THE FOLLOWING flyer was sent a few days ago to the faculty of Valencia College in Osceola, Florida by its Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications:

MTV Film Crew at the Osceola Campus on Monday

You may notice an MTV film crew at the Osceola Campus on Monday as they tape a new season of the reality show 16 and Pregnant.  Their current story is about a young woman, now 17, who has had her baby and whose mom told her that if she didn’t go to college, she’d be out on her own. Read More »

FITZGERALD writes:

The mother of Steve Jobs chose to put his sister and him up for adoption when they were infants. What if he had been aborted? Jobs had an enormously influential role in the creation and transformation of several industries. How many other potential innovators, business leaders, architects, and artists have met an untimely end in the womb? Is it any wonder our civilization is waning. We destroy it’s most important element in the scores every year: people.

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Winter Scene in New Haven. Connecticut, George Henry Durrie (1858)

ALMOST everyone would like the last month of winter to be more like the first month of spring or maybe the last month of summer to be more like the first month of fall. But no one wants to see the first full month of autumn become more like mid-winter. 

The snowstorm that hit our area this weekend was an unprecedented event. Some trees had still not changed color. The sight of an oak tree with green leaves and snow is disorienting. Leaves are part of a tree’s periodic immaturity. A tree that is juvenile in June is ancient in November. By early winter, a tree becomes wise and wizened, mature enough to handle the tribulations of cold and ice. Many a tree in October is no more prepared for snow than a teenager is ready for mortgage payments.

By last night, leaves that were still green or gold were loaded with snow that was so heavy, massive branches drooped to the ground. Many snapped instantly. The roads were littered with downed limbs and many people lost power. The party was broken up. The authorities came and told everyone who was enjoying autumn to go home.

Normally, the first snowstorm is exciting, but this wasn’t exciting, it was strange. It was a premature end to the season. The flames of fall were doused with buckets of ice.

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THE EMPLOYMENT rate among American men reached its lowest level in 63 years this summer. Not since 1948 had so relatively few men held jobs. But the news was already bad. The median annual earnings of all men 30 to 50 years old, including those who did not work, fell 27 percent from 1969 to 2009. 

When men are underemployed as a group, the consequences for society at large are far more dire than when women are unemployed in high numbers.

In fact, when women are unemployed, as history clearly shows us, the consequences are good. Society functions better when women are not working outside the home and are raising the workers of tomorrow. When men are unemployed at high levels, marriage declines, illegitimacy increases, crime increases, and overall social dysfunction follows.

We live in a world of fantastic denial of these facts, a world in which intractable differences in work motivations and performance between men and women are also categorically rejected. As we speak, companies continue to be hauled into court for the offense of employing men over women. Immense resources and vast sums of money are devoted to improving the confidence and work performance of women. 

Is it any surprise the figures are so grim? In August, Mike Dorning of Bloomberg Businessweek wrote: Read More »

ALAN writes:

I agree with your remarks about parades.

In 1956, my mother took 24 color slides at two parades in downtown St. Louis: an Easter Seals Parade and the Armed Forces Day Parade. They show groups of soldiers in military uniform and helmet, a bugle corps in black and white uniform, groups of children wearing school colors and carrying batons, and a women’s bugle corps group neatly attired in white blouse, gold tie and skirt, green jacket, green and white hat, and white shoes. Read More »

JANE writes:

Thanks for the great commentary on the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Pinkwashing of America. This month a promotional perfume was launched for breast cancer fundraising called Promise Me. What a name. Promise Me. Just a bit suggestive, I’d say. What are we talking, vows? Weird! The ingredients include these toxic chemicals: Galaxolide, a hormone disruptor; Toluene, a neurotoxin; and Oxybenzone, an estrogen mimicker of the type implicated in causing breast cancer. Read More »

DAVID CAMERON announced yesterday that the heads of the 16 Commonweath governments have agreed to change the 300-year-old rules of succession and give girls equal claim to the throne. The proposed elimination of male primogeniture is highly significant in its symbolism. It does not signal “equality” for women, but further chaos. It is one more sign that modern society is bent on deflecting men from their role as provider and head of the family. Britain, the land of the single mother, is now naturally the land of the dispossessed king.

