PETER S. writes:

In the preface to the Islamic scholar Carl Ernst’s valuable book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World, he makes an astonishing statement:

 [T]he task of Islamic studies could.be described as minimal.  In 1992 I participated in a workshop discussing images of Islam in America.  The educational goal that we finally settled on in the workshop was very basic: to convince Americans that Muslims are human beings.  This might sound like an absurdly simple point, but the Islamic religion is perhaps the one remaining subject about which educated people are content to demonstrate outright prejudice and bias.  Ten years later a workshop on critical issues in Islamic studies came to the same conclusion, but more forcefully: the real issue is to humanize Muslims in the eyes of non-Muslims.  [p.xvii]

In this, as might be judged by many of the recent statements on this blog, he would appear to be entirely correct.  (more…)

THE MOTHER of the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was a niece of Charles Darwin. Vaughan Williams was seven years old when Darwin’s Origin of Species was published. One day the child asked his mother what the famous book was about. According to an anecdote I heard on the radio yesterday, his mother replied: “The Bible says the world was created in seven days. Uncle Charles thinks it took a lot longer. Either way, the world is wonderful.”

If you have never listened to Vaughan William’s beautiful meditation on a bird rising to the skies, “A Lark Ascending,” you can listen to it here.  Vaughan Williams was said to have been inspired by George Meredith’s poem To A Skylark:

O skylark! I see thee and call thee joy!
Thy wings bear thee up to the breast of the dawn;
I see thee no more, but thy song is still
The tongue of the heavens to me!

Thus are the days when I was a boy;
Sweet while I lived in them, dear now they’re gone:
I feel them no longer, but still, O still
They tell of the heavens to me.

(more…)

JANE writes:

This is a sad story! I’m sending it to you because of the “perfect girl” angle – plasma physics, mentoring other girls, sax player, in the marching band no less – almost a caricature of what I imagine the typical elite college resumé to be – and yet, somehow, someone with long hair allowed near a lathe! Sad. (more…)

IN SOME segments of the economy, women are earning significantly more than men. What will feminists do now? Rest assured, it won’t involve advocating for men. From an editorial in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum:

Tuesday is Equal Pay Day—so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women’s Organizations and others. The day falls on April 12 because, according to feminist logic, women have to work that far into a calendar year before they earn what men already earned the year before. (more…)

RESPONDING to this post on cultural attitudes toward pregnancy, Sarah writes:

I agree with Mr. McNeill that pregnancy ought to be accorded honor. However, I do not think that maternity bikinis are the way to recapture its lost honor.

In the 1950s, pregnant women wouldn’t dream of baring their midriffs or conducting nude photo shoots. They wore modest clothing, and generally eschewed the word “pregnant” in favor of the more ambiguous “expecting.” And yet, the world treated them with great deference and respect.

Today, on the other hand, one sees pregnant women exposing themselves on magazine covers, talk shows, or Facebook. And now the world treats them with absolute wretchedness. (more…)

CONTINUING the posts on my Easter menu, I offer this excellent recipe for French rolls by Fine Cooking magazine. It is the best recipe for rolls I have made (and I have made quite a few.)

First a few words about the all-important, pressing subjects of cookbooks, cooking magazines and culinary knowledge. As I say below:

 My own personal philosophy of cooking is that the purpose of any given culinary effort is not the immediate meal. It is the knowledge and closeness gained. Regardless of the outcome of cooking efforts, every experience in the kitchen results in knowledge – knowledge of our materials – and an intimacy with these materials, which are the intriguing and unassuming products of nature and human artifice. The cook is scientist, craftsman and lover of woods, fields and factory. Also, a cooking experience is a thinking experience. Though Plato had insulting things to say about cooks, contending they could never attain philosophical excellence, we do in our own way possess the philosopher’s gift of time for meditation. The hands work in concert with the mind.

(more…)

GEORGE S. writes:

Economist Bryan Caplan has written a book called Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. This is pro fertility by a college professor.  Actually one of his reasons for more kids is to produce a libertarian baby juggernaut. He says he wants to,

3. Increase the frequency of libertarian genes – and the long-run prospects for liberty.  Genes have a strong effect on political views.  So assuming libertarians are right about policy, increasing the frequency of libertarian genes is good for the world.  It will take a few centuries, but libertarian natalism is one of the least unrealistic paths to liberty we’ve got.

Laura writes:

Libertarians will not create any baby boom. They lack the philosophical premises, Caplan’s arguments aside. (more…)

IN 2007, the Welsh singer Cerys Matthews performed this lovely version to harp accompaniment of the traditional Welsh hymn Calon Lân. Here is an English translation:

I don’t ask for a luxurious life,
the world’s gold or its fine pearls,
I ask for a happy heart,
an honest heart, a pure heart. (more…)

A MALE READER writes:

I was introduced to your blog a year ago by View From the Right.  I  wanted to commend for your ability and willingness to stand against  the tide of today’s society.

I wanted to relay an experience that I believe is relevant to many of  your postings.

I am military officer and over the course of my career I have had three women work under my command.  During that time, I gave orders to  those women as I would anybody else.  (more…)

HERE is the first of my recipes for the Easter menu featured in the previous entry: Roast leg of lamb. This traditional dish has great symbolic significance. It represents ceaseless joy and imperishable love. It links us to the eternal sacrifice and one moment in history. We celebrate the springtime of our spiritual condition:

For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come, (more…)

JILL FARRIS writes:

I agree that it is a lack of bonding that leads to these tragedies, such as the mother who left her baby in the car. I remember a close relative who had a baby (a “wanted and planned” baby) in her mid-thirties and was not prepared for how hard it would be to leave her baby with her well-paid nanny to go back to work. I spoke to her the week she was done with her maternity pay and she sobbed over the phone about how much she was going to miss her baby. (more…)

IN A NEW ad for J.Crew, the company’s president and creative director Jenna Lyons paints her son’s toenails pink. She says, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” A majority of FOX News Twitter users polled on the story said they did not disapprove.

Notice the boy’s hair too, part of the latest preference for girlish styles in boys. My son’s barber told me of a horrible incident in which a mother came in with her son, who was about nine, and insisted he keep his hair long despite the boy’s tearful protests.                                                (more…)

MRS. H. writes:

Related to your and your readers’ complaints of modern dress is the topic of grooming. People, either out of laziness, ignorance, or for shock, do not groom themselves. I’m not against beards (my own husband has a fine one), but you should trim it. There are undergarments ladies can wear to better fit their clothes. And a lot of people could familiarize themselves with hairbrushes.

Here are two photos of the actors and actresses of the cable show “Mad Men,” in their modern appearance and in their costumes. (more…)

JESSE POWELL writes:

There has been so much talk of the federal budget and the deficit due to the threatened government shutdown that I thought your readers might be interested in some historical background on these issues.

In fiscal year 1930, before the Great Depression gathered momentum, the federal government ran a budget surplus of 0.8 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product); it took in 4.2 percent of GDP in taxes and spent 3.4 percent of GDP. At the depth of the Great Depression, in fiscal year 1934, the government ran a deficit of 5.9 percent of GDP (4.8 percent of GDP in taxes and 10.7 percent of GDP in spending). The government ran huge budget deficits during World War II, peaking at 30.3 percent of GDP in 1943, but by 1947 the government’s budget was in surplus and the debt from World War II started to shrink in relation to the size of the economy. (more…)