There's a period in women's lives — roughly the years between 18 and 24 — that strikes me as profoundly touching. During this time, young women are often filled with inchoate plans and longings, and they haven't yet figured out the distinction between possible and impossible. They're absolutely alive to the world, their minds open and thoughts fluid — vulnerable as baby animals, yet full of force and energy. Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer at the age of 23 while trying to protect a Palestinian home in Gaza, was all that: wistful, observant, silly, intense and dreamy. But she was no dope, no moony-eyed kid. Rachel was extraordinarily smart and talented, and a video clip of her at the age of eleven reading a poem she'd written about hunger attests to the devotion to social justice that... More >>>