January 31, 2012
LISA writes:
While I would not say it was wise for 16-year-old Laura Dekker to sail solo around the world, I cannot think that she would have been “safer,” in the spiritual, cultural, and mental sense of that word, in a public classroom in the Netherlands.
January 31, 2012
I MISSED many stories last week, including this Wall Street Journal piece by Charles Murray, who points to the now familiar facts of class and family disintegration. He writes:
We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America’s core cultural institutions.
Murray’s solution to the explosion of divorce and illegitimacy among the less educated is for America’s elite to express disapproval of those who don’t raise their children in married homes. He never comes right out and says that the elite should vilify promiscuity, but that seems to be his point.
Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn’t hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and the work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices.
But his notion that there is a great American divide is problematic. America’s elite does not believe in sexual restraint. It does not believe in traditional sex roles any more than America’s working classes. The well-educated simply suffer less from the consequences of the cultural revolution. How could they possibly preach what they don’t themselves endorse? Read More »
January 30, 2012
The Cumaean Sibyl, Domenichino (1616)
I WILL be resuming my normal blogging schedule after a busy interlude away from home. I had hoped to post sooner, but unfortunately could not due to happy and exciting events.
Here is Domenico Zampieri’s The Cumaean Sibyl, a prophetess of the ancient world portrayed as a Renaissance noblewoman with her elegant turban and flowing drapery. Her viola da gamba stands in the background. She would not have so rudely abandoned her audience. Thank you for your patience.
January 25, 2012
I HAVE been away from my desk for the last few days and unable to post or respond to all comments. I am also going to be limited in what I can do for the next few days.
January 24, 2012
JOSH F. writes:
Your latest three posts demonstrate the systematic effort to teach, encourage and exalt radical autonomy as the highest value.
First, there are the “neutral” schools that are a product of their own values; non-discrimination and tolerance. From such a genuine application of these values results a “neutral” school, which is a school that simply teaches “radical autonomy,” an amoral, asexual, irreligious, not-anything- in-particular existence.
Secondly, there is the parent’s reinforcement of this “radical autonomy.” What we have really learned from this SAIL ALONE around the world by a fourteen-year-old girl is that “radical autonomy” is really easy and consequence-free. That’s the general lesson from the parents. The other message of this event is the emasculation of our sons as great and dangerous endeavours are trivialized and the reinforcing notion that our daughters should “sail alone” in the world. Read More »
January 24, 2012
JILL FARRIS writes:
I agree with Obama that abortion provides more opportunities for our daughters; more opportunities for depression, suicide and post-traumatic stress. Abortion provides opportunities for sterility, breast cancer and other lifelong physical complications. Abortion provides women the wonderful opportunity for broken marriages, sorrow, and loneliness.
Abortions provides predators, sexual molesters and evil parents the opportunity to perpetrate evil on our daughters.
Abortion provides the opportunity for us to miss out on creative geniuses who were never born and ordinary people with humble gifts that benefit mankind. Abortion provides us all, mothers, daughters, fathers and sons, with a world that is absent a generation of children who were killed before birth.
January 23, 2012
GREG J. writes in response to this entry:
January 23, 2012
JAMES P. writes:
You may recall the story of Abby Sunderland, who attempted to sail around the world solo at age 16 but who had to be rescued in rough seas.
Dutch girl Laura Dekker succeeded in sailing around the world solo. She is now 16 but was 14 when she began the journey. She may not return to the Netherlands because “Dutch authorities tried to block Ms Dekker’s trip, arguing she was too young to risk her life, while school officials complained she should be in a classroom.” You will note that the “best rated” comments in the Daily Mail article cheer the “talented brave woman.” The worst rated ones say that her parents were irresponsible to permit her to do this and the Dutch government was right to discourage her.
January 23, 2012
ON the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Obama stated that abortion allows women to have the same “opportunities” as men. He vowed to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”
This is a perfect and concise acknowledgement of the masculinizing intentions of feminism, which is woman-hating to the core, and of the denial of any rights to the unborn. Abortion is no more of an “opportunity” for a woman than a leg amputation.
