IS IT any surprise that Amelia Earhart, the child-woman who was lost at sea, was opposed to fidelity in marriage and refused to take her husband’s name? Wikipedia has an excellent article on Earhart, who was born 115 years ago today. I offer it as one more bit of evidence against the widely-held view that feminism is a product of the 1960s. It includes this:

For a while Earhart was engaged to Samuel Chapman, a chemical engineer from Boston, breaking off her engagement on November 23, 1928.[68] During the same period, Earhart and Putnam had spent a great deal of time together, leading to intimacy. (more…)

AMERICA at last has an articulate and impassioned military woman to speak out against the planned expansion of the role of women in combat. Capt. Katie Petronio, of the Marine Corps, challenges in The Marine Corps Gazette the recently-announced proposal to integrate women into the infantry, arguing that there is no military rationale for a plan that obviously and necessarily entails a lowering of standards. Women, she states, are unequal to the demands of combat.

Petronio was a star athlete who excelled at Marine female fitness tests, but at the end of a seven-month deployment in Iraq, in which she was heavily involved in combat operations, she had lost 17 pounds and had been rendered permanently infertile due to an ovarian disease directly related to the strain. This is bleakly fitting given that the mission to integrate women into combat is effectively a war against procreation. “I am physically not the woman I once was,” she writes.

Petronio goes on: (more…)

WHEN Sally Ride was set to fly on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 and thus become the first [American] woman in space, Gloria Steinem said, “Millions of little girls are going to sit by their television sets and see they can be astronauts, heroes, explorers and scientists.”

This was of course a ridiculous statement. How many little girls had ever wanted to be astronauts? About as many who longed to be soldiers or fighter pilots. In other words, very few. Steinem’s real point, in keeping with her intense dislike of women, was that women should want to be astronauts and there was something wrong with them if they didn’t.

Ride, who had a warm, radiant smile and is said to have served ably in her two missions in space, died Monday at the age of 61. For all the fanfare that once surrounded it, Ride’s story will likely fade into history and her life ultimately inspire very few girls. This will be so not only because women do not excel at space science or the physical demands of space travel as men do but also because, as Ride’s obituary proved, she did not lead a full life. Ride was in a lesbian relationship with a childhood friend for 27 years.

To her credit, Ride did not make her lesbianism public and was private about her personal life in general. Her sister and the woman with whom she had a relationship, Tam O’Shaughnessy, have released the information to the world and now Ride has the double distinction of being both the first woman and the first lesbian in space. O’Shaughnessy was Ride’s friend since the age of 12. Ride was briefly married to another astronaut, but they were divorced. So while Ride accomplished much in her career, thanks in part to the spirit of affirmative action, she seems to have never fully emerged from childhood.

The only good reason for a normal woman to go through the grueling rigors of becoming an astronaut is that NASA is a great place to meet men.  Ride’s life, however, does not even offer that slim hope to little girls, that wonderful compensation for dreary days in a control cabin. Ride flew into space but never experienced other thrills that are as great or far greater. She never gave a man such necessary and life-sustaining love that he was able to do great things, such as fly into space. She never looked up at the stars with her own children and encouraged their wonder. She did not pass on her love of space to a son or daughter or grandchild.

Though she performed capably in her public position as a Role Model of the Century, Sally Ride’s example will likely be the exact opposite of what NASA and Gloria Steinem predicted. She will serve as a reminder of at least some of the very good reasons why women don’t want to be astronauts. The vast majority of women would sooner love an astronaut than be one. And given that most men are destined to perform inglorious jobs for most of their lives, women will come to see that the dream of conquering space rightly belongs to men.

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  ACCORDING to The Bellarmine Report, the value of J.C. Penney's stock has dropped by more than 50 percent since the chain announced its support of homosexual marriage in February when it hired the lesbian Ellen DeGeneres as its spokeswoman. So if you were a J.C. Penney's shopper, continue to boycott its stores.

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

In Friday’s New York Times are three letters responding to the NYT’s article “Boy Scouts to Continue Excluding Gay People” of July 18, 2012.

