Still in the throes of my strange little history project (details anon), I got to thinking: With all the strange currents in the pop-cultural air these days, do little girls still imagine themselves being Joan of Arc? Serious question. The Grrl Power movement got sort of crushed by Britney’s python, AFAIK, and in any case Joan seems kind of non-PC in these cooperate-and-talk-it-out days. But this little Jewish girl thought Joan seriously rocked — she got to fight, she got to run politics, and she got to go to heaven in a blaze of glory. (This, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of thinking you get when you raise a wee Yid in a Christian small town.) So nu, is the ass-kicking la Pucelle not a fit role model these days? I’m curious, and if that is indeed the case I’m… depressed.