PAUL writes: Here is a sweet vision of young children in 2009 singing to two men that are close to their great-grandfathers' age. (Go to minute 2:04 in the video.) Of course, they are the vital surviving members of the Bee Gees, an unsurpassed '60s-'70s rock group. Notice the difference between 2009 and 1968. I Started a Joke was a huge hit. How different from Rap.
FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE, the new president of France, is the first to occupy the Élysée Palace with a live-in companion instead of a wife. The political journalist Valérie Trierweiler is pictured above at yesterday’s swearing-in. (Tiberge of GalliaWatch writes about the event here.) Mrs. Trierweiler still covers politics for a television network. She is twice married and twice divorced.
She has three teenage sons, who are now in the uncomfortable position of having a mother in a public relationship with someone other than their father. Concern for that kind of thing, however, is passé in France, where the whims of adults reign freely over the lives of children. Selfishness and superficiality are terribly enlightened to the French, who redesign the family while their culture fades into the night.
Mrs. Trierweiler, an attractive woman with a quintessentially French face, told the New York Times: “I haven’t been raised to serve a husband. I built my entire life on the idea of independence.” As we can see from her outfit yesterday, this independence entails a certain degree of sexual aggression.
IF WOMEN knew the truth about the causes of breast cancer, would they behave with such silliness and immodesty at breast cancer fundraising events such as the recent Moonwalk in London? Would they be so enthusiastic about supporting the organizations that are, if not lying to them, at least consistently downplaying the truth?
The truth is, feminism causes breast cancer.
Abortion, delayed childbearing, childlessness, lack of breastfeeding, the birth control pill — many medical experts agree these phenomena, all abundantly supported by feminists, are connected to the striking increase in breast cancer in Western women.
Here are some relevant quotes from medical experts provided by the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, which has a wealth of information on the issue: (more…)
PRESIDENT OBAMA, in another speech demonstrating his selfless devotion to female voters, told the graduating class at Barnard College yesterday that it’s totally unfair that women have not taken over the world yet. He said every single woman, no matter who she is, needs to participate in the struggle to help women take over the world.
He’s right, of course. It is truly shocking how powerless women are. When I look at this picture of women dressed up as Barbie dolls, it reminds me of how much we have yet to gain. These women could be CEO’s or congresswomen or even PRESIDENT. If not for the Republican War on Women and millennia of oppression, they would be very busy right now. Someday, when equality is achieved, they — or women like them — will ascend the heights of power and become the bureaucratic goddesses they are meant to be.
There is a beautiful mountaintop, a Valhalla where all women will someday reside as CEO’s, congresswomen, college presidents, generals, franchise owners, etc. There they will rule the world, feasting on contraceptives and looking down on the male mortals below, who will have finally gotten their comeuppance. The laughter and shrieks of joy of these divine CEO’s will resound throughout the universe. Their home will look something like this:
Obama said yesterday, “You are now poised to make this the century when women shape not only their own destiny, but the destiny of the whole nation.” How stirring! It’s amazing what a good deal a degree at Barnard is. If we are lucky, we may have Barbie as a president this century or, if the Paycheck Fairness Act is passed, Barbie as Ruler of the Universe. Imagine how smoothly things will run. Barbie never makes a false move. Despite what people say, she is extremely smart.
Thank you, by the way, to the reader Natassia, who sent the above photo of the real-life Barbies. Natassia makes some interesting comments below about women who are already residing in an earthly Valhalla of their own. She writes: (more…)
DANIEL S. writes:
From Russia Today:
Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money has been spent forcibly sterilising Indian women. Many have died being mistreated, causing outrage from those who suspect Britain simply wants to curb the country’s population for ulterior motives. RT’s Priya Sridhar has the details of this controversial program.
Video here.
[NOTE: A reader below raises serious questions about the accuracy of this report.]
AS YOU take stock this Mother's Day, be glad you were not Whistler's mother. This famous painting of Anna McNeill Whistler by her brilliant son, James, came to symbolize motherhood in the early twentieth century, especially when the U.S. Post Office placed it on a stamp in 1934. But, really, would you want to be remembered by your son this way? That the painting was seen as a paean to motherhood is perplexing. Though it is interesting and beautiful as a composition and an exploration of color and space, showing the artist's preoccupation with Oriental art and its emotional detachment, the person portrayed is imprisoned. She is austere to the point of joylessness. While there is a lovely fragility to her face, she stares into emptiness, fixated on something unsettling. One sees obsession and steely determination. Good heavens, what was she like when you were a baby?! For Whistler the painter, the point was to portray his mother as an interesting object. Subject matter was secondary to form. The painting was thus titled Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1, a shockingly abstract title at the time it was exhibited by the Royal Academy of Art in London in 1872. The subtitle, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, was appended, supposedly to ease concerns that it was callous to view one's mother as part of a still life. Whistler wrote: "To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the portrait?"…
ALAN writes:
Whenever I think of modern culture, the word that comes immediately to mind is: Decadence. Whenever I think of my mother, the word that comes immediately to mind is: Decency. Two things could not be more unlike.
