JESSE POWELL writes:

I have heard Sweden referred to as a paradise many times. In Sweden, which is famous for its generous parental leave policies, everything is supposedly wonderful and the Swedish have no problems. In fact, Sweden has many of the same social problems found in the rest of Europe.

For instance, there was a radical decline in the proportion of women of reproductive age who were married from 1970 to the year 2000; even the 40-to-44 year old age group declined greatly in the proportion who were married. In addition, there is evidence of a remarkable growth in psychological and cognitive problems among the nation’s young, a phenomenon which cannot be attributed solely to the influx of foreign immigrants. Swedish parents now seem to lack normal parental skills, such as the ability to discipline their children.

The below table gives the proportion of women in Sweden who were married for each age group from 15 to 44 years old from 1970 to 2010.  Read More »

EDWIN RUBENSTEIN writes at VDare:

From January 2009 to August 2011 both whites and blacks suffered employment declines: Black employment fell by 540,000, or 3.5% and white employment fell by 2.5 million, or 1.8%.

By contrast, more Asians and Hispanics held jobs at the end of the period than at the start of the Obama years.

Particularly hard hit: Black teenagers. Read More »

WRITING in response to this post about a journalist who claims it is immoral to have children because they will harm the “environment,” Regina Hess writes:

Last week, my husband and I took our five children on a field trip to Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts. I had forgotten how politically correct Plymouth had become, but was rudely jarred awake as we chatted with a Native American woman in the Crafts’ Building. Read More »

KAREN I. writes:

I quit Facebook after going to an old friend’s Facebook page and finding a death announcement. The family had posted a childhood picture of the deceased individual, with graphics of glittery stars around it. Along the top of the photo was “R.I.P.” I was stunned at the news and absolutely disgusted at the way it was announced. I deleted my account after that because I never want to learn awful news that way again. I still get upset thinking about it.  Read More »

THE WESTERN educated woman is so afraid of having children – so afraid of what it might require of her, so afraid of no longer breathing, thinking, and acting like a man, so afraid of losing friendships based on her status as careerist – that she reaches in her desperation for all kinds of popular superstitions to justify her psychological malformation.

Here is one of the most extreme examples. Lisa Hymas, writing in The Guardian, says she is not having children because of the effect they may have on the environment. To Hymas, human beings – not Third World human beings, but white Americans – are engaged in nothing more than environmental plunder. She writes: Read More »

FRED OWENS writes:

The dominant media is not CNN, The New York Times, or The Washington Post. It’s not FoxNews either. It’s Facebook. That’s where the nation and the world meets, connects, and relates. Read More »

AT VFR, Howard Sutherland writes:

Isn’t every Pope’s primary mission to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations and call people–all people–to the Christian faith? Rather than make statements that imply an equivalence between Christianity and Islam, Pope Benedict should exhort those Moslems who have moved into Christian (or once-Christian) lands to enter into the life of those lands fully by embracing the Christian faith. (Of course, I would prefer that the Pope exhort Moslems in Europe–and everywhere else, for that matter–to embrace Christianity and then return to their ancestral homelands, there to proselytise among their kin still benighted by Islam. But if expecting the Pope to call Moslems to convert is unrealistic, how unrealistic is it to expect him to tell them to go home?) Read More »

THOUGH the federal government does not officially recognize the fraudulent institution of same-sex “marriage,” a major federal agency does. The Census Bureau issued revised 2010 figures yesterday for the number of same-sex couples, which it derives from respondents who say they are “married” to a member of the household of the same sex. Read More »

A WOMAN I know taught her son at home until he was eight. She was then considering sending him to a small private school. In order to apply to the school, the boy had to take an entrance exam. Read More »

Crusoe by N.C. Wyeth

[T]he Captain had brought the Pinnace in near the Place where I at first landed my Rafts, and so landed just at my Door. I was at first ready to sink down with the Surprize. For I saw my Deliverance indeed visibly put into my Hands, all things easy, and a large Ship just ready to carry me away whither I pleased to go. At first, for some time, I was not able to answer him one Word; but as he had taken me in his Arms, I held fast by him, or I should have fallen to the Ground.

                                             — Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe, (Chapt. 27)

ALYCE writes:

I think you are wonderful. 

You are a friend of women, and make me proud to be a woman also. You are a friend to those I love most – my sons, my daughter, my husband, my father.  Read More »

THOMAS writes:

I am a third-year student at a major law school. Since family law is tested on the bar exam, I decided that it would be smart to take a family law course. The professor is a woman who is a Brigham Young University law school graduate (although I seriously doubt she is Mormon).  She has published several articles on gender, sexuality, and family law. Read More »

TEXANNE writes:

In this New York magazine article, “Parents of a Certain Age,” a piece about older mothers who conceive artifically, there’s not even a passing glance at possible emotional and psychological implications for the real live children themselves. There are millions of these Brave-New-World children who make up the next generation — particularly prevalent among the class which will be shaping and enforcing thought. What concept of the connection between love, sex and procreation (let alone the very definitions of male and female) will these children have? How does a person feel when he realizes that an order was placed for him, with genetic material delivered at a convenient time for the discerning customer? Read More »

THE DISCUSSION of the blogger “CWNY,” at Cambria Will Not Yield, continues here.

 

Rihanna

N.W. writes:

Mr. Alan Graham of the County Down has made my day. The old fellow threw Rihanna and her production crew off of his land after he saw the singer prancing around topless in one of his barley fields. While Mr. Graham had given them permission to use his land, he did not know who Rihanna was, or what kind of video she would be shooting. Read More »

PATRICK writes:

Here’s an article from CNN about a transgendered three-year-old. Am I on Candid Camera? What is going on? This is creepy, weird and more than a little bit evil. Read More »

ROBIN JENNIFER writes:

Oh, my word! My favorite thing about the article in Slate is the photo of the “mother” – she is bent over, with drooping back, belly and breasts, as she labors under the horrendous and torturous weight of a child. Read More »