IN THE discussion of the men who reportedly left the sinking Costa Concordia without helping women and children, Jesse Powell explains why the behavior of men on the Titanic has received so much attention. He writes: 

There’s a reason why the heroic sacrifice of men on the Titanic became legendary and was celebrated far and wide for generations. It was the ultimate exemplar of chivalry; it was the strongest possible signal to womankind that they were safe and would be well cared for under the direction and authority of men.

As Jesse also notes:

Men must take care of women precisely to prevent women from feeling the need to take care of themselves; a woman who feels the need to take care of herself is exactly what a feminist is. Read More »

ALAN writes:

This is the story of a dead school in a decadent city.

Grover Cleveland High School was opened in St. Louis in 1915 in a building as massive and impressive as a castle. It was designed by renowned architect William B. Ittner. Today it stands closed and abandoned, a victim of decades of neglect and suicidal public policies.

My boyhood best friend’s family lived in a house just across the street from Cleveland High School. In the summers of 1958-’63, he and I roamed at boyish whim throughout that neighborhood, walking through city parks and past barber shops, corner markets, bakeries, confectionaries, and shoe repair shops, visiting other classmates, trading baseball cards, playing baseball, buying candy or ice cream in the dime stores and drug stores, and listening to Bobby Vee, Connie Francis, Neil Sedaka, Shelley Fabares, and Bobby Vinton on our plastic, pocket-size transistor radios – all without a fear in the world. No one ever bothered us. It was a pleasant neighborhood in which to play, attend school, and be an altar boy at morning Mass and a patrol boy after classes. 

Four photographs taken circa 1916 show dozens of people assembled on a bright, sunny morning in front of a house one block from Cleveland High School. They are taking part in a Catholic parish’s annual Corpus Christi Procession. The women wear attractive hats and ankle-length dresses. The men wear suits and straw hats. Altar boys are kneeling on the lawn.  The pictures convey a degree of civility and restraint unequalled by anything seen in that neighborhood today. In their place: “Security” bars, doors with entry codes, schools that push “diversity,” and the noise of rap “music” on the streets. Read More »

JAMES P. writes:

In this previous post, Michael D. wrote, apropos of donation to sperm banks,

Only a man who loathes himself, lacks dignity and self respect would consider doing such a thing, abandoning responsibility for any unknown children he sires with women who mean nothing to him… I cannot imagine the impact on a child when he learns that he was not intentionally conceived in love between his parents, but that his pathetic father was a compulsive masturbator who never even met his mother. Read More »

JOHN L. GRAHAM writes:

My father, Captain A. G. Graham, was a master mariner who sailed before the mast at age 16, graduated to steam ships, and worked his way up to a Master’s certificate, obtaining a degree in maritime law from Stanford University in the meantime. He retired from Farrell Lines as commodore of the fleet, the senior captain, with an enviable record of never having lost a ship, passenger, or crew member while under his command, even though he sailed through U-boat infested waters during World War II. Read More »

ERIC writes:

The recent cruise ship sinking highlights what happens to a man who has failed in his role as master/protector. I don’t know if this man is truly guilty, but the public condemnation of Capt. Schettino’s perceived failure is intense, as it should be.

 IN her 1792 book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of modern feminism, wrote about the need for a nationalized system of education.

The good effects resulting from attention to private education will ever be very confined, and the parent who really puts his own hand to the plow, will always in some degree be disappointed, til education becomes a grand national concern.

This documentary, “The Dark Intentions of Public Schooling,” made by the libertarian organization Freedom Advocates, briefly examines the history of this grand national concern in America. The sentiments of the reformer Horace Mann were similar to those of the revolutionary Wollstonecraft:

We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.

A GRATEFUL READER writes:

The following quote by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos struck me as apt to many of the discussions at The Thinking Housewife. In order to create a healthy community, we must first heal ourselves. The text is taken from his little book Orthodox Spirituality, which is the Reader’s Digest version of his major tome Orthodox Psychotherapy. Among his other little books is The Illness and Cure of The Soul.

By occupying themselves with the purification of their own hearts and the healing of their own personalities, they offer great comfort to humanity. The regeneration of just one person has immense repercussions for the whole world… Read More »

JAMES H. writes:

I am currently reading Ilana Mercer’s “Into the Cannibal’s Pot” which is must reading for traditionalists. Mercer was an anti-apartheid activist who cut and ran from South Africa once her policies became law. She’s now a libertarian (simply a materialist utopian with a different set of materialist assumptions). But she’s written a harrowing account of the logical outcome of the cult of democracy. And though she hasn’t yet completely shed the last vestiges of her liberal world view, the book is superb. 

From the book:  Read More »

PASSENGERS of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that sunk off an Italian island on Friday, told The Daily Mail that in the chaos after the ship was wrecked, men rushed for the lifeboats and gave no priority to women and children.

As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’

Modern women have no grounds for expecting deference. There is no reason why they should go first.

Read More »

IN THE January/February issue of Touchstone magazine, Douglas Farrow, a professor at McGill University, has an outstanding article entitled “Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?” Farrow explains how same-sex “marriage” renders the family a tool of the state. This has been said by many others. What distinguishes Farrow’s piece is his final point. The natural distinctiveness of marriage was destroyed by “the acid of contraception.” Marriage was de-naturalized when contraception was embraced by Christians and same-sex unions as a result make sense to many people today. Farrow writes: