KATHLEEN KANE, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, was in the news last week for declaring that she would not defend the 1996 state marriage law that bans same-sex unions. Kane made her announcement at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a sort of theme park for equality that is the ideal setting for prominent Democrats to accuse the nation of bigotry. Kane said she would not defend the 1996 state law in court because it was “wholly unconstitutional,” never mind that violating her oath and usurping the powers of the legislature are unconstitutional. Judging from her reported statement, Kane is not a brilliant orator. She said: (more…)

  THE American landscape painter Worthington Whittredge was born in a log cabin in Ohio. He began painting in Cincinnati and then traveled to Europe where he was a student at The Academy in Dusseldorf, Germany. After ten years in Europe, he set up his studio in New York City and became part of what is known as the Hudson River School, a term originally coined by a hostile New York art critic. The painters are not just known for works depicting the romantic Hudson region, with its magnificent waterway, but for a general style of landscape painting and a reverence similar to that of Thoreau for the American wilderness and countryside. In the nineteenth century, Americans were ready to view nature as beautiful, rather than daunting or threatening, and thus the appeal of these painters, who saw the sublime in the elements outside the growing cities. Today, after many decades of surrealism, urban realism and abstract expressionism, their works are healing. From New York, Whittredge made trips into the Catskills and the White Mountains to paint his impressionistic and meditative canvases of the woods and mountains, including The Trout Pool, above. Even more than the woods of New York and New England, Whittredge loved the American plains, which he also traveled and painted. Below is William Merritt Chase's 1890 portrait of Whittredge.  

HERE’S another piece by a self-celebrating feminist who boasts of neglecting her children and home. Katrin Bennhold, of London, left her two young daughters and husband while she went on a year-long fellowship at Harvard. While she was away, she discovered that mothers aren’t really necessary. Fathers can be mothers too!

As in so many of these self-congratulatory essays by the Revolutionary Mom, Bennhold glosses over the details. Interestingly, she barely mentions the nanny at all. The truth is, this other woman took Bennhold’s place too. Who was she? What kind of influence did she have? Did she put the children in front of the TV for much of the day (as is common with even highly-paid nannies) so while Bennhold was at Harvard her children were dredging the lower depths of daytime TV? We never learn the answer because Bennhold is busy telling us that sex roles are unnecessary. (more…)

KARL D. writes:

  IN THE DAYS SINCE the military arrested President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, Christians have been attacked and threatened. From The New York Times: A priest has been shot dead in the street, Islamists have painted black X’s on Christian shops to mark them for arson and mobs have attacked churches and besieged Christians in their homes. Four Christians were reported killed with knives and machetes in one village last week. ( ...) In the village of Naga Hassan near Luxor, Muslim mobs invaded Christian homes and set them on fire. Security forces arrived to evacuate the women, but left the men, four of whom were subsequently stabbed and beaten to death... --- Comments ---- Daniel S. writes: The revenge killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt is, sadly, nothing new. What needs to be outlined here is the backing that the American government provides to those forces which most actively and violently target Christians. In Egypt, as in Syria and Libya, the American government is backing and sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. The American government is clearly furious with the Egyptian military for ousting Morsi and detaining numerous Muslim Brotherhood leaders, to the point that it is being reported that the American ambassador has made veiled threats to the Egyptian military that they may face a Syrian-style civil war if Islamist political figures are not released from prison. The elites in America see support of radical Islam in Egypt,…

PAULA DEEN became a national villain for using the word “nigger.” It is not too hard to imagine the day when admitting that there are races is similarly scandalous. Below is a letter from yesterday’s New York Times that on the face of it seems laughable and quasi-illiterate, but that points to what is no doubt a serious project. All words for racial categories must go. We will live even more so in that Brave New World where the obvious doesn’t exist.

To the Editor:

I recently completed a doctoral study at the Simmons School of Social Work about people who are commonly ascribed to the black/African-American, biracial or multiracial categories, but who do not themselves subscribe to any racial identity. (more…)

ABOUT 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, many of them to the point of obesity, according to a report at CBS News. This is very sad, and obviously Mexicans are suffering from pizzafication too, but it also raises the question as to why Americans are, as some people argue, morally obligated to provide citizenship to many millions of illegal Mexican immigrants. Isn’t it possible they could survive at home? Perhaps if some Mexicans ate less, others could avoid hunger.

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NICHOLAS STIX, at Vdare.com, has been following the political show trial of George Zimmerman. Here is his excellent summary from last week. Supporters of Trayvon Martin have vowed to turn violent if Zimmerman is acquitted. See Stix’s observations about the famously illiterate witness, Rachel Jeantel, who “committed perjury by telling lies on top of lies, lying about the lies, and insulting and trying to intimidate defense attorney Don West when he pursued her lies.”

