A STUDENT at Pilgrim High School in Rhode Island painted a mural depicting a boy in the various phases of life, growing up and then becoming a married father. That part of the mural in which the boy appeared as a man with his wife and child, however, was deemed unacceptable by the school. It was painted over. In the words of the superintendent’s press release, “some of the members of the Pilgrim High School community suggested that the depiction of a young man’s development from boyhood through adulthood as displayed may not represent the life experiences of many of the students at Pilgrim High School.”  (more…)

DANIEL S. writes:

The 20th century Russian traditionalist Ivan Ilyin, who was exiled from his native land by the Bolshevik Revolution, made these observations about the differences between the organic society and the mechanistic society:

There are two different understandings of the state and politics: the mechanistic and the organic. The mechanistic asserts instinctive man and his private interests; it measures life quantitatively and formalistically. The organic derives from the human spirit and ascends to national unity and its common interests; it is qualitative, searching out spiritual roots and solutions. (more…)

SARAH S. writes:

I have been so encouraged to discover your blog. I was home-schooled as a teen (although my mother had one foot out the door working part-time), and find great fulfillment being a housewife and full-time mother today. We look forward to educating our children at home. (more…)

A READER in Italy writes:

Your post on what happened to unwanted babies in Italy was very personal for me. I am actually a descendant of one of those babies, born centuries ago somewhere in Sicily. The surname Di Dio (of God) was often given to those babies left in convents in Sicily, and I think that it may have been used to a lesser extent in some other parts of southern Italy as well. (more…)

IN A SPEECH in Berlin on Good Friday, Melinda Gates, a self-proclaimed Catholic, explained why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending some of its vast wealth to push artificial contraception around the world, according to The Seattle Times. "Some people worry that the real goal is to control populations," she stated. But ... "every year 100,000 women who didn't wish to conceive die during childbirth." She stated, "600,000 women who did not want to become pregnant [give] birth to infants who die in the first month of life." Life is only meaningful if your mother wanted you or was in a good mood when she was pregnant. Men and women "should be able to decide" when to have a child. But men and women have always been able to decide when to not have a child. What she really means is global engineers such as the Gates Foundation should be able to influence heavily the decision. Gates claims she is Catholic and yet -- on Good Friday -- said she has the right as a Catholic to defy Church doctrine. So weak and timid are those who claim to be Church authorities that someone like Gates can go on making statements like this and still be a member of the Church in good standing. This permissiveness is an affront to Catholics everywhere and an aggressive assault on the Church. Gates also misrepresented the Church's position. The Church is not against continence and abstinence, which are…

JEFF W. writes:

I agree with you that Joyce Maynard has exceptional skill for getting publicity and for understanding her reading audience. Her affair with J.D. Salinger was a publicist’s dream. But I do not think that skill developed in a vacuum. Nor am I saying that she has necessarily ever had a paid publicist. (more…)

ST. JOHN and Mary Magdalene as depicted in Raphael’s Deposition.

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THE idea that dangerous back alley abortions are the only alternatives to legalized abortion is one of the left’s most pernicious and evil lies. Writing in response to this excellent entry at VFR on abortion as “a form of child sacrifice” (see Thomas F. Bertonneau’s outstanding commentary), Vincent C. writes:

I wanted to mention two separate scenarios once used to deal with unwanted, but not aborted, births that may interest your readers.

Near the main church in Segovia, Spain, is a convent of cloistered nuns, although given Spain’s apostasy, I am not sure that it still exists. As one entered the convent, and I was fortunate enough to do so, I was shown a corridor that was windowless, and at the end of it was a door that opened up to what appears to be a huge lazy Susan device. (more…)

THE WOMEN’S writer Joyce Maynard, who has made a career of writing about her personal life since the age of 18 and believes there is no ugly side of the modern family that cannot serve as grist in a writer’s workshop, announced to her readers yesterday, after a long period of conspicuous and uncharacteristic silence, that she gave up the two girls whom she adopted from Ethiopia three years ago at the age of 56.

She did not reveal any details of why exactly she decided to find a family elsewhere for the two girls, ages six and 11 at the time of the adoption. Instead, she spoke of her need for “healing,” of the therapist she visited, of the nights she did not sleep and the people who had harshly judged her. That the idea of adopting two children of a different race and culture and melding them into the life of a middle-aged white divorcee who writes novels and runs women’s writing workshops in California might have been fatally flawed and selfish is not something she admits.

