holidays, and is still very much worth reading. He talks about the plight of several women in Pakistan and brings home the point that we are fortunate to live in America and as such, we have an obligation to reach out and share with folks from other lands and cultures. Here's a brief excerpt:

Sajida is a 29-year-old college-educated woman from a Christian family here (and a reminder that oppressive values in Pakistan are not rooted just in Islam). She scandalized her family by marrying a man she chose herself -- and then becoming pregnant.

The next step was brutal: Several women held Sajida down as a midwife conducted an abortion, while she struggled and wept.

Then her brothers weighed what to do next. Sajida's eldest brother wanted to sell her to a trafficker who offered $1,200, presumably intending to imprison her inside a brothel. Two other brothers just wanted to kill her.

The brothers fought for days over this question. So Sajida ground up sleeping tablets and baked the powder into chapati bread that she fed her brothers for dinner -- and then sneaked out as they slept.

 

What happens next illustrates how far we've come and how much work is left to do both here in the US and in other parts of the world. My best wishes to all for a day of peace, good friends and family and here is a link to Kristof's full essay:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/opinion/27kristof.html?ref=opinion