February 23, 2012
MRS. M. writes:
Recently my mother and I took my four year-old to a birthday party at a local mall. As we left the mall, I saw the strangest sight: two women in their 50s or 60s, appearing to be a “couple,” pushing baby strollers with a large pillow and a small DOG inside each one! Read More »
February 23, 2012
AT The Orthosphere, Proph makes the case against consensual politics. Democracy, he writes, is a “misrepresentation … of the nature and structure of reality”:
Existence is not reducible to a mass of equal and sovereign wills who must agree to coordinate their movements through space in order to avoid collision. Rightness and moral law are not determined by voting or even by choice; goodness is not convertible with consent; and authority, being rooted in God, transcends individual wills. Life under a consensual political system tends to inculcate its society with the delusion that “freedom” is the highest good, with the predictable consequence that the order of being, in all its determinism, comes to be regarded as oppressive and unjust. Thus, you wind up with people demanding taxpayer-subsidized elective sex change operations — how else can we be free of the tyranny of reality?
So prosperity misrepresents man’s spiritual condition, driving him to believe (falsely) that he is self-sustaining and self-actualizing; and democracy compounds the misrepresentation by driving him to believe (also falsely) that he is by nature free, that duty is an unjust imposition, authority something to be rebelled against, and reality itself something negotiable. A bad situation, indeed, and one in dire need of correction.
February 23, 2012
JESSE POWELL writes:
A new group blog your readers will be interested in has launched! It’s called The Orthosphere and, since its beginning on February 17, 2012, it has been active at a rate of three posts per day. It offers interesting commentary on religion, politics, and the various maladies of our sick culture.
One thing I like about The Orthosphere is that it has a lot of testosterone and fighting spirit! It is an especially good blog for those wishing to explore spiritual and religious questions and for those interested in the political fight against liberalism.
The four contributors so far are Svein Sellanraa (Dispatches from the North), Bonald (Throne and Altar), Proph (Collapse: The Blog), and our very own Kristor.
The blog bills itself as a “movement of Christian traditionalist conservatives” with the appropriate slogan, “Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists” (a quote from Joseph de Maistre).
I urge your readers to check it out!
February 22, 2012
ALAN writes:
In the 1950s-‘60s, small, family-owned grocery stores could be found in all big cities like St. Louis. My mother shopped at three such markets month after month, year after year, all within walking distance from where she lived. The grocers and their customers came to know each other on a first-name basis. Those markets remained in business for decades, but all are gone now. Half a century after my mother shopped at one of those markets, I stood at the gravesites of the three brothers who owned and operated it, remembering the reliable service they provided in that corner market for more than forty years. Read More »
February 22, 2012
OF ALL the Christian denominations, the Eastern Orthodox Church takes Lenten fasting the most seriously. Here are the prescribed rules, which include abstinence from meat, dairy products and fish throughout Lent and abstinence from olive oil and wine for much of it. The Orthodox Lent extends from next Monday to the Friday before Palm Sunday. Read More »
February 22, 2012
AT VFR, Kirstor points out what I have noted previously and, that is, even if the Catholic Church is exempt from the abortion and contraception mandates of Obamacare, ordinary citizens who are conscientious objectors will still be required to pay for these services through the required health plans. Therefore, it is not enough for the Church to seek an exemption for itself. It should fight Obamacare as a whole.
Also, leaving aside the moral objections, any health plan that funds abortion and oral contraceptives is not a health plan in anything but name. Abortion and contraceptives harm the physical health of women. They are known causes of cancer. A health plan that subsidizes abortion and oral contraceptives is like an exercise plan that requires people to sit and not move.
February 21, 2012
IT WAS after three weeks of fasting that the prophet Daniel received revelation from God. Abstinence from food lifts the mind to higher things. It prepares the way for wisdom.
Since tomorrow is the beginning of Lent, it’s worth calling to mind the purpose of fasting. The fast teaches self-restraint, not just in regard to food but with all desires and impatience. After fasting, we may mysteriously seem less petulant and quick to annoyance. It trains the will, enabling it to acquire more endurance and strength. It also serves as reparation for sin, relieving us of nagging migraines of guilt, of which we may be partially unconscious. Read More »
February 21, 2012
SEE Mary’s excellent comment in this entry about the Penn State coach who has allowed his players to embrace the grunge look. Like the operators of a homeless shelter who stand by while their visitors over-eat, the coach has surrendered.
February 21, 2012
THE U.S. medical establishment, operating under obvious profit-making motives, now condones the mutilation and poisoning of children and adolescents who say they are confused and unhappy with their innate sex. In the ultimate manifestation of societal hatred of male and female, “gender identity” clinics have appeared at major pediatric hospitals. These clinics have invented a devastatingly effective sales pitch, as shown in this AP story. They tell frightened and gullible parents, who may be suffering from mental illness of their own, that their confused children – boys who fantasize about being girls and girls who fantasize about being boys – may commit suicide if they don’t submit to puberty-blocking hormones and surgery. Girls as young as 16 have had their breasts cut off under the supervision of Dr. Norman Spack, of the Children’s Hospital Boston.
