Good for Body and Sole

As if I needed another reason to buy another pair of hot shoes -- turns out, not just good for your soul, they're also good for your sex drive.

According to a very scientific study, women who wear high heels have higher sex drive and good lookin' legs. Credit cards out, ladies.

In related news, those sad, plastic excuses called Crocs are going out of business. Coincidence? Look in your soul.

Clinton Clinches Honorary Degree

Arizona State may not think Obama is worthy of an honorary degree. But Yale doesn't have that problem with the Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton just picked up an honorary degree from her alma mater. And while sculpter Richard Serra and writer John McPhee also were on the honorary degree list from Yale, not so Obama. Better luck next year.

The Myth Exists

A biography of Helen Gurley Brown seems to have ignited an interest in the bygone era of Second Wave feminism. The biography of Brown reclaims her as a feminist for the office workers who couldn't go out and "burn a bra." Oops, did I just help perpetuate the stereotype of the bra-burning feminist? If so, it's not my fault: It's The New York Times's. And The New Yorker's. 

Both invoked that image in sloppily trying to come up with a contrasting impression of women of the time. And, I guess in the interest of deadlines, they made one up. The New York Time did so with its Helen Gurley Brown quiz on money. ("Bad Girls, Good Sense.") And Judith Thurman invoked the image of the bra burner in her review of the biography of the Cosmo editor, "Bad Girls Go Everywhere." Beyond being factually incorrect (you can see my article in Alternet for details), the assumption perpetuates falsely that protesters and nothing to lose but their bras. 

In reality, feminists made the lives off office workers (and all working women, for that matter) better. Thanks to feminism, we now have: workplace parity, equality in wages (or at least more equity than before), child care, flexible work time, parental leave, and the list goes on.

So why does the myth of lingerie immolation persist? It's an easy short hand. But it's not the truth.

What a Way to Make a Living

File this one in the "eureka" category: Workers in a down economy (who have not been downsized, yet) down their hours. It's for work-life balance, natch. And careers are not made on working around the clock any more, when the clocks are in hock and the boss has been laid off. Women, who have been lucky enough to be stuck in "traditionally female" jobs, like nursing and teaching, have found these professions to be recession-proof. Sorry, construction workers. Hedge fund masters, our regrets. But I digress. Not only are women not getting the ax, they're supposedly kicking back with the kids more, too, according to this Forbes story. 

So here's where it's not adding up: More men without jobs, but the women are the ones cutting back the hours? Really? Somehow, the women with the jobs have also been saddled with childcare (er, quality time) while the guys are out job hunting and beer gathering. That's a sequel I guess we won't be reading in Forbes anytime soon.

Object Lesson

Hannah Henry is having a photography show of discarded things. The image to advertise the series is a sole strappy sandal, darkly lit, maybe once beloved, then, unneeded. 

I was thinking about all those things I have been collecting (we are all curators of our own closets) that may have once been treasured and now are tossed. It is the wonder of the photographer's eye that I stare at the image, my thoughts drifting from shoe, to my closet, to the nation that was bent on spending till the last shoe was sold. 

Neighborhoods are littered with foreclosed houses, some abandoned by their owners who had no choice but to walk away from their homes. Homes slightly beyond the grasp of a mortgage payment. But, I imagine, with perfectly placed walk-in closets, holding rows of strappy sandals, paid for with money that didn't exist on the promise of value that wasn't there fueled by the intoxicating lure of over-confidence and greed. 

The photograph is beautiful. Our nation's story is ugly. 

Forming a More Perfect Language
You gotta love the European Union. They are nothing if not efficient. Getting rid of generations of sexist language? Done. That's what seems to have happened relatively overnight, as the EU is banning "Mrs." and "Miss" from the lexicon in order to create gender neutral language.

Women are to be addressed by their whole name. While it may be more difficult for those stuck in the age of Jane Austen to construe whether a lady is eligible or not for dating or marriage, one could always resort to this modern idea: Ask her.

Has the New York Times Lost Its Mind?

I am a big fan of the Times "Style" section. Normally a great break from the grim lockstep of bad news in every other section. But good god, the main story has to be an all-time what were they thinking this past Sunday. A story about a San Francisco sex club that focuses on the female orgasm. Seriously?

Not that there's anything wrong with the female orgasm; I'm all for it. But for a story like this, about an urban commune that sounds left over from the Eselon days but is populated by impressionable people in their 20s, this is not a cute sexy story -- instead it truly comes off as a cult (every morning at 7 a.m. women sit in chairs, remove their pants and submit to their Oming, as it's called). I will leave the rest to curious readers.

Cheap shots on the good city of San Francisco aside (OK, yes, it does have a history of sexual liberation, but nobody is really stopping anyone from having orgasms. . .), I would respectfully suggest that the Times spend a little bit more time pursuing investigative stories of a slightly less titillating nature, and save the sex for the local rags.

Inconceivable

Maybe the Octomom's lust for the spotlight will actually result in shining light where one is needed: reining in fertility clinics (and their egg-happy clients).

According to a story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, fewer than 20% of U.S. clinics follow professional guidelines on embryo implantation for younger women.

As the author of "Everything Conceivable" told Terry Gross on Fresh Air today, the uterus is designed to be single occupancy only, and multiple births invariably lead to multiple deaths. What could stem the madness? For one, having these procedures covered by health insurance, which would then mandate the number of embryos that could be implanted. 

This is one case where buying in bulk is not a good idea, short term or long term.