NOT ALL fashion designers despise femininity and refinement. But many of them do. Here are some of the latest from the runways in Paris. Look, and rejoice that you are not rich and fashionable. Civilization resides elsewhere.

STEWART W. writes:

You quote Neil Postman, “Through the miracle of symbols and electricity our own children know everything anyone else knows – the good with the bad. Nothing is mysterious, nothing awesome, nothing is held back from public view.” 

Eve tempted Adam with a single Apple. Today we cultivate vast orchards of the Tree of Knowledge, harvest, juice, and pasteurize the fruit, and feed it to our children in their lunchboxes. 

The fecklessness of most parents today makes me weep. Read More »

Grapes and Pears, Edward Ladell

LOVELY LAURA’S LAMENT

Where is the Man is tried and true?
Where is the Man will see me through?

Don’t want a Wimp;
Don’t want a Slug;
Don’t want a Pimp;
Don’t want a Thug.

Where is the Man is tried and true?
Where is the Man will see me through?

I want a bit of Force;
Want a bit of Bite;
Him to be a Source,
And not to dodge a Fight.

Read More »

Cinderella

A Grateful Reader writes:

Near starvation and hard labor are difficult to endure, but they are not degrading to a person. They are humbling, but they do no damage to the soul. Your post The Last Doughboy discussed the life of Frank Buckles, who endured starvation and hard labor in a Japanese prison camp for over three years, yet he kept his dignity and respected the dignity of his fellow prisoners by helping them to endure their lot with hope. Read More »

THE European Union’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg has issued a ruling prohibiting  insurers from considering sex differences in setting premiums for car, life and medical insurance. Men and women face different life expectancies and different risk factors for auto accidents. The court ruled that recognizing these distinctions constitutes discrimination. Nature itself is discriminatory. You can read about it here and here.

JESSE POWELL writes:

Frank Buckles, the last living American serviceman of World War I, died on February 27, 2011 at the age of 110. His is a story of ordinary American heroism. He enrolled in the army at the age of 16. Since the legal enlistment age was 18, he had to lie about his age. He was rejected several different times before he found an army recruiter who accepted him. He was never in combat himself, contrary to his wishes. After the armistice, his unit was ordered to escort 650 German prisoners of war back to Germany.  Read More »

THIS IS a photo of a young girl who was taken in by a charitable organization in 1890 in Bristol, England. She had been either living on the streets or in a state of extreme poverty and was taken into a home run by the Waifs and Strays’ Society, which cared for more than 22,000 children across England between its founding in 1881 and the close of World War I. Due to rapid urbanization, industrialization and population growth, there were a significant number of children living in grinding poverty in England of that day. Children worked in coal mines, factories and poorhouses. They toiled at jobs that would be unthinkable and illegal for children today. Others were pressed into domestic service or hired as chimney sweeps. Homeless children roamed the streets of cities and lived as beggars.

All of these things are unimaginable today.

Without dismissing the terrible hardship and duress these waifs and child laborers suffered, I would like to suggest to you that childhood as an institution was actually healthier then than it is today. That’s right. In general, the culture of childhood was much better. That does not mean every single child living in that time was better off than any single child alive today. It means that childhood as it was understood by Western society at that time was better at keeping children from premature adulthood and safeguarding their development.

I will elaborate on this theme in future posts. Before I do, I will simply leave you with this image below. It is a recent album cover for the pop star Taylor Swift, who is adored by millions of very young girls today, many of whom are the age of the waif above. This image is not meant to be a complete argument for the thesis I have stated, only one small bit of evidence. There are many factors that go into the degradation of childhood.

Read More »

BOADICEA

Boadicea, Charioteer;
Boadicea, Charioteer.
Queen of Iceni, Boadicea;
Queen of Iceni, Boadicea.

Government comes to burn and slaughter,
Burn and slaughter, burn and slaughter.
Government comes to burn and slaughter,
Roman soldiers rape her daughter,
Rape her daughter, rape her daughter.

She raised an army, came on down,
Came on down, came on down.
Raised an army, came on down;
Came to the towers of London Town,
London Town, London Town.

Banksters, Frauds amass Golden Hoards,
Golden Hoards, Golden Hoards;
Banksters, Frauds amass Golden Hoards,
City of Quislings, London Town;
London Town, London Town. Read More »

DOROTHY writes: 

I read this article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago about a woman writer who happily spent part of her honeymoon alone and it stays in my mind. I cannot stop thinking about it. It is very sad to me. But the woman who wrote it is happy. I am astounded that she is so quick and happy to toss away the burden of a husband immediately after they are married.  Read More »

“REAL FAMILIES,” is the name of a personal-essay series at Salon “that celebrates the surprising and ever-shifting nature of domestic life in the 21st century.”  Salon means “surprising and ever-shifting” in the sense that tornados and hurricanes that lift whole houses off the ground and hurl them into the air are “surprising and ever-shifting.”

