Few have captured the female humanitarian with such devastating precision as Henry James. Here is his description of Miss Birdseye, the Boston lady reformer of his novel The Bostonians. She  lives on, different and yet the same, in cities such as Cambridge, San Francisco, London and Oslo.

She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there was a kind of reflection of ugly lecture lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned toward a pubic speaker, with an effort of respiration in the thick air in which social reforms are usually discussed. She talked continually, in a voice of which the spring seemed broken, like that of an over-worked bell-wire; and when Miss Chancellor explained that she had brought Mr. Ransom because he was so anxious to meet Mrs. Farrinder, she gave the young man a delicate, dirty, democratic little hand, looking at him kindly, as she could not help doing, but without the smallest discrimination as against others who might not have the good fortune (which involved, possibly, an injustice) to be present on such an interesting occasion…. No one had any idea how she lived; whenever money was given her she gave it away to a negro or a refugee. No woman could be less invidious, but on the whole she preferred these two classes of the human race. Since the Civil War much of her occupation was gone; for before that her best hours had been spent in fancying that she was helping some Southern slave to escape. It would have been a nice question whether, in her heart of hearts, for the sake of this excitement, she did not sometimes wish the blacks back in bondage. (more…)

  There is no need to worry about the massive erosion of American health due to obesity, as discussed in previous posts. If the proposed Baucus health care bill passes, our legislators will dramatically alter the relationship between citizen and government. We can just hand over our personal affairs to our overseers. For the first time, citizens will be ordered to purchase a specific product, in this case health insurance. How long before the government gives us menus and tells what to eat each day of the week? Why don't we just go ahead and shred every last copy of the U.S. Constitution? It's irrelevant now. This bill will exacerbate one of the most serious health problems facing Americans: their passivity in the face of their own physical destiny. By the way, more comments on the obesity issue have been added here.

  I hope you will read my article Obesity in America. It's tempting to think there are public policy solutions to this problem, but the real heart of it lies in both overindulgence and the desire for ease. Let's say I became Czar of Health tomorrow and set about banning all pizza and soda, two major factors in  America's weight problem. The truth is it wouldn't matter. Instead of pizza and soda, Americans would consume more burritos and lemonade. Twenty-ounce bottles of lemonade would appear in all the vending machines. I could then ban burritos and lemonade, or at least place a very high tax on them. Presto.  Americans would start consuming more lattés and grilled-and-gooey sandwiches. On and on it would go. America is killing itself slowly and creating a human landscape that is repulsive and obscene.

  Gourmet was once a great American magazine about travel and the art of entertaining and cooking. It was literate and restrained, with photographs of exquisitely decorated tables set for meals with no people in sight. These scenes were fantastically suggestive and encompassed everything from intimate aprés-ski parties to large Easter buffets. The travel articles were evocative and well-written; the recipes were flawless. The magazine was debauched under the reign of former New York Times food writer Ruth Reichl, who turned it into a journal for urban "foodies" with their decadent obsession with chefs and the hottest restaurants. She defaced it with photographs of  smiling models, a  violation of the Gourmet aesthetic which always left something up to the imagination, and filled it with bizarre recipes that called for exotic ingredients in uninviting combinations. Condé Nast announced on Monday that the 69-year-old magazine would shut down, blaming it on the economy. It had to go. Old bound editions of the magazine will be treasured for years to come.

  A female reader writes: I am a stay-at-home mother of two. I have been a homemaker for ten years now, and the rude questions and comments from outsiders still take me by surprise sometimes, though not the way they used to. I just wanted to say I love your blog. I read a response you wrote to a young homemaker who was insulted by a friend on Facebook and I so wish I had read that when I was first a homemaker and others were making constant comments about what in the world I was doing. I had some very valid reasons for staying home, but I did not care to share our business with the world so I meekly took the comments and issued few comebacks. I have a college degree I worked hard for, and your observations about what is encouraged in our society are completely correct. I got more affirmation for being a court reporter writing rubbish for the front page of the local rag than I ever did for staying home and taking care of my family. Your advice is fantastic and your observations show keen insight into what homemakers face. Laura writes: Thank you very much. Yes, after a while, I started to think of myself as a sort of suburban Solzhenitsyn, without the beard or the gulag. A middle class housewife who is committed to her vocation is a social dissident whether she likes it or not.

  Sarah Palin's life story is ready to hit the stands soon. Palin's relatively uneventful life seems thin material for a memoir. Her ghost writers (she surely did not write this book herself) will play up her outdoorsy, frontierswoman persona, as is clear from the cover and title. If she can shoot a moose, she can lead a country. By the way, is that a windbreaker she is wearing? That makes sense. It's tough-gal chic. I am looking forward to soaking up all the details about Palin's high school basketball triumphs.                                                           

Here’s the photo that accompanied the article mentioned in the previous post. It’s a glowing “family” portrait of a homosexual couple and the boy in their care. It does not trouble the Times, or the two men, that this boy has been deprived of a mother. What’s so special about a mother?

The Times’  report was intended to show the unfair economic costs homosexual couples pay. I see no sign of financial distress in this photo. Also, I wonder if this little boy will be eager to pose for a photo with his two dads when he is a teenager.

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