The denial of innate sex differences has reached the point of mass hysteria. We are in the grip of collective mental illness and medical sadism.
February 21, 2012
GRATEFUL READER writes:
On Sunday night, my family served a meal (prepared at our church) at a homeless shelter for women in a wealthy suburban town. My husband and son worked in the kitchen while my daughter and I took orders and served and chatted with the women. Read More »
February 21, 2012
ONLY in an environment in which feminist orthodoxy prevails would a major sponsor of breast cancer research be forced to fund an organization that causes breast cancer. In the recent controversy over the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s support of Planned Parenthood – the foundation withdrew funding from Planned Parenthood and then restored it under public pressure — evidence that abortion and contraception contribute to the incidence of breast cancer was ignored by the press.
Everything was said but the obvious. The Komen Foundation needed to stop subsidizing Planned Parenthood if it had any hope of integrity. Read More »
February 20, 2012
OF ALL the I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening stories, this one takes the cake. I wish it was satire. I wish I could turn to you, reader, and say this is a spoof or a very dumb joke.
According to Stars and Stripes, a small number of male soldiers in the Army have been asked to simulate pregnancy, complete with fake breasts and distended bellies, in order to better empathize with the pregnant and post partum female soldiers they will be training. Seth Robson reports:
This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers. Read More »
February 20, 2012
UNDER NEW COACH Bill O’Brien, the Penn State Nittany Lions have dispensed with their former grooming standards and are now permitted to look as scruffy as the rest of the nation. Players can wear baseball caps, bandanas, long hair, goatees and any facial hairstyles they choose. If it looks like a billy goat with earrings, it must be a hard-working athlete.
Joe Ames writes:
Notice studiousness comes as an afterthought in the new coach’s listing of attributes. Blue collar comes first. Read More »
February 20, 2012
IN A PREVIOUS entry, a reader wrote about a friend who said that all racial consciousness is wrong. Skin color means nothing, her friend said, and anyone who thinks it does is petty. Another reader wrote to me to say that racial identity has caused too many problems in history and should be suppressed.
The problem is, as I pointed out, those who make these arguments typically do not protest the explicit racial consciousness of non-whites. They are unlikely to be offended, for example, by this recent speech by Barack Obama in which he launched his African Americans for Obama 2012 campaign.
“We are far stronger together than we could ever be on our own,” Obama said. He said that if blacks do not stick together they will not get a “fair shot” economically.
It would be inconceivable for a white politician to make similar statements. His career would end forever.
Why is it permissible for a black to speak this way and not a white person? If whites are truly desirous of an end to racial sensitivity, why don’t they protest?
February 20, 2012
MARK STEYN writes about the supreme irony of government-mandated contraception and abortion at a time of pending demographic disaster:
This is a very curious priority for a dying republic. “Birth control” is accessible, indeed, ubiquitous, and, by comparison with anything from a gallon of gas to basic cable, one of the cheapest expenses in the average budget. Not even Rick Santorum, that notorious scourge of the sexually liberated, wishes to restrain the individual right to contraception. Read More »
February 18, 2012
DIANA writes:
I wonder if you are aware of “Linsanity.” Just in case you are not, Jeremy Lin is an unlikely basketball star who has recently shot to fame as a result of some wonderful play for New York City’s woeful basketball team. He came off the bench and has become a team leader. Read More »
February 17, 2012
JEANETTE V. writes:
I’ve been thinking about how to react to a comment left on a group I belong to by a Christian man I admire very much. I guess I’m a racist because not only do I believe race entails some personality traits, but I’ve seen this in action. I’m Hispanic (on my mother’s side) and have a lot of what is often called “Latin” behaviors. I’m loud and quite emotional. So how do I gently disagree with this man without getting banned forever from a group of Christians I admire?
[In his words,] “skin color is an immutable, innate, and inborn characteristic that has nothing to do with behavior. If you believe a person’s skin color is directly related to the way he behaves, that’s racist.” Read More »
February 17, 2012
AMID A serious push to decriminalize prostitution in Canada, a Winnipeg judge this week ordered a light sentence for a woman who ran a brothel in her home with her young children’s knowledge.
Justice Deborah McCawley accepted the middle-aged defendant’s claim that she ran a sex business, employing a dozen young women and an 18-year-old boy, for essentially humanitarian reasons. The woman said she wanted to provide a safe place for young people to practice the trade. She also asserted it had been the culmination of her girlhood career ambitions. Read More »