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AT Breitbart, Susan Berry writes:

It is curious that as Catholic leaders are campaigning essentially for amnesty, providing a plethora of images of “needy,” “struggling” families being “welcomed” by those who supposedly have “more,” there is scarce mention of another concept that many of these same Catholic leaders have highly prized, particularly in their recent struggles with the U.S. government: the rule of law. The notion that those who have come to the United States illegally should be exempted from the nation’s laws is not only not mentioned by these Catholic leaders, but also seemingly dismissed. The fact that many Americans have been the victims of violence at the hands of illegal immigrants has received little, if any, attention from Catholic leaders. (more…)

DANIEL S. writes:

Pope Francis has chosen as his first official papal visit the Italian-ruled island of Lampedusa, which is a transit point for refugees from Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries. This visit has earned the pope high praise from various “human rights” organizations, as well as Muslim leaders in Italy. While on the trip Pope Francis hailed the Muslim immigrants:

”To the dear, Muslim immigrants who today, this evening, are beginning the fast of Ramadan, with wishes for abundant spiritual fruit. The Church is close to you in the search for a more dignified life for you and your families.”

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  HERE is an outstanding lecture by the Canadian physician Dr. John Patrick, M.D., who discusses the origins of the Hippocratic Oath and the modern world's revolutionary assault on ethical standards in medicine. Without the belief in objective moral truth and the immortality of the soul, medicine --- even in a world of advanced science  --  becomes barbaric. Here is Patrick's essay on the Hippocratic Oath. He writes: The opening phrase of the Oath of Hippocrates is worthy of deep reflection. The literal form of the Oath cannot be sworn by Christians but they will relate immediately to the intent of Hippocrates and his followers, unlike sophisticated moderns and post-moderns who dismiss it as a mere vestigial marker of cultural superstitions unworthy of a scientific age. Certainly Hippocrates would find little with which to sympathize in the dominant model for the teaching of medicine today, which is founded on the cultural hubris that our categories supersede those of Hippocrates because it presumes that medicine is adequately described by the categories of biology, psychology and sociology. The transcendent dimension is denied.

  DANIEL S. writes: Pope Francis has approved the Blessed John Paul II and John XXIII for sainthood, an act clearly meant to pay homage to Vatican II and its revolution inside the Church. The most astounding component of the story is the fact that John XXIII will be elevated to sainthood without any claim of a confirmed second miracle attributed to him. The Blessed John Paul II will have a second miracle due to his intercession confirmed by the Holy Father. On the other hand, the beatification of the Venerable Pius XII is needlessly dragged out due to the persistent, cynical grumbling of secular Jews who maliciously accuse Pius XII of being complicit in the Holocaust and the refusal of the Vatican to tell these petty, opportunistic bigots to mind their own business out of fear of being called anti-Semitic or not sufficiently ecumenical (after all, it is only the Catholic Church that is expected to forsake her doctrines and principles in the name of endless, pointless interfaith dialogue).

LYDIA SHERMAN writes at Home Living:

Today I am staying home and members of my family are providing our traditional home-parade, where we dress up in colonial clothing, march across the lawn with our flags and hats, fiddles and flutes. I plan to ride my tricycle (an adult sized one). After the parade, which we will film, as usual, there is an out-door buffet and  dining area set up for our cold lunch, consisting of southern fried chicken, rolls, coleslaw, tomato-cucumber salad in olive oil and vinegar, dill dressing, and watermelon and punch  made from natural fruit juices.

Like last year, we will hear political, ‘”train-stop” speeches, using the porch as the railings on the back of the train, as the podium, in order to imitate the political tours of candidates of the 1800’s. This year there will be a presidential candidate speaking at the train stop, a speech from a woman about women’s rights (it is not what you may think) and a message from an air force veteran who lives nearby. [cont.]

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  THOSE who attend the Fourth of July fireworks displays in Boston and in other cities will feel like they are living under martial law, and essentially they will be. According to Reuters: Massachusetts State Police Commissioner Timothy Alben said the state will deploy record numbers of uniformed and undercover cops, install a 'significant' number of new surveillance cameras, boost boat patrols, and ban items like backpacks and large coolers at the events. "Please be assured that the steps ... are not the result of any specific threat to these events. We have no intelligence of any such threat," he said. The security measures are the result not of a specific threat but of a constant threat. Periods of martial law and constant and invasive surveillance are the result of the presence of Islam in America.

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  THE NEW YORKER magazine portrays on its cover the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie as a homosexual couple watching television, with an image of the Supreme Court on the screen. I guess we're supposed to think this is clever. The New Yorker has been junk for many years and it will never rise again. It now serves merely to document the triviality, immorality, rage and low-brow taste of the late American liberal intellectual.