" series, this time examining heroes and icons. From the easily-recognizable like Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe, to those whose names have been forgotten while their causes live on - Emmeline Pankhurst, who won women the right to vote, is one - these are the people who influenced our lives for the past 100 years. Too bad all the stories read like encyclopedia entries or obituaries instead of bringing to life these heroic dreamers. But Time's list of the 100 worst ideas of the century is hilarious. The editors left out just one: annoying car alarms, which inevitably wake up everyone on the block except the car owner. The New Yorker's cultural critic Daphne Merkin is perhaps the only female writer who can go from women's lib to geisha chic in just one sentence. The sentence happens to be the first in a story about feminist leader Betty Friedan, and a new biography of her. Merkin casts Friedan as nothing but a suburban housewife. And guess what, feminists? Merkin says it's all right to be nothing but a housewife. Thousands of working mothers might find that a worthwhile message, but they'll probably never get around to reading this story. But the New Yorker makes up ground with a look into the controversy surrounding the authenticity of a childhood memoir of the Holocaust. And, a piece by the co-author of "Eyes Wide Shut" about working with the legendary Stanley Kubrick, complete with Kubrick's insistence on removing any references t...
