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While America loves to debate what makes a great cover model (size 4 too big? size 14 too small?), the cover of Time this week reminds us that sometimes there are weightier issues involved in choosing who will grace the face of your magazine.

Meet Aisha, 18, whom Time editor-in-chief Richard Stengel describes as "shy." We can't imagine why. As you can see in the photo at left, she's missing a few key features: That's because a Taliban commander decreed that she have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws.

The magazine debated long and hard about whether Aisha should be on the cover. First they ensured she was in a safe, secret location, Stengel says, sponsored by the NGO Women for Afghan Women. And soon she will be heading to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery -- the kind we can really get behind.

Aisha posed for the photo, reports Time, "because she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan." If blue burqas seem so 10 years ago to you, read our interview with Megan K. Stack, a foreign correspondent who just wrote the memoir "Every Man in This Village Is a Liar" about her time reporting in Afghanistan -- and who fears nothing more than another Taliban takeover, because of what it would mean for women there.

And when you're done doing that, Lemondrop has a bold idea: Let's make today one whole day in which we, the women of America, agree not to complain about our hair, our butts, or any physical feature that usually makes us nuts. Agreed?