LAST MONTH, a Congressional panel recommended that the Defense Department eliminate all restrictions on women serving in combat units. In doing so, the panel ignored the real-life experiences of women in the military. Here is an interesting description by one woman of her stint in boot camp in 1999. Catherine L. Aspy writes:

Combat is about war-fighting capacity and the morale of the unit. Here physical strength can be a life-and-death issue. And that is why the physical disparities between men and women cannot be ignored.

Physical differences in strength and endurance are not, of course, the only reason women should be barred from combat in any country serious about its defense. No amount of engineering or training can prevent men and women from forming exclusive bonds that interfere with group morale and cohesion. Why does this even need to be said? This is a phony debate. How can one sustain a debate when one side refuses to ackowledge basic realities? Read More »

ALAN writes:

Regarding lowered standards in public libraries, which were discussed here , here, here and here:

James Hilton’s 1941 novel Random Harvest stands today on library shelves next to a book called 10 Crack Commandments.   

Why is that?  It is because rubbish like 10 Crack Commandments is an example of the “diversity” Americans are now commanded to celebrate.  It is because people who now run public libraries are appeasers and acquiescers.  Literature and garbage are equivalent – that is what they are taught in Marxist-dominated colleges and universities and what they swallow whole.  By design or default, they now agree to accept trash fiction that would not have been purchased by any American library in 1959.    Read More »

MODERN EDUCATION is based on a false assumption: that boys and girls learn at the same rate and in the same way. In fact, the sexes develop differently and possess distinct ways of viewing reality from an early age, as anyone with the slightest experience with children knows. This common sense has been so stifled we need major research to tell us what we refuse to acknowledge from experience.

Simon Baron-Cohen, the British psychologist who specializes in sex differences, recently wrote:

We know that the male brain is on average 8 per cent bigger than the female brain, even at as early as two weeks of age. But probably more important is that girls’ brains tend to develop faster than boys’. We know from studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that girls peak about four years earlier than boys in terms of when they reach their maximum total brain volume and about two years earlier in terms of when they reach their maximum amount of “grey matter” in the brain. This important discovery tells us that, on average, girls mature at very different rates from boys.

Read More »

A FEMALE READER writes:

I just wanted to chime in regarding the article “Regrets of a Stay-at-Home Mom” that was discussed here. I cried while I read it. I had a “career” that paid a large salary, my husband also makes much more than the average income. When we had our daughter, I returned to work – not for money, but for “security” and “having a cushion of savings.” It was the very definition of a disaster. I was depressed and angry and felt like I never had enough time with my daughter. The time I did have with her was when I was tired. I really didn’t have any time for my husband or for me. Read More »

Snow Crystal

SNOWFLAKES are ice crystals that form around dust particles or other microscopic matter in the upper atmosphere. A typical snowflake is a conglomeration of crystals, most damaged as they fall from the heights. A hundred years ago, the science of snow was still in its infancy. Since then, the systematic study of snow has advanced rapidly with greater understanding of its properties and classification of crystals and snow packs. The measurement and management of snow are both consuming issues. Though snow is now the stuff of formal expertise, and probably makes for some tedious dissertations for the general reader, who could ever find the subject dull?

Ken Libbrecht is chairman of the physics department at California Institute of Technology and the creator of one of the more interesting natural history sites on the Internet. SnowCrystals.com presents the science of snow with an appreciation for the beauty of its subject matter. I highly recommend it. Read More »

Gabrielle Giffords

FRED OWENS writes:

We should elect old men to Congress — craggy, musty old men. And if they got shot, it wouldn’t feel so bad. Gabrielle Giffords is a pretty young woman, and no doubt she is capable and intelligent, but I feel protective toward her and it hurts me more to think of her critical wounds than if she was a man. Jared Lee Loughner, the man who shot her, is crazy and evil. It matters little whether he is right-wing crazy or left-wing crazy. Read More »

Winter Harmony, John Henry Twachtman, c. 1890

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow’s milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

                                                — Elinor Wylie

Read More »

LAWRENCE AUSTER writes here:

Americans, like the British, seem to consider it bad taste, a form of incivility, to reason rigorously and logically. As a result, American conservatives are unable to identify the nature of the leftist dynamic that is steadily destroying our society, or to propose a counter-principle to it. All they can do, in the face of each new leftist victory, is to mutter, “political correctness, political correctness, political correctness…” Read More »

THE JOURNALIST, who in this piece regrets having spent 14 years raising her sons and sees no problem in retrospect with day care for young children, is a typical modern narcissist who fails to utter one word of gratitude. Her husband worked all those years to make it possible for her to care for her children. Yet he receives no thanks from her. In fact, she appears to have divorced him.

Given Katy Read’s presumption that slogging away in a career for decades is only a form of personal fulfillment, it is no wonder she does not acknowledge his efforts. This is yet another legacy of feminism. If career is for self, then career is never for others. Thus a man who is the prime support for his family deserves no thanks. He is really working only for himself.

 In truth, the specialization required of men involves sacrifice by its very nature. As George Gilder wrote in Men and Marriage: Read More »

SHEFALI writes:

I am a long time lurker, first time commentor. Let me first tell you how much I appreciate your site and how helpful it has been to me. Thank you very much for the wisdom you share and your wonderful observations on life.