According to The Times, Cameron stated: Read More »

WOMEN will be boxing for the first time in the 2012 Olympics and the Amateur International Boxing Association has asked the female participants to wear skirts. Naturally, the women are up in arms. Yahoo Sports reports:

Three-time world champion Katie Taylor from Ireland does not want to wear something that she would find uncomfortable while fighting: [That’s right. Boxing never involves discomfort.]

“It’s a disgrace that they’re forcing some of the women to wear those mini-skirts. We should be able to wear shorts, just like the men. [And you should be walloped and suffer brain damage just like the men too. Isn’t one of the perks of being female the privilege not to box?]

“I won’t be wearing a mini-skirt. I don’t even wear mini-skirts on a night out, so I definitely won’t be wearing mini-skirts in the ring.” [I would be supremely surprised if you ever have a night out with a man regardless of what you wear.]

Who the heck cares whether these Amazons wear skirts or pink frou frous? Women don’t belong in the boxing ring. Period. Female boxers are about as interesting as a male synchronized swimmers. They are pretend boxers, acting their roles in the ridiculously drawn-out farce that is modern male and female relations. If only a director would emerge from the sidelines and say, “Cut! Alright, that’ll do. Let’s wrap this up and go home.”

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Rosa Damascena, Pierre-Joseph Redoute

WHEN I think of pink in its loveliness, I don’t think of pink ribbons, pink lemonade, pink planes or the aggressive sentimentality of hot pink Blackberry covers, but of the Rosa Damascena of Pierre-Joseph Redouté, one of history’s great botanical painters. The petals and thorns of this rose, which cannot be conveyed on a screen, are exactly as the most beautiful roses appear in the garden, their heads nodding under the weight of their flamboyant frills. They have a sleepy quality and are reminiscent of the roses in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” the flowers that reminded Gerda of her friend Kay. When Gerda cried in sorrow for her friend, her tears fell to the ground and rose bushes sprang up from the moistened earth.

Redouté was born in 1759 in St-Hubert in the Begian Ardennes. His father Joseph worked as a painter and decorator in the local Abbey and came from a long line of craftsmen and artists. The family was not wealthy, but the young Pierre-Joseph was befriended by a monk at the Abbey, who was an avid naturalist and herbalist. He took the boy on walks in the woods and meadows, where they looked for medicinal plants for the Abbey pharmacy. Thus was born a botanical painter.

Redouté would eventually go on to the Versailles and patronage under Marie-Antoinette and, later, Empress Joséphine. Though prints of Redouté works can still be found in elegant homes, there is something intensely rustic about them upon closer examination. The glory and delicacy of the flower and the fruit as they are found in nature were captured with breathtaking verisimilitude by Redouté. I bought a portfolio of Redouté prints at a library book sale last year. I was amazed that they were there for $2. Thank you, Marie-Antoinette.

A.M. writes:

Your views of our culture, and of traditionalism in general, are simply arresting. You wrote:

“A parade was once for honoring or commemorating heroes. Now parades are for freaks, misfits, sluts and monsters. It must be overwhelming for children.” Read More »

Delta Airlines' pink plane

SEE the ongoing discussion of fundraising for breast cancer.

Breast cancer research is a worthy and important cause. Breast cancer is a terrible evil. But why do women seem to show far more interest in their own health than that of others? And, since this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, why are we not insistently reminded by its promoters that abortion, oral contraceptives, a failure to breastfeed and low fertility are believed to be major causes of breast cancer? Pink ribbons, pink t-shirts and pink lemonade are well and good if you can stand that kind of thing, but the important facts about breast cancer are even better.

GIRL SCOUTS of America has joined the growing list of cultural institutions that have reached the point of no return. According to NBC News and Yahoo, Girl Scouts spokeswomen in Colorado say it is now official policy for the organization to accept “transgendered” boys.

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LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

I have to tell you something about our nearest small town. I drive through the main street when I come or go from my home in a farming area. The town characters walk around during the day. One is a man who thinks he is a sheriff in the Wild West. Read More »

KENDRA writes:

I was watching a football game at a restaurant the other night, and noticed that some of the male players were wearing light pink shoes and other accessories. My husband told me that it is a campaign for breast cancer awareness, and I found this to be absurd. Read More »

PAUL writes:

The Catholic Church is heading towards what its own Pope wrote against in his Catechism: 

57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel. But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.

A universal economy is paganism. To expect everyone to agree to what is economically valuable, and what is not, is to forge another Babel. Read More »