IN A previous entry, a reader discussed the athletic, manly appearance of ballerinas performing The Nutcracker. Another reader, Rita Jane, here explains how American ballet has embraced technical mastery, a development evident in musical training as well. Her comment includes video clips in which you can see the difference between the athleticism of American ballerinas and dancers who follow an older European style.

Rita Jane writes:

Ballet has changed radically in the last 50 or so years. It has become much more athletic, and the sheer physical strength required to perform a ballerina’s steps is much, much greater. Larger muscles and less body fat (much easier to jump high if you have less weight to make airborne) are an inevitable result of this choreography. (more…)

JILL FARRIS writes the following in regard to Senate Bill 1877, which would require all adults to report any suspected child abuse:

Our social services system is only interested in “saving” a child when there is money to be made in the effort. Always follow the money trail. I believe that our social services system and Child Protection Services constitute one of the greatest evils unleashed on our land.

Teachers, physicians and others in authority are already required to report any suspicion of abuse resulting in many false accusations and ruined lives. After all, it’s easier to report it “just in case” than to be held liable for not reporting it if it turns out to be abuse. Remember, the psychologists, social workers and judges define abuse in any way that will cause a child to need their assistance because there is great financial gain to be had by doing so. (more…)

AT HER blog Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat writes about the beauty of poinsettias:

I love poinsettias. I love their deep (almost bluish) red which contrasts with the dark green. I love that the red “petals” are really leaves themselves, and that sometimes the green leaves have strands of red in them. But best of all, I love the feeling of Christmas that poinsettias inspire, almost as much as a Christmas tree. But, as I’ve written here and here, Christmas trees are reflecting less and less that Christmas spirit, since even their name has been denied them to avoid the Christmas season altogether.

How can poinsettias be offensive to anyone? And what can they be re-named, to avoid their association with this particular holiday? Poinsettias they will remain, and they may be one of the few symbols left of a true Christmas. (more…)

  A READER writes: I recently attended a performance of The Nutcracker in a midsized city in the western U.S. The sets were spectacular, the music wonderful. But I was struck by the physical persona of most of the performers. Of course the men were in male costume and the women female, but the bodies appeared almost interchangeable. The men were small, not muscular, and many of the (flat-chested) women almost as large as the men. It appeared they could have lifted and carried the men as easily as the other way around. Neither did the choreography emphasize masculinity or femininity, but must have come from some nether region of movement that fit everyone and yet no one. Even the makeup had an androgynous, one-size-fits-all look to it. BEAUTY and GRACE as well as masculinity and femininity were missing. I've attended other performances in the past and never noticed this before. But, alas, that was before I took up with The Thinking Housewife...

NICHOLAS writes:

Larissa Faw’s statement that men take more breaks, walks, and lunches out during work is accurate in my view. I’m employed in an office where a huge majority of my coworkers are female. I have one close male friend here, and we both take far more breaks and walks together during the work day than are typically taken by our female coworkers.

I believe the discrepancy has two causes, one positive and one negative. The positive one is that my friend and I crave male communion and solidarity in a sea of females, and the result has been a strong friendship with this man; our families see each other outside of work and will remain friends even after we are no longer coworkers. The negative reason that we break away from work more often than the women is in order to escape the distressing aura of petty anger and work-idolatry which flows from the embedded feminism of the office.

I wholeheartedly concur with Laura’s frequent observation that certain males, when faced with many (or mostly) females at work, will respond to this unnatural arrangement by withdrawing and/or refusing to engage fully in the competitive aspects of work. (more…)

READING A REPORT by the National Marriage Project, which studies and promotes matrimony, is about as inspiring as reading a car manual. In its latest State of Our Unions report, the Marriage Project writes:

[Y]oung men and women need to understand that paths exist in society that allow for successful navigation through the contemporary challenges of marriage and parenthood. This report suggests that, for many young adults, the best path for forming and sustaining a family is a hybrid marriage that incorporates features from the newer soul-mate model with features from the older institutional model. Such a hybrid marriage allows today’s young men and women to forge a marital friendship that is more likely to be both generally happy as well as enduring, one that, over the long-term, benefits, adults and children and affords women and men the opportunity to live a life that feels ultimately meaningful. (more…)

 ALAN writes:

Some years ago I was looking through a decades-old magazine when a full-page color advertisement for the Greyhound Bus Company commanded my attention. I clipped it and saved it. It appeared in a December 1945 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It is from another moral and cultural universe and a better one.  (more…)

READ this chilling account of Senate Bill 1877, which would require every adult in America to be a reporter of child abuse and neglect. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the bill would result in an unprecedented intrusion of state power into the private sphere and an increase in false allegations:

In conclusion, S. 1877 will lead to a massive increase in child abuse and neglect investigations upon families. (more…)

MICHELE FLOURNOY, the highest ranking military woman in American history, announced her resignation today, stating that she is leaving her position as Under Secretary of Defence for Policy to spend more time with her three children, the youngest of whom is nine, according to the Associated Press.

