During the warm days of Indian summer, the garden sends forth its heady scents with a pungency they never possessed in the height of the season. We walk through our fading botanica and the fragrances rise from the earth as from an oven. Fawning slaves press us with aromatic oils. Perfumes labeled 'Ecstacy' and 'Opium' pervade the air. The smells are inebriating and reassuring. Those dread fears of spring were foolish and vain. This summer was as beautiful as every other.  The hot peppers and lantana, the parsley and basil, the scented geranium and lemon verbena, they produce scent shadows and scent currents, scent mists and scent fog. The boxwood sends its ancient mustiness in invisible clouds. The privet hedge has long lost its blooms and yet recalls spring. Oak leaves decay at our feet for the first time in a year; their drying parchment smells of books and bark. This summer was as beautiful as the others. Don't go. Stay.  

As reported in today’s New York Times, a woman has been appointed for the first time to head the training of drill sergeants for the Army. All over America, there are women drill sergeants. They’re in schools and homes, bossing men and barking orders. So is it any surprise the Army would acknowledge reality?

The problem is a woman drill sergeant just ain’t the same as a man. She’s not as big. She’s not as scary. Her voice is not as booming. That doesn’t mean a woman can’t do it and be pretty good at it too, as is proved by Sergeant Maj. Teresa King.

When women start barking orders at grown men, the delicate balance of power between the sexes is disturbed. Women are mothers and wives, lovers and friends to men. These roles are damaged by domineering bossiness. Male psychology is radically different from female psychology. After all, mothers are women. There is no more significant fact than that.

Interestingly, King has not been able to establish a normal personal life. As the Times reports:

For a time in her 30s, she was married to another soldier. She got pregnant but lost the baby, and eventually divorced. The failure of her marriage, she said, brought on a period of soul-searching that led her to study the Bible. She was planning to retire and join the ministry when her appointment to the drill sergeant school was announced over the summer.

“On the other side, the military life, I was doing so good,” she said. “But my personal life just stunk.” Since her divorce, she added, “I just pour my heart into these soldiers.”

Most women tend to “pour their hearts” into their work. But to pour one’s heart into soldiers?

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  Are fame and greatness the same thing? Most people would agree they are not. Michael S. and I discuss the issue here in regard to my previous entry on Lev and Sofya Tolstoy. Tolstoy was both famous and great. His failings as a husband, father and religious sage do not diminish his immeasurable artistic achievement.  

IN THE previous entry  on Jon and Kate Gosselin, commenter Karen argued that race was a likely factor in the dissolution of their marriage. Kate is white and Jon is half-Asian.

Mark, who began the discussion on the popular TV show, disagrees: 

I wonder if Karen has actually watched the show, or at least some of the earlier episodes on YouTube? I agree that it’s not the best use of one’s time, but given the sweeping generalizations in her comment, maybe a closer look wouldn’t hurt – if only to help her understand that in the modern world, the race element may not be as material as she thinks it is. I grant her point that in many cases it is, and I’m usually far from enthused about interracial dating and marriage, but one has to make distinctions.  

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Kathy S. writes:

I’m delighted to have come across your website.  What a blessing to find such an articulate writer who is on my side!  I’m 62, had my 2 children late in life (that’s when the Good Lord sent them), homeschooled them.  I’ve been a full-time homemaker for 30 of the 32 years of being married.
 
I had the great joy of raising our children, of being with them day in and day out.

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  Does the New Testament call on believers to love all humanity or embrace all the peoples of the world equally? No. Not only is it not possible to distribute one's affections equally or indiscriminately. It is wrong. G.K. Chesterton succinctly debunked this widespread heresy: Here is a statement clearly and philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with flatly denying: 'The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people, and those who are in sympathy with us.' I should very much like to know where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent, unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own. The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest compliment He paid was, 'Behold an Israelite indeed.' The author has simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to speak of…

In response to last week’s posts on Virginia Woolf, which begin here, Melissa, who is the mother of nine children, writes:

Years ago in college I had to read Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and also in the same course Elizabeth Spellman’s Inessential Woman. Spellman’s thesis was that since we can speak of expressions of womanhood as being different in different times and places, the modern, Western ideas of what being a woman is are not essential characteristics. According to Spellman, when we say that women lack womanly qualities, and suggest that they then fail to be women, we are making a false argument since these traits are inconsistent over time and space, and therefore accidental. Instinctively I felt it was wrong, but could not suggest that in class. I needed this “Philosophy of Race, Sex, and Gender” course to graduate.

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A man’s voice, especially a baritone or a bass, seems to emanate from a barrel. It is deeper and more resonant than a woman’s and represents one of the most striking differences between male and female. Women have favored deep-voiced men over the course of eons, ensuring survival of this sexual trait. There is no question about this: The male voice projects more authority than a woman’s. But, does this vocal difference matter in everyday life?

I say it does. It matters not just in relations between the sexes, but to family life as well. Together with the feminine sound, it creates an aural environment that is complete. Children who grow up without men in their homes miss what Lydia Sherman calls the “sound of reassurance.”  

The male voice also matters in politics and leadership. A woman cannot project the same commanding tone when she speaks. A woman’s voice rarely inspires fear. It is never thunderous. A female platoon commander needs to work hard to keep from sounding shrill. Sound matters.

Lydia, of Home Living, writes:

We are caring for a 95-year-old woman named “Nanny” who is my son-in-law’s grandmother. During this time I noticed something interesting. She becomes quite anxious if her grandson (almost 40) is not sitting beside or talking to her. I wondered if the sound of a man’s voice is very comforting to her. I talk to my own father, and when I hear his voice, it is like the world settles down for me. There is something very, very important in a man’s voice.

It is not good that children are raised only around women, and not around the male voice. I was thinking more and more about that male voice and how important it is.  I felt it while watching the movie, The Bostonians. The main male character was almost the only male voice of any importance, and when he spoke, the words were never trivial.  I know such a man in his 80’s. His conversation is never trite. His words are loaded. He never speaks without imparting a truth. His voice is deep.  My son-in-law’s voice is deep, and almost grave. Yet, he sings in a tenor voice.

President Teddy Roosevelt had a high-pitched voice when speaking, and yet he was “rough and ready,” and very masculine. But generally the man’s voice is so different from a woman’s. There is nothing like a Daddy’s voice, even if he is a distant person (as many of them seemed in the old days). It is a sound of reassurance. 

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