I am an Indian woman, living in Mumbai. I would like to add to the comments on the Yoga Mail thread. It is appalling how some opportunistic hippies have picked some Eastern practices randomly, twisted them for their own agendas and pushed the packaged product on an unsuspecting public in the guise of the New Age. I have practiced Yoga, learnt it from a teacher here in India and know what is what. I have also read the atrocious, Do It books that are peddled across bookstores by self-styled American gurus on the subject that proliferate book stores across the world. Read More »

I MUST HAVE purchased something over the Christmas season that alerted the marketers of yoga paraphernalia to my existence. I suspect it was a top I purchased for my niece in a store that was heavily scented and had an entryway made out of twigs. Whatever it was, these retailers suddenly care about me in ways they never did before, joining a long list of merchandizers who send me catalogues and never earn a dime in return. I have just received two substantial, glossy mail-order catalogues featuring yoga mats, Zen fountains, exercise pants, Buddha sculptures, compost activators, and meditation chairs. This is strange because I’ve never practiced yoga. I will never sit in the Lotus position in public, not only because I consider it unbecoming, especially for a woman, but in the way of spiritual positions, I prefer kneeling. Read More »

PAT HOLDEN writes:

Salon had an article in today’s edition about a stay-at-home mother who apparently regrets her decision to stay home.  I thought you might be interested and would be curious as to your response, if you are inclined to write one.

 I enjoy your website very much. Read More »

AS DISCUSSED in a previous post, Melanie Thernstrom, the daughter of neoconservative authors Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, has written of her experience hiring an egg donor and two different surrogates to provide her and her husband with an instant family of two children. This real-life version of Margaret Atwood’s reproductive dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale is told with a confusing blend of self-awareness and self-deceit. The absence of any blatant coercion in the many contractual arrangements Thernstrom and her husband, Michael Callahan, made with others, including with the woman who supplied breast milk, is chillingly representative of technocratic liberalism.

Liberal society blandly draws people in with a system of material rewards and the appearance of mutual necessity. Thernstrom met with the donor and surrogates in coffee shops, where they held friendly chats and cheerily deliberated. Everyone had something to gain but all self-interest could be couched in altruistic terms. The donors only wanted to help. They weren’t looking for money. Thernstrom only wanted to do something utterly natural – have a family – and do the best for her marriage. She wasn’t shopping for children in the way one might shop for a car.  Read More »

The Adoration of the Magi, Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi

Arise and be enlightened, O Jerusalem; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Isaias, 60:1

MARISSA writes:

The following words of Mrs. Sherman’s struck a real chord in me:

“Sometimes “free” comes with a terrible price. Teen children need their parents more emotionally than people know, and this is often the time when mothers choose to go to college or to work. Some women lose their own children, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, in order to go after a degree.”

This is exactly what happened between my mother and me. She went back to school to pursue an advanced professional degree when I was around ten or eleven, and finished when I was eighteen. In the intervening years, she lost me, so that when she finally graduated, I wanted little to do with her.

Read More »

DEIRDRE writes:

Mrs. Sherman’s remarks touched a nerve. I just wanted to give my account of how it is with colleges and the pressure housewives are under to get an education. 

I’ve been told I will be accepted at a major state university if I want to go. I’ve already got an Associates Degree. I don’t use it as a credential even though it took me four long years of part-time night school to get. Now, I feel tremendous pressure to go back to school. It does not matter that I would likely incur tremendous debt for another useless degree. My in-laws, parents, and everyone else would be so pleased if I would just go. My husband’s bosses would be impressed, my neighbors would be in awe. Read More »

EVERY YEAR, since 1957, Queen Elizabeth II has delivered a televised Christmas message. A comparison of her first address from Sandringham with this year’s message is a study in contrasts and the downward slide of the British monarchy. In the first message, a sober 31-year-old queen reflects on the unsettling pace of technological change and warns of grave moral peril. The habits and principles of the British people, upon which the commonwealth relies, are in danger.

“Because of these changes I am not surprised that many people feel lost and unable to decide what to hold onto and what to discard,” she says. “It is not the new inventions that are the difficulty. The trouble is caused by unthinking people who carelessly throw away ageless ideals as if they were old and outworn machinery. Read More »

LYDIA SHERMAN answers this question here. She writes:

It takes resolute, persistent, tenacious, valiant, undaunted, undismayed, unshrinking, fearless and daring, unmovable determination to be a wise and purposeful homemaker. It is common to be asked: “Don’t you know that our nation is in a financial down slide? Why are you staying home? You are living in a dream world! What about retirement money? What about benefits? What about the future? Why don’t you wake up and smell the coffee?”

All around us, today we see enticing advertising aimed at the housewives, trying to get them into college, and eventually, out working for other people. It is so important to know what you stand for, and not fall for everything that comes along and promises something great. Even if it is free, it does not mean you are obligated to take it.

Sometimes “free” comes with a terrible price. Teen children need their parents more emotionally than people know, and this is often the time when mothers choose to go to college or to work. Some women lose their own children, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, in order to go after a degree.