Instead of openly admitting that she has been neglecting her duties at home and expressing remorse that she now will be abandoning her duties to her country, Flournoy resorts to the nauseating, self-exculpating language of “balance.″ “Right now I need to recalibrate a little bit and invest a little bit more in the family account for a while,” she said.

Leon Panetta stated in his own touchy-feely statement about her resignation: “I will personally miss her valued counsel, but I understand the stresses and strains that holding senior administration positions can have on families.” The defense secretary did not point out that those stresses and strains are unique to women or at least imply that married women don’t belong in the highest ranks because of their family responsibilities. Flournoy’s departure is portrayed as a purely personal matter and not a form of betrayal. After many years of costly investment in her career, in grooming that might have gone to a man who would not have the same stresses and strains, she is leaving. Married women are extreme risks at the top and there is an impenetrable wall of silence about the waste of so much training. (more…)

RANDY BROWNING writes:

It’s not surprising that sports writers are poo pooing Tim Tebow and the seemingly miraculous wins of the Broncos. Since the rise of Babe Ruth, sports writers have spoken of athletes as gods but not admired the God-worshipping athlete if he goes beyond small gestures. (more…)

DIANA writes:

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republican ticket is Romney and Bachmann. They are such a sheerly pleasant-looking duo. I mean: looking at either of them is nice, but looking at both literally induces a feeling of euphoria, they are so attractive together. Their individual vocal timbres match and complement one another as well. Some folks don’t like Mrs. Bachmann’s Midwestern twang: I love it. I have a weakness for Midwestern voices. To me, they denote honesty, politeness and solidity. I thought Bachmann looked and sounded great on Saturday. But she won’t be the
nominee. (more…)

SO MANY articles report on the scarcely new phenomena of women dropping out of the workforce after years of investment in their careers and failing to achieve the upper ranks of success that barely a day goes by without an update on the subject. The purported reasons are often downright hilarious. This article in Forbes suggests a factor I have never encountered before. Larissa Faw writes:    (more…)

MATTHEW writes:

I was greatly disappointed by a recent statement by Dean College spokesman Gregg Chalk regarding the expulsion of nine black students involved in the widely-publicized assault of another student. “[The incident] is in no way indicative of the type of student or type of environment at Dean College,”  he said. (more…)

BUCK writes: 

  I HAVE been away from my computer for a couple of days, and unable to post comments. I will be back in action in a few hours.

I AM posting responses to the previous entry, “Don’t Join the Marines,” here.

David writes:

While I sympathize with your correspondents who advise against joining the Marines, I don’t agree with their advice. The military is continually being tinkered with by social engineers specifically because it remains one of the strong bastions of traditional values, under the surface, and we all benefit by its remaining so. Occasionally saluting the absurdities of political correctness is of course annoying and degrading, but official folly is nothing new in military culture either. Nor are useless buggers in command positions – metaphorical OR literal buggers. Indeed, by the late nineteenth century the British army effectively controlled the world’s largest empire despite a significant presence in the command structure of effete aristocrats whose uselessness or counterproductiveness sometimes approached that of the modern PC gelding or metrosexual. (more…)

IN a recent entry, a reader named KB disclosed that he is joining the Marine Corps in the hope of turning his life around. His comment provoked this impassioned response from Wheeler MacPherson, an ex-Marine.

MacPherson’s message: Don’t do it.

Brigadier General Loretta Reynolds, commander of Parris Island, where 20,000 Marines are trained annually, is, he says, “the bleak androgynous face” of a military institution in a state of irreversible decline. “Whatever nobility and glory that organization once had, it has squandered forever,” MacPherson writes. “Assimilating yourself to its culture will not save you. It will merely give you some fleeting bragging rights.”

Wheeler MacPherson writes to KB:

I sincerely hope that my words which follow do not offend you, because I do not offer them with any such intent.

I will confess that when I read your comment on Mrs. Wood’s blog, I assumed by your description of yourself as an “immigrant” that you are either British, Russian, or Canadian. That is to say, I assumed that you are white. Having learned that you are Indian tends to gut my original response, since most of my observations and concerns play directly to someone of heritage similar to mine.

For example, I was going to point out that the Marine Corps in which I served was a bastion of things Southern and masculine. R.E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson were studied and revered. We imitated the “rebel yell” in training exercises. (more…)