SPEAKING of the commodification of children and the suicidally low birthrate of white Americans, this New York Times article about a lesbian’s efforts to procure a child is a revealing glimpse into the sentimental narcissism behind these phenomena.

Among the details: the child’s young, unwed mother chooses two lesbians to adopt her child because she wants to help homosexuals overcome exclusion; she is moved out of the birthing suite so that the two lesbian “mothers” can bond with the newborn alone; both the adoptive parents plan to take maternity leave and their families share in their project. So an adoption agency, a hospital, employers and grandparents all take part in the shocking pretense of lesbian “motherhood.” There’s also a strange and creepy romantic flavor to the relationship between the lesbians and the birth mother. It’s as if they seduce her into giving them — or selling them — her child.

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A NEWLY-ENACTED law banning adoption of Russian children by Americans prompted immediate outrage this week by the American press and politicians, who generally consider any desire by an American for a foreign child to be sacred and inviolable. The ban was signed into law by Vladimir Putin yesterday and is part of a larger bill that has nothing to do with adoption. John McCain, who has a daughter adopted from Bangladesh, called it “shameful and appalling.” According to The New York Times, McCain said, “The effects of this legislation are cruel and malicious. To punish innocent babies and children over a political disagreement between our governments is a new low, even for Putin’s Russia.”

Americans believe they have a right to any child anywhere who may be suffering.

I highly recommend this presentation, “International Adoption: In Whose Best Interest?” by Peter Dodds, an eloquent critic of the adoption industry and the modern practice of sending children far from their native countries to homes of affluent Westerners, typically those who have put off having children of their own until it is too late. The transnational adoption industry is largely unregulated, reduces children to commodities and violates their inborn sense of cultural identity. Many children who are adopted have at least one parent who is alive.

Putin, to his credit, brushed aside the idea that the thousands of adoptions a year by Americans were justified because America is a wealthier nation. (more…)

ACCORDING to new Census projections, whites will cease to be a majority group by 2043. Nonwhites, who now compose 37 percent of the population, will more than double in number, and become 57 percent of the total, if the projections are correct.

The L.A. Times reports that the white population will decline by nearly 20.6 million from 2024 to 2060. Almost one in three U.S. residents will be Hispanic. The Times reports that the U.S. will be “more diverse” as a result.

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  MICHAEL S. writes: Check out the photo with this New York Times article about crime in the city. Of course, it focuses on a beaming female police graduate. Note how much shorter she is than the men to either side of her. She's practically a MiniMe. The incumbent Chief Bloviator of New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, says: "The essence of civilization is that you can walk down the street without having to look over your shoulder." As usual, Bloomberg, you're wrong. The essence of civilization is discrimination -- deciding that one thing is better than another, that one state of being is better than another, and then choosing to do the work necessary to have that better thing. Being able to walk down the street without looking over your shoulder is one of the results of civilization, not its essence.

SARAH S. writes:

At Christmastime one sees family members and occasionally a revelation occurs. My grandmother is quite old, no longer able to drive or live alone in her own home. She will not think of selling the property that has been hers and my late grandfather’s for over 40 years. But what has puzzled the family is that she will not consider returning there with another competent family member who can cook, drive, etc. (rather than staying with her various children for a few months at a time). (more…)

IT IS widely believed that Christmas is celebrated on December 25th because the holiday is an adaptation of popular pagan winter festivals. Two writers, The Catholic Knight  and Taylor Marshall, refute this theory, pointing out, among other things, that it is reasonable to assume that Christ, who was conceived on March 25th, was born on the 25th of December. The Catholic Knight writes:

I submit to you that everything you’ve heard about the supposed “Pagan origin” of Christmas is false. It is much hyperventilation over nothing really. Not only is it false, but it is based on such poor scholarship that it ought to be embarrassing to anyone who embraces it. Sadly, it would seem the whole modern world has embraced this error, a serious error, which ought to give us some pause.

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    IN an essay on Christmas, the late Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira reflected on Mary's initial reaction to the birth of Christ: The iconography of the Renaissance completely deformed one aspect of Our Lord. It presented the Child Jesus as a foolish babe in order to give an idea of His purity. The artists of that period often presented Him as an inexpressive infant without showing any sign of His divine mentality. I cannot think that such a thing is true. On the contrary, I believe that everything we admire in Our Lord as a man – His goodness, balance, distinction, affability and strength, and especially His transcendence – was already manifest in the face and body of the Divine Infant.

THE MOST popular item on the Christmas wish lists of British children included in a recent survey was a sibling, according to The Telegraph. The tenth most popular request was for a father.

No doubt many children were disappointed when they found iPhones under the tree instead. The illegitimacy rate is about 50 percent in Britain and the average age of new mothers is 30. Asking for a normal family is sort of like asking for the moon, which was also included on some Christmas wish lists.