The first two are liberal moanings about how horrible that is and how BSA “represents the worst in human values.” After these predictable screeds, however, comes an unlooked-for ray of light. Amazingly, the Times gives the last word to Kathy Heggemeier of Portsmouth, Virginia, whose mordant comment is a bitter-sweet observation on the twisted state of America today. (more…)

PAUL writes:

Here is a video of a great 60’s song You Were on My Mind. This was not a little kid’s song that one might see on the Disney Channel today, although I was only around 12 and still adored it. This was directed towards teens and adults. It is a blend of rock and folk rhythms. And the dancing was vibrant but not crude or grandiose. It was uplifting and carried no counterculture message. You had to feel like dancing. (more…)

ALAN writes:

Your dissection of the New York Times editorial on the Boy Scouts was excellent. “Retrograde” is, of course, a term of derision favored by Modernists because it suggests that they are superior to those who have gone before them. It is typical Modernist arrogance. The truth is that Americans in years past were wiser, more competent, and better able by far to identify and resist evil than Modernists.

The Boy Scouts annoy Modernists because they insist on keeping distinctions, in this case the distinctions between good and evil and between private and public. To obliterate the public/private distinction is the reason for the endless propaganda we see and hear about “openness” and “erasing borders” and “breaking boundaries.” The goal is to weaken the very idea of private property – one of the principal goals of the Communist Manifesto being to outlaw private property. This is why the children’s department in any modern library includes books like Against Borders. The goal is to get them and brainwash them when they’re young.

Mr. Romney, however, is no disappointment to me because I never expected anything from him. Sorry to sound cynical, but I believe all potential presidential candidates are bought and paid for. Traditionalists ought not to expect any substantive changes on a national scale. They should concentrate on local issues and keep as much local power as they can. Governor George Wallace had it right when he said many years ago that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two major political parties.

We live in a profoundly evil age. But the first tactic of resistance is to recognize and oppose that evil, and this The Thinking Housewife continues to do most admirably.

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SJF writes:

I’m sorry to say that I did not remember that today was the anniversary of the moon landing until I saw a news item about it. When I showed it to a friend, he responded, only partly in jest, “Big deal. Some old white dude. Besides, the message he left is sexist.” I then outed myself, and said, “I’m proud he’s white, and I’m proud he’s an American.” Since I sometimes buy this guy beers after work, he just rolled his eyes and walked away. But seriously, who as an American could not be proud? The fact that we do not celebrate this day as a nation is wrong. (more…)

MATTHEW H. writes:

The movies that Hollywood puts out today are often decadent and evil. They glorify sadism, depravity, and nihilistic violence. They are modern-day versions of the Roman games.

Hollywood isn’t just making crap; it is degrading characters that used to be good and decent. Batman used to be a worthy superhero instead of a sick freak. The 1960’s Batman was clean and wholesome. The show was campy and juvenile, too, but it wasn’t a study in abnormal psychology. Batman was an honest and true hero, not an angry recluse fighting his “inner demons.”

Hollywood is tearing the fabric of our civilization. Pop culture is an important and powerful thing, it isn’t just “entertainment.” For a lot of people, it’s really important. Their families have been destroyed, they don’t go to church, the community institutions that used to bind people to one another have faded away or been forcibly broken up — to these people, pop culture isn’t just light amusement; it has real meaning. In many cases they have little else. (more…)

LAWRENCE AUSTER writes:

Our society produces demonically violent entertainment, and avidly consumes demonically violent entertainment. Is anyone going to claim that he’s “shocked” that members of our society frequently commit demonically violent acts?

Here, by Jenny McCartney at the Telegraph, is a description of the 2008 movie The Dark Knight, the predecessor of just-opened The Dark Knight Rises, which an audience in Aurora, Colorado was watching last night when an armed man burst into the theater in body armor and proceeded to shoot about 65 people, killing 14 of them. Can we honestly say that people who go to see such movies are innocent? Can we honestly say that the people who were murdered while watching such a movie were merely innocent victims? (more…)

HERE is an editorial by the mendacious, corrupt, child-hating New York Times on the affirmation this week by the Boy Scouts of America of its longstanding policy of excluding homosexuals as pack leaders or scouts. The headline is “The Boy Scouts 19th Century Decision,” as if the nineteenth century is somehow by definition detestable. (This implies that much of what we do is execrable. Do you own property? Do you read newspapers? Repent, those are nineteenth century things to do.)

Here it is, with comments inserted:

It is impossible to square the Boy Scouts of America’s values of openness, strong moral character and leadership with its announcement this week that reaffirmed a retrograde policy of barring gay boys from membership and gay or lesbian adults from serving as leaders. [So what if the policy is “retrograde?” Building roads is retrograde. Fighting fires is retrograde. Many of our laws are retrograde. And, since when has homosexuality been linked with strong moral character? Name a single strong moral leader who was openly homosexual.] (more…)

DIANA writes:

A homosexual California state senator has proposed legislation that will legalize a child having more than two legal parents.

