Belatedly stumbled across this brilliant reviewin the July/Aug issue of the Atlantic:

[Linda] Hirshman’s thumbnail review of recent feminist history [in Get to Work … And Get a Life, Before It’s Too Late] makes for prickly, entertaining reading. “Just over thirty years ago,” she rails, “the feminist movement turned from Betty Friedan, the big-nosed, razor-tongued moralist,” to Gloria Steinem. Not only did the honey-tressed blonde clearly have a smaller nose, as Hirshman implies, but “Gloria was nicer than Betty.” The pliant undercover Bunny shepherded in a “useless choice feminism” of soft convictions and “I gotta be me” moral relativism. Hirshman quotes Sex and the City’s hapless Charlotte, who, when given flak for quitting her job to please her smug first husband, can only wail plaintively, “I choose my choice! I choose my choice!”

[Deletia]

In fact, Hirshman insists, the problem starts well before motherhood. it begins when young women enter college and violate Hirshman’s No. 1 rule of female emancipation: “Don’t study art.”

Why aren’t the women who are outnumbering men in undergraduate institutions leading the information economy? “Because they’re dabbling,” she snaps. Here’s yet another Problem That Has a Name: Frida Kahlo.

“Everybody loves Frida Kahlo. Half Jewish, half Mexican, tragically injured when young, sexually linked to men and women, abused by a famous genius husband. Oh, and a brilliantly talented painter. If I was a feminazi, the first thing I’d ban would be books about Frida Kahlo. Because Frida Kahlo’s life is not a model for women’s lives. And if you’re not Frida Kahlo and you major in art, you’re going to wind up answering the phones at some gallery in Chelsea, hoping a rich male collector comes to rescue you.”

As Woody Allen’s own Whore of Mesa would sigh and pencil in the margin, “Yes, very true!” And don’t we all know them, those defiant, dreadlocked young lovelies with their useless degrees in studio art, experimental fiction, modern dance, and gender studies, lactose-intolerant and unemployable: “I choose my choice! I choose my choice!”

Ah, shit. I love Sandra Tsing Loh.

I’ve nearly abandoned this blog since I signed up for Twitter. There’s something so satisfying (especially for an anal-retentive self-editor who makes drafts of message board posts) to keep my inane thoughts to under 140 words.

Also, after several weeks of nerve-wracking uncertainty (because I am also a compulsive planner that fears uncertainty in life most of all), I’ve taken a part-time-temporary-to-perhaps-become-full-time-permanent job as copy editor with Metro. Ma and Pa would be so proud. It’s casual dress code, the work environment seems pretty laid-back, and I love copy editing — on the other hand the office is at Eglinton/DVP and the hours are extremely prohibitive to the acts of socialization. All in all, though, all employment all the time makes Canice a happy girl.

Off today’s DJ wire, bright and early:

Crocs plummeted 44% premarket after the footware maker slashed its second-quarter guidance and offered a disappointing outlook for the year, reflecting a “challenging” U.S. marketplace and slower-than-expected growth internationally.

Take that, NAS:CROX. Your time is up.

I don’t get it, but I LOL’ed:

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them breaks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

By this logic, I guess plain chocolate M&M’s really are the superior product. Take that, peanut eaters! From Roger Ebert’s blog.