The photo above, with the two girls standing on a table, the child-like Maynard at their feet and the multicultural decor, speaks volumes. Maynard became famous years ago for her precocity as a teenager, as well as for her affair with the writer J.D. Salinger. She now conveys an advanced case of immaturity. Perhaps precocity inevitably leads to regression.

I wrote about her silence on the absence of her adopted daughters last year. Maynard, who has never remarried and is a cult figure to aspiring women writers despite – or perhaps because of – her divorce, wrote yesterday:

I will not speak here of all that transpired between that happy, hopeful day I first brought the girls home to where I sit now, writing this. I will simply say here that though there was no shortage of love or care–and despite some very happy and good times–the adoption failed. (more…)

RAPHAEL’S oil painting The Deposition (1507) depicts an unusual scene in which Christ is being carried to the tomb. It is one of the Italian High Renaissance artist’s greatest achievements and a dramatic masterpiece. Above is one detail; I will post others before showing the painting, which was part of a larger altarpiece, in full.

The youth in the foreground above, who is one of two people carrying the body of Christ, is believed to be Grifoneto Baglioni, who was killed in a feud between the Baglioni and Oddi families in Perugia in 1500. Atalanta Baglioni, the murdered youth’s mother, commissioned the altarpiece for the family chapel. In this detail, Calvary is in the background, the crosses standing out against a blue sky and billowy clouds. Mary, the Mother of Christ, has fainted and is supported by the three other Marys.

The bright vividness of the blues, golds and reds in this painting, which hangs in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, is not captured in this Internet image. In reality, the picture is brimming with exuberant color and passion.

Giorgio Vasari, the biographer of Italian artists, said of Raphael’s Deposition: (more…)

A FEDERAL appeals court ordered the Department of Justice today to clarify its interpretation of federal judicial powers in light of President Obama’s remarkable statements on Monday calling the Supreme Court “an unelected group of people” and suggesting it doesn’t have the authority to overturn Obamacare.

The president stated on Monday, in response to questions about the case, that it would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary” move for the court to overturn a law passed by Congress. He added: (more…)

THE Associated Press reports:

An 11-year-old Dutch boy has gone where many of the best economic minds in Europe have feared to tread and proposed a radical solution to the European single currency’s problems – using a pizza as his inspiration.

Jurre Hermans received a special mention from judges for the prestigious Wolfsohn Economics Prize, which comes with a $401,000 award. He came up with a scheme for an orderly return of the Greece economy to its old currency, the drachma.  The boy suggested Greeks hand in all euros to banks and receive drachme in return. The banks would use this enormous euro “pizza” to give out slices – extra cheese, please – to Greece’s creditors.

I would also like to be considered for that prize. I say, why not use miniature pizzas – coated with shellac to keep the sauce from getting on people’s hands – for currency?

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MICHELLE OBAMA may have taken inspiration for the outfit she wore to the Kid’s Choice Awards from the Klingons of Star Trek fame.

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THE DISCUSSION continues in the entry “Law and Disorder: The End of Male Mentoring at Law Firms,” an extremely important topic that is relevant to many other professional fields.

The dream of an egalitarian work force is a lie. Male and female are radically different. The attempt at equality boils down to favoritism for women. Indeed deference to women is rooted in human biology so it is no surprise. Equality means the gradual emasculation of professional fields, with men deprived of the favoritism that is their due. This is a trend that is opposed to the better interests of both men and women. (more…)

AT Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat writes about Michelle Obama’s latest fashion transgression, yet another hideously ugly get-up that represents a finger in the air to the institution of First Lady. She’s more the First Bratty Teenager who needs a mother to tell her to go home and get changed.

Michelle is like so many adults today. They think the duty of a parent is to act juvenile. She reminds me of Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, who, when presented with a job opportunity in Chicago that entailed leaving her sons in Europe, asked her eleven-year-old son for permission to go. Of course, her son said, “Go for it, Mom!” But then most children out of love for their parents will become authority figures, if asked. They then go on to become juvenile adults, having never had childhoods of their own.

Below is Michelle further demonstrating the dignity of her office while presenting an award to Taylor Swift, who displays the stiffness characteristic of a woman trying to keep her dress from slipping. (more…)

REGINA HESS writes:

I am grateful to Alan for the beautiful piece about “The Lady in White.” It gave me the boldness I needed to stand my ground on the way my daughters dressed as we went to a baby shower on Saturday afternoon. (more…)

DANIEL S. writes:

Thomas Fleming has a very good article on the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and his prophetic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which was later adapted into the film Blade Runner). (more…)