— Bumper sticker of the week: I’m already against the next war.

— Quote of the week: “Well behaved women seldom make history.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

— International Women’s Day was last Thursday. I only missed it by a week: Susan B. Anthony. Rachel Carson. Sojourner Truth. Amelia Earhart. Emma Goldman. Eleanor Roosevelt. Mary Harris (Mother Jones). Barbara Jordan. Rosa Parks. Mona Tourlentes. Margaret Sanger. Cindy Sheehan. Shirley Chisholm. Jane Addams. Rosie the Riveter. Helen Keller. Jane Johnson. Alice Walker. Doris Haddock (Granny 0). Oprah Winfrey. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Josephine Baker. Betty Friedan. Dorothy Day. Nancy Pelosi. Mother Teresa. Bella Abzug. Alice Hamilton. Toni Morrison. Sally Ride. Holly Near. Judy Bari. To these and to all women everywhere who have fought for equality, justice, compassion, and freedom. Thank you.

— Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

— Ten ways to light her fire:

1. Buy her flowers. Buy her chocolates. Hell, buy her anything.

2. Get out of your sweat-pants and T-shirt, shave, shower and put on some cologne, get into something decent, and make your move. Preferably with your wife.

3. You can always tell her she looks really sexy. Sometimes they fall for it.

4. Cook a nice meal, put on some soft music, candlelight, a good bottle of wine, and look for someone easy to fool.

5. Do something she doesn’t expect you to do, like the dishes, or laundry, or fixing that leaky faucet. Don’t include going on a golf trip with the guys on this list.

6. Plan a night out. No hockey, indoor football, or fishing show. Try the opera, the symphony, a play, or suicide.

7. Try to set the night on fire. Of course, not literally.

8. Let her handle your remote, but don’t try to trick her.

9. Turn the lights down low and do a striptease for her. When you get down to those small jockey shorts, make sure you have plenty of dollar bills laying around. This will both fascinate and amuse her. If she keeps the ones rather than stuffing them down your shorts, don’t be surprised.

10. If all else fails, here’s a fool proof tip: Take her hand in yours, look her straight in the eyes, and tell her you love her and would not want to be with anyone else, particularly since Anna Nicole died.

Now you could use these tips for same-sex relationships, but you’ll obviously have to make some adjustments.

— Ann Coulter struts her stuff: One of the poorest examples of a women, no, a human being, is Ann Coulter. A darling of the right-wing, she refers to John Edwards as “a faggot.” One would like to think she doesn’t know what that means, but she is pretty well versed in stupidity. Some newspapers are dropping her column in response to her idiocy. I’d sooner see them drop a piano on her.

— Public aid: Nobody wants to cut back. The city keeps wanting more and more of our tax dollars. With our population steadily going down, you would think someone, somewhere, would come to the conclusion that maybe we don’t need as many services as we once had, or as many city employees. At least, that has occurred to me. Now we have a dilapidated water supply system that I’m sure will end up being our responsibility to pay for, even though the city council has “borrowed” from that fund over the years to make their budgets work. And to top it all off, the governor wants a universal health-care plan, which we desperately need, but on a federal level. If he wants money for a health-care plan, he should raise the state income tax. Business needs to pay their fair share, but you can’t make it impossible for companies to do business in Illinois. Top that off with sky-rocketing electricity rates, and I’m thinking these people are taking us on a one-way trip to the poorhouse. We’ll probably have to pay for that, too.