The Ascension, Pietro Perugino (1496-98)

Ye men of Galilee, why wonder you, looking up to heaven? Alleluia.
He shall so come as you have seen Him going up into heaven, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. (Acts 1. 11)

Irving Babbitt

“WHEN an intellectually and spiritually indolent person has to choose between two conflicting views he often decides to ‘split the difference’ between them; but he may be splitting the difference between truth and error, or between two errors. In any case, he must dispose of the question of truth or error before he can properly begin to mediate at all. Otherwise he will run the risk of resembling the English statesman of whom it was said that he never deviated from the straight and narrow path between right and wrong.”

— Democracy and Leadership, Irving Babbitt

AT The Orthosphere, in an essay “Can Man Live Traditionally,” Alan Roebuck addresses the argument that men should refuse to marry because of the high risk of divorce. He advises against marriage strikes and contends men should approach marriage as soldiers entering into battle:

Know that you are a warrior participating in a noble cause. We all desire peace, but ours is not a peaceful time. Every man faces only two choices: contributing to the leftist destruction of our nation by going along with the status quo, or emulating your ancestors in building up our nation and fighting leftist barbarians in whatever way you can.

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MARY JANDA, a teacher in Skagit County, Washington told her middle school students in a class discussion on bullying that Muslim terrorists are raised to be martyrs for Allah and to kill innocent people. A Muslim student in the class objected and informed her parents who then, without ever discussing the case with the teacher or the school, informed the Concil on American Islamic Relations. CAIR has been harassing Janda ever since and requested a Department of Justice investigation of the school. See Pamela Geller’s piece at Freedom Outpost.

Geller writes:

We see this pattern repeated in small towns and cities across America. Hamas-CAIR, armed with millions of dollars from Islamic supremacist countries, is waging its own stealth jihad in our schools, workplaces and political arenas. They have enormous funds to harass, intimidate and bully small, ill-equipped organizations and individuals who have the audacity to tell the truth about jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. Mary Janda is just one of many.

Wherever Islam flourishes, truth is suppressed with this kind of persecution.

THE New York Times reports staggering increases in suicide among the middle-aged, especially among men. The rate for middle-aged men jumped by almost 50 percent between 1999 and 2010. It rose to 27.3 deaths per 100,000 men, as compared to 8.1 deaths per 100,000 for women, which also represents an increase. Many of the commenters in the ensuing discussion blame the economy and the inability of men to provide for their families. As Congress ponders further increases in legal immigration and visas for foreign workers, the commenters tell stories of lost jobs, careers suddenly terminated, depleted savings and divorce.

One commenter writes:

My brother committed suicide last July. He had just turned 60. He lost his IT job in the Great Recession in 2008. Despite hundreds of resumes being sent out, and a lifetime of IT experience, he got few interviews and no job offers. He spent down his 401(k) and when he died the only thing he owned was a beat-up car. We later found out he had a lot of credit card debt, with which he had tried to keep himself afloat. After four years of no job offers, unemployment running out, having no health insurance, etc., his dignity was shot. He had lost hope of ever working again. How I wish he had not committed suicide; how I would give anything and everything to have him back. Read More »

MARY FORD of Searcy, Arkansas received this rejection letter (below) from the Disney Production Company in 1938. She was turned down for training in the Inking and Painting Department because women were categorically not accepted for “creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men.”

The letter was posted on Flickr by her grandson, Kevin Burg, who found it among his grandmother’s things after she died and said “it speaks for itself,” and at Huffington Post, which also views the letter as an artifact of a misogynist past. However, neither source noted a fascinating detail. The letter was signed by a woman, another Mary. Perhaps, like other women of the time, this Mary had no objection to rejecting another Mary for the reasons stated.

Women often supported customary, informal discrimination against other women because they knew, for one, that giving preference to men would enable men to support women and children. Perhaps, dare we say it, women did not always view themselves as in competition with men and perhaps, dare we say it, some women even wished the best for men, knowing men needed satisfying careers in ways women did not and wanting them to have job preferences out of a spirit of generosity. Yes, it was a horrible and frightful past, almost too disgusting to contemplate. The creative work in Disney’s production department was a career and Disney presumably did not want trained employees leaving career positions to give birth and care for children. Companies were not in the business of sustaining the cultural revolution to their own detriment and the average woman was not inculcated to view her existence as first and foremost a self-centered commercial enterprise.

Things have changed since this awful, bleak period. Now women are not discriminated against and many trudge off to offices, leaving their children at Tots-R-Us because their husbands, if they should be so fortunate to have them, cannot hope to support them adequately in the era of dual-income families. If only Mary Ford had been so lucky. If Disney were to send out such a letter today, it would be worth almost instant cash to any Mary Ford, as she could take it to the nearest office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and government workers would happily convert it into big bucks for her. If enough Mary Fords got together, Disney might cease to exist.

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La nuit des Veilleurs au ministère de la Famille by ktvideo1

JEWEL writes:

Here is a collection of videos of young, Catholic French protesters against the Sodomite Marriage and Adoption Laws. In particular is the video (above) of “les veilleurs” (the watchers) who have been holding night vigils. The video is set to music of a poem by Therese de Lisieux. What strikes me about these determined young people is the difference between their protest and confrontation with the police and that of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. France is experiencing something marvelous, despite the bad news.

UNDER a new FDA ruling, the abortion-inducing drug known as the morning-after pill will be available on regular pharmacy shelves to girls as young as 15 without a prescription. The federal government once again shows itself to be the committed and unstoppable enemy of women. Feeding toxins to young girls and preventing procreation are government priorities. Liberals show more respect for the physical health of chickens than they do for human beings. In the last three decades, since abortion and oral contraceptives became widely available to teenagers, the incidence of advanced, metastatic breast cancer in young women has increased dramatically and there is good evidence that these are among the causes, which is to say nothing of the far more serious, non-physical effects of pharmaceuticals that enable girls to be promiscuous and callous.

When will you hear an outcry about these toxic health effects from all those liberals who cherish their organic eggs? Don’t hold your breath.

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