Santa Claus should get out of the toy and electronics business and start delivering brothers and sisters instead.

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THE IOWA Supreme Court has upheld a dentist’s decision to fire his assistant because she was highly attractive and wore tight, revealing clothing. The dentist claimed that working alongside the asssistant was a threat to his marriage.

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ROGER G. writes:

Ilana Mercer expresses what I have been feeling about the public grieving for the victims of Sandy Hook, but have not been able to put into words:

“The pornography of public grief in our country is almost as warped as the evil (not ill), mother-slaying, mass murderer responsible for the Sandy Hook carnage. There is very little dignity in the freaky spectacle of mass contagion – where members of the public turn professional mourners, flock to memorial happenings for victims they never knew …

“The victims of killer Adam Lanza have become a sideshow …. Tragedy is denuded of any dignity, reduced to a showy public affair…”

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HENRIK IBSEN’S famous play A Doll’s House, which premiered in Copenhagen in 1879 and has been staged many thousands of times since, is a now classic statement of modern divorce. We will never know how many women have been inspired or encouraged to leave their husbands by Nora Helmer, Ibsen’s lovely and effervescent housewife who slams the door behind her when she leaves her home two days after Christmas, but we can assume that the immense popularity of this character in the ensuing years has had personal and grave consequences for some.

The play opens on Christmas Eve.

Nora Helmer returns to her comfortable and cozy Norwegian home after shopping for presents for her three children and her husband, Torvald. She is excited and happy. For the first time in years, she has felt free to spend at Christmastime. Her husband has a new job at a bank and, with this good fortune, they are likely to be comfortable for many years. Torvald is in the next room and soon comes out to greet her. He likes to tease her and call her his “little lark” and his “squirrel.” He finds his wife enchanting but also treats her like a child, a habit which she fully encourages. The moralistic Torvald is what people refer to today as a “control freak.” He even attempts to regulate what his wife eats. In contrast, Nora is sweet and charming. (more…)

  JANE S. writes: The best classical music station in the world, KDFC in San Francisco, has a special program every year for the holidays. Starting at noon on December 24th, they play Christmas music for 36 hours straight. They pause to announce the station every now and then but other than that, it is nonstop. I don't think they repeat any of the selections. They play stuff you've never heard before, like medieval French Christmas carols and the like. It is absolutely out of this world. I just thought I'd pass that along, since it's one of my favorite things. Merry Christmas!

  THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes: From my employer, SUNY Oswego, I receive only "holiday" greetings.  From my remote colleague at the University of Tehran, where I have supervised a dissertation, I receive honest-to-God Christmas greetings.  I have also received Christmas greetings from the student whose dissertation I oversaw.  She, like the colleague, is Muslim.  Truly the world is standing on its head.

IN THE ongoing discussion of antidepressants and violence, Zippy Catholic, who has also commented on the issue here, writes:

As for myself, although I’ve never been on psychotropic drugs, I’ve personally seen people who were not violent or suicidal become violent and suicidal on SSRI’s, and then lose those characteristics when carefully weaned off of them. (more…)

DON VINCENZO writes:

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Not content to destroy the armed forces of every Western nation, subvert all of the churches in every Western nation, shut down worthy boys’ and mens’ sports teams nationwide, and distort news reporting and entertainment everywhere by imposing their bizarre worldview and slate of grievances, feminists now train their sights on one of the few remaining institutions in the West that so far had seemed free of their depradations: the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

As The New York Times reports, Mormon women of the feminist persuasion are expressing their desire to change their church to be more accommodating of women by wearing pants to church.  (more…)

IN AN essay posted at Tradition in Action, the late Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira examined nativity scenes by 17th-century Portuguese artists. He wrote:

At a first glance, [a scene by the sculptor Joaquim Machado de Castro] might create an impression of disorder in some observers. We are accustomed to the disciplined and soulless crowds of large modern cities, the masses who file silently into movie theaters or grimly and hurriedly cross the streets when a traffic light or policeman’s whistle stops the flow of cars to let them pass. These crowds have become so soulless and standardized that at huge public gatherings they applaud as if they were one huge entity, in which the individual personalities were dissolved like drops of water in the ocean.

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OATH KEEPERS has offered to provide free self-defense and firearms training to school teachers and administrators. Stewart Rhodes, the organization’s founder, writes:

Children deserve to be defended. And the teachers and staff who are responsible for children during the school day deserve to know how to defend them – effectively, decisively, and at the very outset of an attack. And they deserve a fighting chance to defend themselves as well. It is not enough to tell them to sit tight and wait for the police to arrive. All too often, by the time the police get there, it is too late.

Teachers and school administrative staff need the tools and training to put a stop to the killing themselves.

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