I am a regular reader who finds solace in your posts.  I am a Catholic living in Marin County, California.  If you know anthing about this place, you know that I am very much alone. As one friend in North Carolina puts it, I am “deep inside enemy territory.”  In the interest of keeping the peace, I keep my faith and views to myself unless I know I am among kindred spirits — and thankfully, there are a few.  Thoughtful debate of differing points of view?  No, thank you — we’re liberals.  Anything that does not cleave to the progressive orthodoxy is shouted down, mocked, ridiculed and ostracized.  I am grateful for your site and others like it, for I would be still more alone without them.

One needn’t go as far as New Zealand to experience cultural decline through pizza.  Not three miles from where I sit is a pizza hotspot, quite popular with families in our upper-middle-class area.  There is a large playroom for children, a wide selection of craft-brewed beers, and a cool, hipster vibe.  It’s run and frequented by Brazilians, which gives it instant cachet.  Perhaps not coincidentally, Brazilians also make up a large portion of the nannies and childcare providers in the area, and they often bring the children in their care to this place.  It’s a lively scene, parents socializing while drinking and munching pizza; kids playing; large-screen TV’s showing sports, and a brewing apparatus on full display behind glass walls.

Yet…I won’t take my children there (ages two and six) nor will I eat there.  My wife mostly agrees, but bends to peer pressure from time to time. She is a bit weak-willed.  Why won’t I patronize this establishment?  First, the pizza is mediocre at best.  I’m not a huge fan of pizza, but I know good from bad.  Second, the menu includes pizzas with such clever, imaginative names as “Latin Lover,” “Menage a Trois,” “Kinky Cow,” and “Doggie Style.”  And third, the establishment’s name:  it’s called Pizza Orgasmica.  Really.

I’ve heard it all — I’m a prude. I’m living in the past. I’m denying my children the benefit of playing with their friends (several families in our neighborhood go regularly) which will lead to them being out of the “in” crowd. I’m trying to deprive my kids the knowledge of something natural and normal. (At two and six? Really?) And I’m holding my wife back.  Yep.  Guess I’m doing all of those things.  And strangely, I feel good about that.

There must be something wrong with me.

Thank you again for your great work.