Hey, Chloe, Upload the Schematics of This Post to My PDA: What is an action hero’s most important skill? Literacy. According to University of Louisville professor Bronwyn T. Williams, “the typically-male action hero is capable of reading and writing effortlessly, even under duress. His superior literacy practices give him an edge over supervisors, bureaucrats, and scientists, whose literacy skills may render them incorrect or narrow-minded, and allow him to outmaneuver the villain.” Unfortunately, literacy is simultaneously and somewhat paradoxically considered feminine and unnecessary at critical moments — and it’s left up to “literacy surrogates,” who can often be women, such as Chloe from 24.

The Little Red Empowering Machine: Speaking of male action heroes, they always seem to get the coolest cars. But Joanne Sasvari notes that for women in popular culture, cars are an escape and a symbol of freedom, even if “a woman’s car almost always means she’s fast — in more ways than one.”

Sex Surprises: Using a “high-tech eye-tracking gizmo,” an Emory University study reveals that men are more likely to look at a women’s face before moving to other body parts and that women (who were less interested in looking at faces) will look at pictures of heterosexual sex longer than men. The authors of the study offer a biological rationale: “Women can tell by looking at naked men whether the guys are in the mood [...] but women’s bodies don’t reveal much. Which is why men home in on their faces.”

“Style Your Hijab!”: So, the new teen magazine Muslim Girl is attempting to appeal to an underserved market but with more tack and taste than, say, Seventeen. While the magazine’s seriousness of purpose is certainly laudable, I wonder if simply toning down the sex and the sassiness makes the advice columns, celebrity profiles, and fashion dos-and-don’ts more palatable.

“I was drunk and bald way before Britney”: The obsession with celebrity and scandal in pop culture and politics has been — I guess it’s not such a surprise here — a big boon to the t-shirt industry.

Off the Mark: Iraqi performance artist Wafaa Bilal got a lot of press earlier this year for confining himself to a room with a paintball gun and allowing people around the world to shoot him by manipulating the gun through his website — all in protest of America’s approach to the war in Iraq: “To the Western media it?s a virtual war going on in Iraq — we?re far removed in the comfort zone. We?re allowed to disengage from the consequences of war. We don?t see mutilated bodies, we don?t see the toll on human beings.? Well, in the end, he got quite a reaction (over 40,000 shots were fired over 42 days), but it’s not clear whether the web visitors understood the political context or were just looking for a little shoot-’em-up fun. You might want to work your way back through Bilal’s unsettling video blog.

Twist and Shout: Last week marked the 21st anniversary of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Well, Erin Dionne was celebrating it — why weren’t you?

A Pundit Primer: In a possible lesson for the 21st Century, YouTube ended up giving James Kotecki a lot more than 15 minutes of fame. It got him a potential career. Kotecki, if you recall, was the Georgetown student who dispensed advice about presidential candidates’ online videos — from his dorm room, on YouTube. Two of those candidates, Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Mike Gravel, actually ended up visiting his dorm room — and most of the other candidates made it clear they were paying attention. Since he’s graduated, Democrat Dennis J. Kucinich and Republican Mike Huckabee have met him at more traditional locales around Washington — and CNN, NPR and others have come calling.

I Forgot About the Kids - D’oh!: A Marymount Manhattan College study reveals that, among the college students surveyed, fictional television fathers — think Homer, Raymond, etc — rated higher than the students’ real fathers. The reason, researchers and cultural critics agreed, was that the work demands on fathers are increasing — and they have much less quality family time.