AP PHOTOS: Postponed Tokyo Olympics to open in just 6 months

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Remember When: Oh, how we amused ourselves at home

We had an insurrection at the Capitol, an unprecedented second impeachment of a president, a dramatic influx of military force into our nation&rsquo;s capital and an inauguration unlike any in more than two centuries of the United States, all of which easily could have overshadowed another significant first.
				Regardless of what you think of her &mdash; and frankly, her record is not long enough to make a real judgment yet &mdash; Kamala Harris is now the first woman elected to national office. She&rsquo;s the first woman sworn in as vice-president. By dint of her mixed ancestry &mdash; her father came from Jamaica, her mother from India &mdash; she is the first Black person and the first person of Indian (South Asian, if you prefer) descent in her the office. Born in Oakland, Calif., Harris not surprisingly and very correctly identifies herself as American.
				Getting elected to the second highest office in the land assures her a spot in history books regardless of what comes next. This is a great thing, especially for young girls who hear &mdash; as do we all &mdash; that &ldquo;anyone can grow up to be President.&rdquo; Now that old promise is much closer to being more than words.
				Being first (three ways, in fact), she bears a responsibility to do the job well.
				It&rsquo;s also embarrassing to admit it took this long.
				Margaret Thatcher became Britain&rsquo;s first female prime minister in 1979, with Theresa May following in 2016. Indira Gandhi became India&rsquo;s first female prime minister in 1966. Golda Meir became Israel&rsquo;s first female prime minister in 1969. Canada (1993), New Zealand (1997), Iceland (2009) and Australia (2010) also have joined that group, just to name a few countries &mdash; there have been three female prime ministers so far in the case of New Zealand and two in Iceland.
				Let us not forget Angela Merkel, Germany&rsquo;s first female chancellor, who has been in the role since 2005 and become perhaps the most dominant European politician in a generation.
				And the first female president in the United States? We&rsquo;re still waiting. But at least we now have the first female vice-president. It&rsquo;s a start.
				This is not the space to delve into the whys (or why nots), other than to suggest Harris has a chance to change history moving forward, inspiring more women to get serious about politics, at all levels, from city councils and township supervisors to state and U.S. senators and representatives, and of course to the presidency itself.
				It is not really fair to point to the lack of a woman president (or vice president before Wednesday) without also noting Pennsylvania has yet to elect its first female governor, or to highlight the reality that women make up more than half of the nation&rsquo;s population yet barely one-quarter of the U.S. House of Representatives and less than that in the U.S. Senate.
				Indeed, Wilkes-Barre has yet to seat a woman as mayor, something Scranton has done.
				Gender does not make one an intrinsically better candidate and no one should vote for a person based on gender alone, male or female.
				But it makes sense to believe we would be a better democracy &mdash; a truer democracy &mdash; if our elected officials collectively more accurately reflected those they serve. Kamala Harris has broken a pretty high &mdash; and until now pretty tough &mdash; glass ceiling. Here&rsquo;s hoping she serves well, encouraging more &ldquo;firsts&rdquo; in our future elections.
				 &mdash; Times Leader

Our View: One glass ceiling down, more to go