Like most women, I cherish the company of other women and welcome the opportunity to bask in female affection or talk about mutual interests. But I have turned down invitations to be part of any women’s book club. A disturbing cultural phenomenon has swept the nation. On the face of it, it seems a sign of progress, an awakening of  intellectual enlightenment and refinement. Women gather in living rooms to sip wine and discuss literature. What could be unhealthy or backward about that?

The truth is the women’s book club has too often become a self-justification society, a bastion of thought-control. Within the intimate enclosure of these gatherings, female supremacy is sometimes stroked and preened, like a spoiled Persian cat sitting on the lap of a spinster.

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  The Mystical Nativity, Botticelli   Heav'ns youngest teemed Star, Hath fixt her polisht Car,    Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending: And all about the Courtly Stable, Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.             - from "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," John Milton

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

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Charles writes in response to the entry In Defense of Scrooge:

I thought I was the only one having difficulty with the way charities conduct themselves. Your posters have made some very accurate statements. Here are my favorites:  (more…)

Brittany writes:

I think you are too harsh on single mothers. Not all unwed mothers are bad people; they just made a mistake. Maybe their boyfriend pressured them into sex and he left when she got pregnant. You can have sex one time and get pregnant. I was born before my mom and dad were married but if my dad had left my mom would have been a single mother. Yes, my mom did have premarital sex but that did not mean she was a slut because she was only with my dad and they were engaged. Yes, some single mothers did not care but what about the ones that just made a mistake?

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Scrooge movie poster

M. writes in regard to the previous entry:

I have to disagree with Alex A. when he says that Scrooge’s transformation wasn’t as a result of seeing the light but of fear of the horrors to come if he doesn’t change. 

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  In the previous post on welfare and motherhood, Karen I. writes: I thought of a few more things the poor children of single moms get, including free lunch and often breakfast at school, free coats from the local newspaper charity, free filled backpacks from my church at the start of school, free rides to and from doctors appointments if they need them with the state insurance, fee waivers to attend summer camp free or cheap at the YMCA and free transportation to and from that camp. Add that to what I already listed and try to convince some single young tramp with a baby on the way she ought to marry her baby's Daddy and get a job. Morals are not going to convince her because she does not have any or she would not be in that situation to begin with. She has no education to use at a job, so that argument is out the window, too. So, she has to choose between working at a low paying, miserable job and sitting home "poor" with all the State is just dying to hand her the minute the baby arrives. No wonder 40% of births are to single mothers these days.  I used to be the first to give to the food pantry, the backpack drive, etc. After seeing who really benefits from these things, I don't do that anymore. Now, if I want to give something, I…

Should a family with an educated mother and a father attending graduate school be entitled to welfare payments so that the mother can remain home with the children? A reader says she knows such families and asks for my opinion. My answer: No. The mother should go to work temporarily or the family should live with relatives. Here is our exchange.

Intensely Curious writes:

I, like you, believe that families need their mothers to stay home and be the prime homemaker, making the family home a place of solitude, serenity and a warm environment in which everyone in the family can thrive. When voicing this opinion, which is not the smartest thing to do, I often hear things like, “Children need to know the value of the dollar,” and “Children need to see a good role model,” etc. Those responses are usually given in regards to situations similar to the one I’m about to share with you. (more…)

  The post "Terrible is This Place," on the architectural revolution in one Catholic parish, mentioned the importance of verticality in sacred buildings. The same can be said of domestic architecture and secular public buildings, often geometric boxes that resemble cages today. Verticality, which is not the same as mere height, is one essential aspect of a livable environment, whether in the form of steep-pitched roofs or windows and gables that draw the eye upward. It is no accident that verticality is noticeably missing from our built environment. We live in a world of deadly horizontality. It exists even in the highest skyscrapers. Modern architecture is an enemy of intimacy, beauty and enthusiasm. Commenting in that post, Fitzgerald writes: It is essential traditional architecture be revived both in our sacred structures as well as our homes. Note how the homes the wealthy and powerful today inhabit are barren and cold, empty of life and progeny. The bohemian radicals that transformed architecture have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They ripped architecture from its traditional moorings and erected soul-crushing living machines to foist their radically selfish and self-serving lifestyles, lived in opposition to the family and the traditions designed to nourish and support it, upon the unwitting and unfortunate inhabitants of the very structures they produced.  I recommend the remainder of Fitzgerald's comments.

Modern kitchen technology is wonderful, especially at this time of year. I was reminded of this yesterday when reading this very tragic story on the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer of Dec. 26, 1909: Miss Bessie Ziv, aged 17 years, had already spent several hours with her mother in the kitchen of their home at 2553 East Clearfiled Street in preparing the Christmas dinner, when she opened the oven door to baste a turkey that was slowly turning a tempting nut brown. "Is not the turkey cooking nicely?" she remarked to her mother as she poured the drippings in the pan over the big bird with a spoon. She leaned too near the open coal fire in the range and her apron caught fire. From an open window a gust of wind fanned the first sparks into flames that quickly enveloped her. The story goes on to say that Miss Ziv's injuries were probably fatal; those of her mother, who used her hands to put out the flames, were serious. It reports a similar case of a woman badly burned the same day elsewhere in the city when cooking her turkey to "a requisite degree of brownness."