Obama also said that abortion “affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.” But if the legalization of abortion is not intruding on “private family matters” then what is?
January 21, 2012
The 1907 Class of Jarvis Collegiate
KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT, at Camera Lucida, has an interesting post about Jarvis Collegiate, formerly one of Canada’s most elite high schools. Above is a photo of the class of 1907. Below is the class of 2008.
Jarvis Collegiate, Class of 2008
January 21, 2012
BRITISH regulatory agencies announced yesterday that private hospitals and clinics may for the first time advertise abortion services on television. The two agencies, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP), said there were no grounds for denying commercial enterprises the right to advertise given that abortion is legal.
Under Britain’s chillingly Orwellian regulations, an abortion provider is a Post-Conception Advice Service (PCAS). Read More »
January 21, 2012
AT VFR, Lawrence Auster offers a possible explanation for why men on the Costa Concordia rushed to save themselves without helping women and children:
While the loss of our culture’s ethos of chivalry is very regrettable, was it the reason the male crew members pushed past the female passengers to get in the life boats? Consider the fact that of the 1,000 crew members, at least 300 were Filipinos and the rest were largely Asian and Latin American. Mario Pellegrini, the deputy mayor of Giglio, who went out on a small boat to offer advice on the best way to get people on to the island, later told the National Post: Read More »
January 20, 2012
HOWARD SUTHERLAND writes:
Man in the Sky sounds like a movie I need to see. I’m a great Jack Hawkins fan, to begin with. Another movie that brings out that vanished man’s world of flying is 1957’s Zero Hour!, starring Sterling Hayden, Dana Andrews and others. Here is the New York Times’s favorable review of it; times have changed since 1957. Read More »
January 20, 2012
ACCORDING TO proposed education guidelines, a third-grader should be able to “[d]efine sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender” and “[i]dentify parents or other trusted adults of whom students can ask questions about sexual orientation.”
The guidelines are titled the National Sexuality Education Standards and come in a new report funded by the nation’s largest teachers union, the American School Health Association, and two other school health organizations.
America is likely to become the first country in the history of the world to formally teach young children that homosexuality is normal. Even if these standards are not adopted, it is highly unlikely that the impetus for introducing children to homosexuality at a younger and younger age will cease to gain momentum in public schools. There is simply no way of stopping it short of a revolution. Read More »
January 20, 2012
A COMPLETE first edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America sold to an undisclosed buyer for almost $8 million at a Christie’s auction in New York today. The four volume set of three-foot tall hand-colored, etched and aquatint plates made from Audubon’s life-size watercolor drawings is one of 120 complete sets in the world, most of which are owned by museums, universities and libraries. This edition was purchased in England by the fourth Duke of Portland sometime after 1838, when the collection was completed. The record for a first edition set is $11.5 million.
For excellent images of plates in the set, see Christie’s slide show here. There is also a brief, well-written account of Audubon’s life on the same page. At Butlers Birds, Laurence Butler continues his series, “Wednesdays with Audubon.”
I have a beautiful volume of 223 of Audubon’s plates published by American Heritage in 1966. I paid $7.50 for it at a book sale.
January 20, 2012
IF YOU have not had a chance to read Alan’s report on Grover Cleveland High School in St. Louis, I recommend it. More images of the school, so different on the exterior from the prison-like schools of today, can be seen here. The building even has gargoyles.
January 20, 2012
A PROPOSAL that would have added pull-ups to the Physical Fitness Test for female Marines (yes, there are female Marines) has been tabled indefinitely and women will continue to be accepted without proving they can do a single pull-up.
The Marine Corps Times reports that men currently score 100 points on the PFT when completing 20 pull-ups. The proposed change would have awarded 100 points to women who do six pull-ups. That, however, has been deemed too rigorous. Women are currently required to do a flexed-arm hang for a minimum of 60 seconds. According to the newspaper: Read More »
January 19, 2012
ENOUGH SAID
by Clark McAdams
St. Louis Dispatch [1912]
“Votes for women!”
was the cry
Reaching upward
to the sky
Crashing glass
and flashing eye
“Votes for women”
was the cry. Read More »