IN this heartbreaking profile of a female University of Pennsylvania freshman who committed suicide last year, readers will find many themes discussed at this site, including the phenomenon of weird masculine names for girls, the cult of athletics and success, immodesty and near-nakedness in women, the narcissism of social media and the vitalistic emptiness of modern childhood. This girl died in a calculated act of will, which does not seem that surprising given that her will had been assiduously and expensively cultivated in the sort of hyper-competitive sports that are now pushed on women from all sides, even by the federal government. She clearly wanted out from under the college sports racket. She wanted out, but was seemingly too afraid of disappointing others or shedding the identity of an athlete.

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A NEW organization, Stop Surrogacy Now, has formed to oppose reproductive surrogacy:

We believe that the practice of commercial surrogacy is indistinguishable from the buying and selling of children. Even when non-commercial (that is, unpaid or “altruistic”), any practice that subjects women and children to such risks must be banned.

No one has a right to a child, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, or single-by-choice.

We stand together asking national governments of the world and leaders of the international community to work together to end this practice and Stop Surrogacy Now.

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THE MISSION of the Catholic Church is to save souls. The mission of  Jorge Bergoglio is to market a New World love-a-thon in which the religious consumer is always right. In a clothing store where the saleswoman tells every customer how fabulous she looks, the message conveyed is: “We love you! Come back and spend some more!” The new logo of Francis’s upcoming visit to the U.S. conveys a similar message. This is a shallow, insincere love. Once again, Novus Ordo Watch nails it:

Overall, the logo appears rather sterile, with no clear identity other than the figure that has its back turned toward you. But really, replace the illustration of Francis with one of the Dalai Lama, and it would fit just as much. As well it should, for it might as well be the Dalai Lama that comes to visit — the message preached will substantially be the same. (more…)

SINCE all families can never be good families, all families should be bad families, say two Australian “philosophers,” who also argue for polygamy. They say parents who read books to their children are “unfairly disadvantaging” children who do not have parents who read them books.

They do, however, have standards.

‘We do want to defend the family against complete fragmentation and dissolution,’ [Adam Swift] says. ‘If you start to think about a child having 10 parents, then that’s looking like a committee rearing a child; there aren’t any parents there at all.’ (more…)

ALL eight women in the U.S. Army Ranger School failed to pass the infantry course.

That can mean only one thing. The course must be made easier.

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DAVID C. writes: This article about a woman in an intentionally childless marriage who dedicates herself to extreme promiscuity is a sad sort of remembrance for those women who do not get to be mothers on Mother's Day.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all mothers. May you realize the importance of your role. A few thoughts on the cultural institution of motherhood can be found here.  

DAWN Stefanowicz, writing at Public Discourse, predicts what is in store in America if the Supreme Court rules in favor of "gay marriage."

WHO was it that said, “What God has torn asunder, no man can put together?” It’s true in the case of Lutheranism and the Catholic Church. The idea of these natural antagonists jointly commemorating the “Reformation” is obscene, an affront to those martyred in this conflict; it’s as absurd as Bolsheviks and monarchists jointly commemorating the Russian Revolution. The basic inference is that truth doesn’t exist.

Here are words from an actual pope on this important issue: (more…)

PETE F. writes regarding the case of Maj. General Michael A. Keltz:

A BRITISH High Court judge, who so fits the part of the cruel feminist tyrant in this photo that it seems a caricature, has ruled in the case of a surrogacy deal that broke down:

The decision that the [one-year-old] girl should live with the gay couple was the culmination of a long court battle.

The judge said the girl was born in January 2014 as a result of a surrogacy arrangement in which the mother agreed to bear the child. The gay couple would be the main parents, while the mother – who first met the father when they were both teenagers in Romania – would live with them to share parenting.

The judge rejected the mother’s claim that the child – conceived after an insemination process at the gay couple’s home – was always going to be brought up by her, with secondary involvement from the father. (more…)

WHILE presiding over a disciplinary hearing, Maj. Gen. Michael A. Keltz, a decorated combat pilot, described the appearance of an accused officer in a photo as “drunker than 10,000 Indians.”

“The audience, which apparently included members of Native American descent, was taken aback,” [Tony] Carr wrote in [his] blog. ”Keltz reportedly continued the commentary a little longer, at one point saying the officer looked ‘drunker than 10,000 sailors.’”

He could have said “drunker than 10,000 Irish,” and his 34-year-career might not have ended so soon. (more…)

THE COMMENTER “N.W.” wrote the following in a post from December, 2009:

I believe part of the problem in coming to terms with [modern society] is the common tendency to skip over the concrete particulars and instead firmly ground oneself in the cloudy abstracts. I may be tilting at windmills, granted, but nonetheless I shall begin my campaign against that stalwart bastion of the Enlightenment “the imperative to love all of humanity.” Now, this is a tall and dark fortress with innumerable passages, corridors and gates from which sally forth many a foolish knave, crying their challenge, “Halt foe, dost not thou love all and equally so?” to which I reply with a quixotic “How? How are we to love all of humanity?” (more…)

  DESPITE its high unemployment rate, Baltimore is a federal "preferred refugee resettlement site" and has taken in thousands of refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Asia in the last ten years, as Ann Corcoran reports at Refugee Resettlement Watch. She writes: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is one of the Top Nine refugee resettlement contractors in the country and it is headquartered in one of Baltimore’s better neighborhoods. This is what we said in 2014: Gotta keep up their real estate holdings! The Lutheran Center (LIRS headquarters) is a six-story structure constructed in 1999 on property owned by Baltimore’s historic Christ Lutheran Church. The building is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a charming area rich with history and an eclectic array of eateries and shopping venues. [....] Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fell for the feds ‘progressive’ scheme here in 2012 when she said that bringing more refugees and immigrants to the city would boost the economy completely failing to understand that, just because African Americans are black, they wouldn’t simply ‘welcome’ the rainbow colors of the world to compete with them for jobs, housing and scarce social services. During last week's riots, there were reports that looters had targeted businesses owned by Asians and Arabs.