The Painter's Daughters

THE great 18th century British portraitist Thomas Gainsborough had a way of capturing both the innocence and gravity of childhood. His portraits of children call to mind Constable’s words about Gainsborough, “”On looking at them, we find tears in our eyes and know not what brings them.”  In the above portrait of his daughters, one reaching for a butterfly though a butterfly cannot be grasped without crushing it, the girls’ faces convey goodness, inner simplicity and fragile hope, precisely the qualities that make us cherish children and remind us of an openness to life and heightened consciousness that we ourselves lack.

As Sister Wendy Beckett points out in her Story of Painting, Gainsborough’s daughters both were psychologically fragile and eventually led difficult lives, making this picture all the more poignant. Another portrait of them (below) suggests their complexity and difficulties.

Artist's Daughters with a Cat, 1759-61

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GREG J. writes:

I have been reading the Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis. These are as rewarding as any of the books Lewis published in his lifetime, and have the additional interest that always accrues from the experience of reading through a great man’s private correspondence with friends and loved ones. In a letter to his brother, Feb. 11, 1940, Lewis described hearing a lecture at Oxford University from one of his fellow Inklings, Charles Williams, on the subject of John Milton’s Comus. Lewis describes Williams’ treatment of the doctrine of virginity in Milton, and concludes that he was witnessing an all-too-rare instance of a university doing its actual job: edifying its students. Read More »

JANE S. writes:

Recently, a reader called Jen said The Thinking Housewife is a “joke,” because it doesn’t have an open comments feature. The reason for this, according to Jen, is because Laura Wood is too cowardly to allow transparent open discussion on her site.

A few days ago, quite by accident, I googled “The Thinking Housewife,” on a library computer and discovered a number of blogs that appear to be dedicated to taking content from TTH and dissecting it in snarky ways. One of them is called  Manboobz, just to give you an idea of the caliber of intellect we’re dealing with. The blog posts at these sites all have tags like “misogyny,” “reactionary bulls**t,” and “religious bigot.” As with all liberal thought, they are defined by what they’re opposed to. Read More »

THE New York Times makes the case today for why Ryan was a good choice. The editorial titled “Paul Ryan’s Social Extremism” is excerpted below.

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IN THE entry on the controversial remarks of Congressman Todd Akin, a reader says Akin, who is now trailing Claire McCaskill, should have dropped out of the race.

Clark Coleman writes:

Akin projects a certain stereotype that many voters detest, and some of them are in the GOP, such as myself: the politician who thinks that his moral beliefs are qualification enough for office, and he does not have to do the hard work of thinking through the details of all those issues that are not moral issues, nor even of learning to articulate his views on the moral issues that are seemingly most important to him. Read More »

CYNDI writes:

I recall the discussions you had (here, here and here) on the repulsive turn that weddings and wedding photography have taken over the past few years with trash-the-dress shoots.

Well, the worst has happened. A bride in Quebec was dragged to her death while being photographed in a river.

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WRITING in The New York Times, a professor of biology at Boise State University says that the world could survive just fine without men as long as enough sperm was frozen to keep the species alive. Greg Hampikian looks around him — at a physical and intellectual infrastructure erected almost entirely by men —  and says it all comes down to gestation and breastfeeding. He himself is unnecessary (even though he was a stay-at-home dad for an entire year.)

Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.

A society that indulges idiocy of this magnitude is soon to be conquered by a society that doesn’t.

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THE cold-blooded murder of Megan Boken, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of St. Louis who was gunned down in broad daylight last Saturday afternoon by an 18-year-old during an alleged robbery, is a stark example of how Americans react to a death of this kind. Family and friends have wept and prayed on Facebook. They have spoken of her many wonderful qualities. They have circled trees outside Megan’s former high school with blue ribbons. They have anxiously awaited the arrest of her assailants and expressed profuse gratitude to the police when two black men were charged.

But they have voiced no outrage. Megan could have been killed by a bolt of lightening, so anodyne is the reaction to her death. The blue ribbons signify nothing more than sadness. They do not make any demands. They are not a call for collective action on behalf of the many Megan Bokens who have been killed by merciless black gunmen in the last 50 years or the many more who are yet to be murdered. The ribbons are pure sentiment.

Megan Boken is one more sacrificial victim on the altar of white remorse and self-hatred.

A commenter at VFR, Robert B., writes: Read More »

Jim and Mary O'Reilly, owners of the Wildflower Inn, with their children

IN A REMARKABLE instance of government persecution, the owners of a Vermont Inn have agreed to pay $30,000 and curtail their business activities significantly in an out-of-court settlement of a suit by a lesbian couple and the Vermont Human Rights Commission. The lesbian couple had been falsely told by an inn employee that the resort would not host a same-sex “wedding reception.”

What is stunning about this case is that Jim and Mary O’Reilly, owners of the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, did everything possible to reconcile their religious beliefs with the passage of civil unions and same-sex “marriage” in Vermont. They had agreed in 2005 before the Orwellian state Human Rights Commission to host same-sex receptions and the commission gave them permission (yes, they needed permission) to express to customers their belief that same-sex “marriage” was wrong before any such events were finalized. The commission had investigated the couple because they had voiced their objections to same-sex “marriage” in an honest and friendly manner to two lesbians who were potential customers without turning them away. These women, who are not the same women involved in the recently settled suit, filed a complaint with the commission.

