Spreadin’ Love

I’ve been so cut off from civilization for days. No newspapers in sight. Only a glimpse of a tabloid in reststop that reported that Bush and Condy were having an affair. I have to google that one.

I also have to catch up on the blogs. I have to admit that while I was away, I did drive twenty minutes to a public library in order to steal a quick glance at the Internet. But tonight is the first chance that I’ve had to really cut loose. Let’s see what’s cooking…

Crooked Timber put me in the Lumber Room. Grin.

Interesting article by Meghan O’Rourke in Slate. O’Rourke tries to sort out the good from the crap in Linda Hirshman. I enjoyed reading it. O’Rourke’s article caught the attention of several bloggers that I read. She writes:

“If you are a woman who is committed to gender equality, who doesn’t believe that a woman’s place is necessarily in the home, she argues, then you have to think about how your choices shape the collective good. Her stubborn insistence is refreshing. Unlike others, she is willing to come out and say, in no uncertain terms, that the luxury of making our own decisions as if they had no larger implications isn’t ethical at this point in time.”

Elizabeth responds:

But Hirshman simultaneously asks too much of women (insisting that they should stay in jobs even if they’re unhappy and unfulfilled) and too little (because just showing up in an office every day isn’t going to change the structure of society).

The Corner had a series of posts on Hirshman and woman and work. They were agnostic about the mommy war stuff, but felt that the egghead blogs had wasted too much time with her. JPod calls Hirshman a “blithering idiot.” heh. JPod also responds to O’Rourke’s “duty to work.” Also a good read.

The major backlash to Kosfest is still going on. Kos’s numbers have dropped from 23 million to 16 million. Still, nobody should be sneezing at 16 million. You know how many people read my dissertation? Like three. Despite those big numbers, blogging is taking some major hits. Dan Drezner is forced to defend the blogs as a place for idea germination. This article on Nick Denton’s pessimism was disheartening.

To cheer myself up after all that downer blog reading, I turned to Mo Ryan, because I knew she would tell me the lastest with the whole Star Jones whoopla. I followed one of Mo’s links to You Tube and got caught up in some of the other sorts of yummy stuff on that site. I could blow some serious time there.