The latest entry is “Why I left my children,” by the Japanese-American, prize-winning author Rahna Reiko Rizzuto. Rizzuto has outdone Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert by leaving not just her husband but her children too and then writing about it, in the apparent hope of invigorating discussion at women’s book clubs everywhere. (Since many top women writers gloat over their damaged marriages and homes, investing this destruction with drama in order to make money and careers, the competition for any award for the worst wife or mother among them would be quite stiff.) When Rizzuto’s children were toddlers she left them for a fellowship in Asia. Then she divorced her husband and settled down the block from her family. This, she discovered, was a good way to raise her children: Read More »

N.W. writes:

Your post on women in the military reminded me of an incident that occurred about a year ago when I was enlisting in the Marine Corps. The senior enlisted man at the recruiting substation was a woman. Under her command were a number of men. She addressed the group of Delayed Entry Program recruits. She informed them that things were going to become a bit more disciplined in the program than they had been. The end of her talk went something along these lines,

Now everybody here, you’re all here to become Marines, right? Right? Cause if not, you might as well leave right now. I’m not going to put up pulling around deadweight. Me, I’m here to help you, and your recruiters are here to help you. Now we’re not your buddy or your bro. You ain’t callin me ‘guns’ or whatever, that all is gonna stop. But we are family. And I’m your Mamma and if you have any questions or need something sorted out you come to Mamma and I’ll help you. And all your recruiters, they’re your daddies and they’re here to help you.

Now if your daddy ain’t helping you or not telling you everything, you come to Mamma and I’ll straighten it out. But you gotta tell me, if you don’t tell me I can’t help you. All right? Y’all understand? Good, now form up. 

This is why women should not be in positions of command. This is why women should not be in the military. This is why political correctness will destroy our military, and this is why speaking out against female football coaches is so important. 

Thanks so much for everything you are doing to expose the twisted logic that is strangling our country and our freedom. 

ALL OF THE artificiality and hollowness of mainstream conservatism in America is summed up in this recent photo, discussed at VFR, of the repulsive Newt Gingrich and his third wife.

Read More »

THE BLOGGER Tiberge at Galliawatch reports that some Catholic schools in Marseilles are now 80 percent Muslim. Citing French press accounts, she writes:

For the archbishop, training through inter-religious dialogue will permit these questions to be answered: “How to announce the Gospel? How to accept Muslim holidays? What can we accept or not accept?” According to archbishop Georges Pontier, “We must not run from these questions. Even if the subject is delicate and marks a juncture of the religious dimension and identitarian issues.”

AS HAS been noted here before, the entry of women in significant numbers into previously-all male portions of the military does not render the military less guilty in the eyes of liberals. It actually makes it more guilty. The issue of sex abuse against female soldiers, who are expected to defend themselves against aggressive foreign enemies but are excused from defending themselves from their fellow soldiers, is now a major theme in the press. A federal lawsuit was filed this month by women soldiers charging the Department of Defense with countenancing sexual assault. Read More »

NOTICE this picture of a London alley in 1899. The children are playing outside and are dressed as children. The girl in the foreground is wearing a pinafore. The most startling thing is that they are playing outside with only one adult in the background. Remember when children used to play unsupervised games, with adults nearby but not coaching them and telling them the rules? 

These children may have been poor, but at least they were children, not tiny adults without the freedom to play.

SEN. Harry Reid has called for an end to legalized prostitution in Nevada. He has argued it should end not because prostitution is wrong but because it is bad for Nevada’s image.

Brooke Taylor, a leading spokeswoman for the business, strongly objects, according to The New York Times:

“Here we are being safe and professional and earning a living, and he wants us to end it? Absolutely not,” Ms. Taylor said in an interview in her bedroom at the Bunny Ranch. “This is what I choose to do, and there is nothing wrong with it.” Read More »

AT HER blog Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat has an interesting post on the skyscraperization of Toronto. She argues that banal modern architecture is an inevitable result of the loss of Toronto’s ethnic and racial identity.

JOE LONG:

I think that you will do well to ditch the word “Game,” rather than everything the concept implies. 

“Games” are contests; by definition; they are less than deadly serious; they are temporary diversions. The word also carries with it the air of the professional athlete, specifically the National Basketball Association player of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century, someone who is by and large, a very poor role model, starting with his grammar (“game”, for instance, is something you “got” – or perchance, that you “don’t” or “ain’t” “got”). “Game” describes how a “playa” “plays”; and if you’re going to accept those terms, there’s little sense in excluding “ho” (word, mispelling AND general concept).  Read More »