My mother never enjoyed a moment of fame, fortune, or glamour. She lived quietly by the untrendy, unglamorous virtues of self-discipline, self-restraint, hard work, responsibility, and loyalty to her family, home, and friends. Neglect, evasion, excuses – no such things ever existed in her character or her vocabulary. She did her job in life. She minded her own business and never tried to mind anyone else’s. (more…)
MY great-great grandmother, Catherine Garvey, was born in Castleblaney, Ireland in 1816. She married, moved to America, had seven children (two of whom died in infancy) and took care of her home in Pennsylvania. She became a widow at the age of 60 when her husband fell down the stairs in the middle of the night.
Catherine Garvey died in 1905 at the home of her daughter. She was 89. Her obituary in the Scranton Times contained a brief description of her life that is worth contemplating this Mother’s Day. It read in part:
Mrs. Garvey’s character was noble and grand. She centered her affection upon her family and made the circle of her home the embodiment of virtue and happiness and in her dealings with her neighbors she was always kind and charitable. (more…)
ARETE writes:
I too was disturbed by the photograph on the cover of Time. That was the point of it. This was a very direct frontal attack on motherhood and I will explain why.
Now, thanks to one of the biggest magazines in the country, millions have a negative first impression of breastfeeding. If Time just needed a visual they could have chosen a beautiful painting by any of the masters but they chose this awful photo on purpose. This picture equates nursing with perversity! This is an attempt to make mothers who have normal, close nursing relationships of one to two years look like perverts and extremists. Whatever handful of mothers there are who breastfeed children of three are not doing so in tank tops in front of millions. (That looks like a photoshop job to me anyway … that child is huge!) (more…)
DUE to a formatting problem, the discussion in the previous entry about the Time cover of a mother breastfeeding her older child in a provocative pose is continued here.
Mary writes:
Funny how this dovetails so nicely with Elizabeth Badinter’s recent statements. Hmmm…one might even get the impression that there is some kind of unified message being presented in the media. (more…)
BUCK writes:
CHARLIZE THERON, who is single, appears with a stunning designer handbag and her adopted son, Jackson. Imagine these two walking together in an airport 16 years from now. Will they even be speaking to each other by then?
TONY at Catholic Phoenix made the announcement last week:
In a move already denounced by Catholic bishops & other leading religious conservatives, St. Sincerus University, the nation’s 84th largest Catholic university, has invited Satan to deliver its commencement speech later this month. (more…)
NOT only did Obama finally say he supports same-sex “marriage” today, a statement which was no surprise at all, but he specifically affirmed the importance of redefining marriage for members of the military:
I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” he told ABC.
Of course, there are no soldiers constrained from committing themselves in marriage. All soldiers can marry. There are, however, no soldiers who are permitted to weaken military morale and dignity by “marrying” members of the same sex and to raise children under such conditions.
It is good that Obama made this statement, barring a complete change of direction on his part. It was clearly his position all along.
STEVE writes:
Colorado Speaker of the House Frank McNulty (R) last night finally stepped up and killed the Civil Unions Bill before it could go to the floor for a vote. Had the bill gone to the floor, most likely it would have passed because of the votes of moderate Republicans. The media reports on this entire process have been extremely biased. (more…)
JENNIFER LAHL at the Center for Bioethics and Culture reacts to the news that Mitt Romney's eldest son, Tagg, hired a surrogate mother to bear twins, his fifth and sixth children, who were born last week. Lahl writes that she is "shocked and disgusted." Surrogacy is commercial exploitation even if the hired mother is an enthusiastic client, she argues. Her words of reproach and horror are wonderful to read. Tagg (Tagg?!) and his wife, Jen, had hired the same surrogate for the birth of their first child. It is unclear why. They also conceived their third child through IVF. Surrogacy is fully legal in the United States. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that surrogacy "devalues human life and degrades those who choose to participate."
HURRICANE BETSY writes:
This will make some people mad, but I have nothing but sorrow for normal people (not psychopaths) who just have this sudden memory blackout and leave their children in the car in the sorts of situations you describe. They have to live with the consequences of what they did for the rest of their lives. They are being punished enough. Jailing them or chopping their hand off will not prevent these kinds of occurrences. Especially mothers of small children are sometimes so fatigued and overburdened their brain sometimes does not function as it should. No, it hasn’t happened to me, but it could have, and I thank God when I read about these things that it has not. (more…)
VINCENT C. writes:
When one reaches a certain age – mine – and looks back at today’s child rearing practices, I cannot help but notice how U.S. society has been transformed in the past half century. No societal change has been more dramatic than the victory, temporary, I would pray, of convincing young women to allow other people to raise their children. Where I live in Northern Virginia this profound mistake is accepted as readily as many young women accept advice about such things from the feminists who dominate “The View.” Sending babies to “day care” when the child is 6 months old can only be explained if one understands that far too many of today’s mothers see that practice lauded on the television programs they watch, the books they read, and is further nurtured in the movies they view, and the classes they attended. In short, it is pervasive. (more…)