Think of the downstream effects of this insane legislation. At first it will appear only to regularize the irregular jerry-built “parenting” situations of cohabiting homosexuals, lesbians, and their egg and sperm donors.

But down the line, this destruction will manifest itself in the lives of children of divorced heterosexuals, who make up a large portion of children growing up in unstable circumstances. (more…)

WINNIE writes:

Facebook may be an unfortunate milieu for many reasons, but it does offer me a strong anecdotal glimpse into the minds of my white liberal, feminist, elite-college-educated, upper-middle-class peer group. Many of them have never questioned the paradigm given to them by our parents’ generation: hippy/60’s Boomers whose outward lives expressed conservatism, but whose decisions in child-rearing, whose philosophy and whose approval (indeed – steering) of the activist public school agenda formed their kids into the new guard who now occupy lobbying firms, policy think tanks, academia, hospitals, law offices, etc. (more…)

JENNIFER TYRRELL’S request to continue as a Tiger Cubs pack leader in Ohio was denied by the Boy Scouts of America this week. This is good news. Tyrrell is a lesbian. The Boy Scouts, which upholds a tradition of forming men not lesbians, remains a small island of sanity in a sea of anti-child institutions, a stark contrast to the degenerate and irresponsible Girl Scouts of America which has embraced homosexual rights and feminist ideology.

This story, however, is another remarkable instance of mainstream junk journalism.  (more…)

JEFF W. writes:

Your job market thread has been another very good discussion. I liked the comments about LinkedIn. I have always hated it and the people who use it.

I would like to describe my theory of why the American job market has been destroyed. On the surface, it makes no sense. The decline is extremely unpopular with voters, of course; one would think that politicians would always favor a healthy job market. A crippled job market has also damaged the government’s tax base; everyone in government has an interest in a healthy job market, and one would think that a worsening one would alarm them. The American consumer has been the source of sales revenues for businesses throughout the world; business interests thus should also very much want a healthy job market that puts money in consumers’ pockets. Why have the people, their elected leaders, government interests and business interests all been thwarted in their desire for a healthy job market? That question puzzled me for years. (more…)

IN THE discussion of today’s job market, a male commenter tells a woman trying unsuccessfully to find a job that she deserves her hardship because women advocated for economic independence. The female reader responds:

MarkyMark thinks there were all these men who wanted to support me, but I snootily turned them down. I never in my life met a man who wanted to support me. Quite the opposite. I met plenty of men who thought my name was “Gravy Train.” Who says men hate feminism? As far as I can tell, men LOVE feminism. They can’t get enough. It lets them off the hook completely. They have sexual access to a woman without having to marry her first. After marriage, they can expect her to support herself.

Funny, how the so-called “men’s rights movement” overlooks these obvious truths. In some ways, feminism has been a men’s rights movement.

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COSTCO, the big-box retailer that is as much a fixture of American suburbia as the white-steepled church was of Puritan New England, has announced it will begin selling Muslim halal family-size entrées, or food that has been prepared according to Islamic law. This, and Costco’s other halal products, just might be the most significant overture to Islam in America yet. (And I’m not joking.) Without anyone in the mainstream taking note of it, a major retailer has begun over the last two years selling foods prepared in Islamic rituals. Saffron Road is a purveyor of halal frozen foods, including chicken nuggets and lamb vindaloo. Costco will start with its Chicken Tikka Masala. The chief executive of Saffron Road, Adnan A. Durrani, has sent a message to American Muslims:

We deeply need the support of you, your families and communities.  Let’s show Costco that there’s an educated, progressive, and dedicated American Muslim community by demonstrating our buying power to Costco via purchasing Halal products in their stores.

Halal meats must come, as Wikipedia explains, from “animals … slaughtered in the name of Allah (enunciating this blessing at the point the animal yields its life is the single most important aspect of halal meat).”

What grounds do most Americans have for objecting to Costco’s venture? None.

That’s because most Americans think that because many Muslims are nice, decent and good people, Islam itself must be only nice, decent and good. They believe they would be hateful and sick to refuse to accommodate Islamic law in their own country.

This thinking is disastrously wrong.

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