AMERICAN colleges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries believed that women should pursue physical fitness in a distinctly feminine way. Today, in the age of Title IX, this approach is detested as “inequality.” However, at that time, a woman was believed to have great influence on the world around her through her grace, charm, modesty and refinement. She was being groomed for an influential role in society, but one radically different from the utilitarian role women are groomed for today.

As one example, I offer this history of physical education and sports for women at Iowa State University. Female students were at one point taught what was known as “Swedish gymnastics,” a program of calisthenics developed by a poet laureate of Sweden.

In-class work was described in the 1909 General Catalog:

“The Swedish System of gymnastics, including marching tactics, calisthenics, and apparatus work is taught.  The highest ideals are kept constantly before the mind, not only in health and strength but ease, grace, and refinement in manner and carriage of the body.” (more…)

IN THE past, the belief that highly strenuous exercise compromised the health and fertility of women was common and led to efforts to encourage women to pursue less demanding athletic activity, such as tennis, field hockey, calisthenics, and archery.

This belief, frequently ridiculed in the age of feminism, has been vindicated with time (the view that women should engage in no vigorous exercise has not.)

The “Female Athlete Triad” is a growing concern.  From Runner’s World: (more…)

TRUMP VOTERS have been punched, knocked to the ground, dragged from their cars and now, in the wake of a shooting of five at a Congressional ball game yesterday by a Bernie Sanders supporter, shot. (A partial list of other attacks can be found here.) Just 'Google,' "Trump supporter attacked" and "Hillary voter attacked" and you will grasp which side of the political divide is violent.

IT HAS no practical function and can be quite uncomfortable. It is a symbol of dignity and respect for the job or activity of the wearer. And visually, it is a focal point that directs the gaze to the shoulders and upper torso, conveying an impression of strength. Kaede Lire reflects on the vanishing necktie at Tradition in Action. The man in a tie is a figure of respect. The man in a T-shirt is a boy.

Responsory to St. Anthony of Padua

If miracles thou fain would see;
Lo! error, death, calamity,
The Leprous stain, the demon flies,
From beds of pain the sick arise.

              Refrain
The sea withdraws and fetters break,
And withered limbs he doth restore;
While treasures lost are found again,
When young or old his help implore. (more…)

A NATIONALIST organization in India teaches women to be militant and feminine: “We teach the girls to be fully empowered and equipped – that is, physically, mentally and spiritually strong, so that a girl is capable of protecting herself and is able to guard her country, its traditions, its sanskriti and its languages. The Samiti instills pride for the nation in her.” [...] The Samiti informs the girls that becoming good mothers is important, since it is the woman who is responsible for sculpting the nature of her child. “Maata nirmata bhaviti hai, ma chahe toh nar se Narayan bana sakti hai, ma chahe toh vidhwansak bana sakti hai.” (A mother is the ultimate creator. If she wants, she can bring up her child to be a saint or a destroyer).

ANNA F. writes:

I like your blog very much, especially your posts on modesty. It is refreshing to read your writings on various topics because you display the common sense that is sorely lacking in world today! Well, most people might think what you say is outrageous but it would have been accepted as obvious truths 100 years ago. Right? I hope so.

Originally, I came across your blog from googling Solange Hertz’s name. She is my favorite author and I have read many of her books and your writing reminds me of her.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. (more…)

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JUDE DUFFY writes at Fitzpatrick Informer that the immigration problem in Ireland is worse than that in Germany, France, the UK and Sweden and yet receives little attention: On O’Connell Steet, Dublin city centre’s main thoroughfare, foreigners often outnumber native Irish at a rate of well over 100 to one. The official figures say migrants account for around 15 per cent of the Irish population—much higher than in most European countries, but still a huge underestimate. These days you can drive from the centre of Dublin to its northern inner suburbs without seeing one white Irish pedestrian en route. Schools in many parts of Dublin have almost no white Irish pupils, and convenience stores, restaurants and supermarkets are staffed overwhelmingly by south Asians, Africans, Chinese and Eastern Europeans. Last year Merkel and her fellow Rotchshild shills opened the gates of continental Europe to millions of “refugees”, but successive Irish governments had beaten them to it by about 20 years. From the mid-1990s onwards, Ireland welcomed hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over the globe. This process accelerated rapidly from the mid 2000s onwards—to the point where foreigners now form a majority in many localities. [...] For many Irish men, the ultimate statement of their masculinity is not pride in their country, but a nerdishly obsessive devotion to English soccer teams like Manchester United or Chelsea. They exemplify the cultural phenomenon I call the “macho mangina”: those men who have no stomach for defying the Feminist-thought cops…

  FROM AN excellent essay by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira at Tradition in Action: There are men who correspond to grace and fulfill their vocations dragging whole historical eras with them or there are others whose sins have analogous consequences. They unleash dynamisms, they bring together charges of energy that were dispersed, make them surge forward. [...] We can also see this dynamism in the roles God assigns to peoples in History. It is very beautiful to see when a dynamism enters a people and illuminates it from within; henceforth everything that people does takes on a special brilliance. This can be a natural, supernatural or preternatural phenomenon. As a consequence of that dynamism, a people become splendorous. In the Old Testament, this happened with the Chosen People in the golden phase of its history, that is, during the kingships of David and Solomon. The episode of the Queen of Sheba traveling from afar to see King Solomon was a repercussion of the brilliance of the vocation God had given to the whole people that shone especially in him. In the history of the New Testament, the French people received a similar grace of predilection at the baptism of Clovis, when France became the first-born daughter of the Church. The history of a people is in many ways the history of this splendor that dwells in it. At a certain point, however, that splendor begins to diminish, as it did in…

WHAT is the world's most famous false shepherd up to now? Ah, yes. He's come out with another whopper: God needs man and cannot possibly get along without him. Now don't go telling me that we can ignore or defy the teachings of a real pope and only on rare occasions listen up when he makes a solemn pronouncement. No, sir-ee. Catholics cannot be anti-papists. We are obliged to approach with a spirit of submission and obedience the ordinary teachings of the Pope and this is but one of many examples of the outrageous errors of this arch-blasphemer and fake.  

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

A year ago I began a correspondence with one of my grandchildren, who is now ten years old and home-schooled. We both created little hand drawn catalogs of goods and services for each other, including ordering forms, for things like handmade books, paintings, wildflower seeds, newsletter subscriptions, home baked goods and anything that could be sent by post or used for bed and breakfast service in each other’s homes. (more…)

  MARK CATESBY (1682-1749) spent four years exploring and documenting the wildlife of the Carolinas, Florida, and the Bahamas. His extraordinary watercolors are the result.

FROM an article by Anthony Migchels at Real Currencies:

The Banking System is One. It is controlled top down. Those that control it are the Money Power. It’s global and it rules finance. It dominates every Government on the planet through it.

Its basic operations are simple: maintain monopolistic control of the money supply. Provide credit at interest. Create a boom/bust cycle by inflation and deflation. Finance those under control or to be brought under control and starve the rest. Translate this financial omnipotence to Global Despotism.

The implementation of these basic policies have become more complex during the last century. But for the controllers little has changed. (more…)

  London Bridge pants are falling down, Falling down, falling down. London Bridge pants are falling down, My fair lady.

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