The O’Reillys, who are Catholic and have eight children, never refused to host a lesbian “wedding.” It is being widely reported in the press today that they did. These reports are inaccurate.

Ming Linsley and Kate Baker

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JANE S. writes:

San Francisco plays up its Victorian heritage for all it’s worth. Victoriana is big business there. The word “Victorian” always means something good whenever it’s applied to buildings or Christmas cards or pastries. Victorian architectural treasures are lovingly restored and endlessly photographed. There are Victorian house tours, Victorian fairs, Victorian tea rooms, Victorian B&Bs, societies that host Victorian balls, shops that sell Victorian bric-a-brac, and places where you can dress up in Victorian costumes and get your picture taken.

Used in the context of social attitudes, especially sexual mores, however, the word “Victorian” always means something bad. People don’t seem to connect the dots between the mindset of a period and its cultural products. They don’t think maybe the one was necessary to produce the other. Read More »

THE stunning, widely lamented tenfold rise in cases of autism since the 1980s is due in substantial part to delayed fatherhood, a new medical study has concluded, adding to the already significant body of evidence that sexual liberation is ruinous to human health and welfare.

The birthrate of men over the age of 40 has increased by 30 percent since 1980. Benedict Carey reports in The New York Times:

Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found. Read More »

THE RESPONSE of the Republican Party to the “legitimate rape” remarks made by Missouri Congressman Todd Akin show once again how, on cultural issues, the GOP would rather concede than defend its views or attempt to persuade.

When asked to explain his position that abortion should not be allowable in cases of rape, Akin said: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” There is a reason why Akin felt the need to use a qualifier. The term “rape” encompasses violent assault by a stranger and coercion by a friend or “date.” While both may involve coercion, they do not have the same traumatizing effects. Judie Brown at LifeSite News writes:

While I am not quite sure what he meant to say, I can guess that he was attempting to define an actual criminal act in contrast to the rape claims sometimes attributed to dating experiences gone wrong, when the female in question changes her mind and decides she never said yes in the first place. Read More »

FEMINIST activists, including the untiring Wicked Witch of the West, Gloria Steinem, claim the Democratic National Committee is discriminating against mothers for not allowing children on the floor of the upcoming convention in Charlotte. That’s right. You heard it. After doing everything possible to trivialize motherhood and promote child neglect, the National Organization of Women is now up in arms because mothers can’t take their children to a political convention. Read More »

SEE the outstanding comments in the entry “Why Boys Don’t Read,” including Kevin M.’s remarks about his childhood reading and the pleasure he took in the books of Alistair MacLean, (above) the Scottish novelist who wrote thrillers and adventure stories, including The Guns of Navarone, H.M.S. Ulysses and Lawrence of Arabia.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

VINCENT C. writes:

On October 18, 2012, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, will host the annual Alfred E. Smith Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. Begun in 1945 by the then Archbishop, later Cardinal, Francis Spellman, the dinner was intended to honor the life of Alfred E. Smith, who served as Governor of New York, and in 1928 was nominated to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, the first Roman Catholic to be chosen for that position. He lost to Herbert Hoover.

Smith was a very devout Catholic, whose practice of his faith permeated his entire life. The dinner, which was initially established to raise funds for the Foundling Home for orphans and abandoned children, has raised tens of millions of dollars, currently used for financing at least 13 separate Catholic charities, as well as becoming a “must attend” for aspiring politicians who seek national office, although President Truman chose not to attend, and John Cardinal O’Connor refused to invite Clinton after his signing of the bill permitting late abortions. In 1980, President Carter was booed during the ceremony. This year, the major speakers are Mitt Romney and, believe it or not, Barack Hussein Obama; yes, the same man who has unleashed the furies of government against the Roman Church and other serious religious organizations in a way unprecedented in U.S. history. Read More »

AT Memoria Press, Martin Cochran considers why boys are turned off by reading. Cochran identifies perhaps the single greatest reason. Boys are discouraged from heroic literature. He writes:

It is now well-recognized that boys are not reading. What is the problem? Most commentators want to say that boys have an aversion to books. But the problem is quite the opposite: books—modern books, that is—have an aversion to boys.

A recent edition of The New York Times Sunday Book Review featured a Robert Lipsyte article that attempts to address this problem. Here is the proffered solution: Read More »

A 33-year-old Nebraska woman prompted hundreds of people to rally in the state’s capital last month after she claimed she was attacked in her home by three men who carved anti-homosexual slurs into her skin. Police said today that the crime was a fake. According to KLKN news: Read More »

THIS 19th century Japanese print by Kobayashi Kiyochika is discussed at the interesting blog Floating Along in Japanese Prints. Gina Collia-Suzuki writes:

Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), is a series of triptychs published in 1896, each one of which features a beautiful woman from a specific historical era set against a distant background scene. The way the figure in the foreground is shown close-up in contrast to the smaller figures depicted in the background of each triptych makes this an unusual and striking set of designs. The title refers both to the beauties themselves (the flowers) and the patterns of their beautifully decorated garments. It’s a stunning set and one of my favourites. It’s also very interesting for anyone wanting to compare the modes of dress and arrangement of hair throughout different periods of Japanese history. Read More »