Personal grooming gets gender equal! The Brazilian is the new wave of, ah, ballsy manscapers, and all the major razor manufacturers are showing gorgeously detailed how-to’s on trimming the bush to make the tree look taller. Feeling patriotic? Go for the “Swanky Yankee”! Loving Rocky Balboa? Saddle up as the “Italian Stallion”! Up next on the self-obsessed pre-pubey train: Crack-tastic baby’s bottom tactics! [Jezebel]

Speaking of the area down there, it seems Britney got her monthly bill during an ELLE shoot and bloodied a bunch of couture. But instead of poking fun, shouldn’t we — and every unborn child — be grateful every time the poor girl needs Tampax? [The Frisky]

So, about those fetuses. Are you as confused about Sotomayor and abortion as I am? Because if Obama unwittingly delivered a Souter for the other side, I’m gonna get really steamed! [Broadsheet]

Now, for the week’s Recession Round-Up!
The Sad: Christian Lacroix filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11 — no doubt given a fabulously cute name like, le hosing — while Veronique Branquinho flat-out closed down. [The Cut]
The Brutal: Cash-strapped rappers are resorting to cubic Z. [WSJ]
And The Just Plain Delusional: The Atlantic’s literary editor, of all people, celebrates Vogue’s Sally Singer, of all people, as a prophet of conscientious consumerism. Isn’t this what beat reporters are for?

Images make a comeback next week. Till then, check out Halle Berry’s glorious return to the pixie cut here and the Comely Canadian here. Hasta, babies!

If you are participating in the great soul-searching exercise that has come to define These Insane Times — and that would be basically everybody I know who has lost her job, and then some — you probably couldn’t find a greater source of inspiration than Matthew B. Crawford. A Ph.D. in political philosophy at the University of Chicago, Crawford is now a motorcycle mechanic — not because he had a breakdown, couldn’t make it in the corporate world or, let’s be charitable, because he needed a book subject (though an essay adapted from his book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work,” appears in The New York Times Magazine). Crawford turned to motorcycle repair because cubicle culture was a reason-free, disaffection-spawning sham, while the tangibility of a trade — as well as business ownership — held concrete value that is physical, spiritual and bankable. A trade teaches the value of innovative thinking and the firsthand consequence of failure in a way that a coveted magazine or accounting internship does not. And as my father who held every kind of job — paper boy, Good Humor man, auto-factory worker — before building one of the country’s biggest dental practices frequently pointed out, a trade forces you to deal with the public, and that leads to tolerance and diplomacy. What’s so cool, notes Crawford, is that entrepreneurship makes our economy far more nimble than our current managerial structure. And on an individual level, it’s far more satisfying. I also love his idea that our most gifted students should learn a trade during their summers off. So, guess where the MILFspring and all my future children are spending every July from here on out? Organic farms, fashion factories, lamp-repair shops — anywhere, that is, where they use their hands in a way that is far more useful than, say, texting.

If Eric Wilson’s photoshopping expose in today’s New York Times points to, without explicitly revealing, a major cause of all the fakery, it is this: Celebrity domination of fashion magazines. Because with celebrities come publicists and final cover approvals and, usually, a movie studio or music company with a vested interest in a certain perfect look for an upcoming project. The magazine, in other words, loses control to the celebrity’s image and we all know what image shapers do — make things boring by keeping provocation at bay. But with a model, control belongs to the magazine, because the value of a model lies largely in her ability to be a chameleon who is eager to experiment with whatever image a creative director is trying to project. So with the nation’s supposed thirst for authenticity, why not leave the celebrities to the tabloids who have become expert at depicting their “real lives” anyway? That way, fashion magazines, who are all struggling, can differentiate themselves — and make their jobs infinitely easier by cutting out the handlers — by getting back to their roots as true style arbiters, rather than stools for celebrities.

If Madonna’s peeps had any smarts, they would so totally counsel the self-appointed savior of Malawian children to take this dubious-sounding trend — seen here in New York Mag’s Approval Matrix — to the next level by doing an on-the-belly blackface portrayal of Mercy James. Which is not to say there aren’t numerous other applications for other ambitious white girls. Like, for political junkies, a cappuccino-inflected impression of Michelle Obama would do wonders for an influential White House appointment. And for girls with yellow fever, think slant-eyed Miley Cyrus!

Apropos of absolutely nothing in the magazines, I am nevertheless obligated to convey this tidbit of disgustingness to all you strap-hanging MILFs: It is a violation of New York City Police rules and regulations for an officer to help a mother carry her child-occupied stroller up the steep and numerous stairs out of the subway station. How do I know? Reader, I, a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy toting around a 28-pound toddler in a running buggy, was refused any assistance whatsoever by two hulking men in uniform at the 96th Street 1-2-3 stop. When I appealed to their common human decency — and was brusquely brushed off again — I called them fucking assholes who deserve to rot in hell. Sadly, they declined to arrest me, thus denying me and my new cause the cover of The New York Post. Campaign deets to reverse the NYPD’s cowardly reaction to our litigious society coming soon. Mark this MILF’s words!