TINA BROWN has unveiled her first issue of a redesigned Newsweek with a breathless celebration of global feminism. Women, women, women.  The world over, women are doing amazing, earth-shattering, unprecedented things. And, with such humility: Read More »

Home 'Be It Ever So Humble, George Smith (1867)

I REALIZE this is just a painting and many Victorians did not live like this. I also realize you may consider this domestic coziness cloying, even obnoxious. But this is one more bit of evidence for the ideals to which the Victorians aspired. Try to imagine a modern painter portraying three generations together like this. He would be laughed out of every gallery in America. Read More »

THE latest big news regarding marriage is that premarital sex was always normal in America. That’s right. If you thought there was something called the sexual revolution, you were wrong.

In today’s New York Times, Ross Douthat, the “conservative” columnist, writes about the impossibility of a “traditionalist utopia” in which the only sex is married sex. He states:

No such society has ever existed, or ever could: not in 1950s America (where, as the feminist writer Dana Goldstein noted last week, the vast majority of men and women had sex before they married), and not even in Mormon Utah (where Brigham Young University recently suspended a star basketball player for sleeping with his girlfriend).

The study cited by Goldstein and others is, “Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954-2003,” by Lawrence B. Finer. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which funded the study, Finer proves “[C]ontrary to the public perception that premarital sex is much more common now than in the past, the study shows that even among women who were born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 had sex before marriage.”

Actually, public perception holds that the sexual revolution began in the 1960s. Those who were born in 1940 would turn 20 in 1960. Therefore, this study does not deflate the general impression that premarital sex was not widely accepted in the past and dramatically increased in the 60s.

The age of the first sexual encounter decreased over the course of the years included in the study from 20.4 to 17.6. The study did not examine whether the first sexual encounter was with a future marriage partner or how many partners on average respondents had.

The idea that trends in premarital sex in America have differed little over the years is not proved by this study.

Read More »

MELANIE writes:

I’ve been reading your website for about a year now. I came across it at a time in my life when I was struggling with a lot of confusion in my family, as well as with my own conscience. You have been an inspiration and comforting reassurance to the “traditionalist” feelings I’ve always had in my heart. My own mother is a wonderful woman and I have most nothing but fond memories of her throughout my childhood. Unfortunately she falls at the end of the Boomer generation and fell prey to far too much feminist ideology. She was a working mother. I am not. Needless to say I don’t think she always respects some of my choices and views. Read More »

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

I have been looking at the Paris fashion fiasco on your blog with interest. What could these designers be thinking? Perhaps they are preparing women to work in prison camps or plowing fields. Maybe they are trying to eliminate the task of sorting lights from darks when doing the laundry. Are they seeing the world from inside a munitions factory? 

I will tell the modern designers something: they need to get out more and see the real world. They are rich enough to afford sea cruises and tours of the best and most beautiful parts of the world. They can go to rose gardens and take in the beauty and let it translate to their designs. They can view ocean scenes and colorful sunsets in great places. They do not even have to have a prestigious education to find ideas for designs in clothing. The web now affords even the most ignorant person a glimpse into clothing designs of former days. Consider garments in the painting, “Lamentations Over a Dead Christ” by Andrea del Sarto, 1524, attached below. Even the poor who followed Christ were depicted as having more cloth on their bodies. more design and more color than today’s designers give to the world. One biography of this artist describes his subject matter as “lacking in embellishment,” but it looks more greatly embellished than the cold looking steel and mud colors of the new fashions.

Read More »

St. John the Baptist, Frederic Shields

THESE are days of darkness for white European civilization. The sky is darkened. The sun is in near total eclipse. Illumination comes not from great schemes of political reform. It comes, if it comes at all, from the lighted candle of the human soul. It comes from the burning heart.

 The author of Cambria Will Not Yield writes:  

Reason alone cannot restore the European’s sanity, because reason lacks vision. Faith transcends reason, because faith involves the heart, which is the spiritual organ of sight. From an empirical, rational standpoint it makes no difference if one European stands before the great liberal tribunal and declares his eternal defiance of the tribunal and his unyielding support of the ancient Europeans. The tribunal is the sea, and the drowning men still drown. But in the spiritual realm, which we see when we look through, not with, the eye, every human soul contains a world. And the world of one antique European can outweigh the principles of a legion of liberal Babylonians. Satan conquers by distorting and diverting man’s spiritual eye, his heart. So keep thy heart, thou man of Europe, and thou shalt ride triumphant over ruin and death.

MR. R. writes:

You know, I just realized for the first time in my adult life that I have grown quite accustomed to addressing women as “Ms” in letters and emails, even when I am reasonably sure they are married. I think that has become a convention resulting from feminism, where it MUST NOT be assumed that a woman is a “dependent” and that she should not be addressed in a way that would insult her independence. How ludicrous!?! Is it not? Read More »

BRITON RIVIÉRE painted this scene, Compulsory Education, in 1887. Here is an interesting description of the painter’s portraits of animals from the website, Victorian/Edwardian Painting.  Phillip Brown writes:

Regarded as the most able successor to the great painter of animals Sir Edwin Landseer, Briton Riviére’s art was highly popular in the later nineteenth century when he exhibited sensitive portrayals of animals and human figures in which the beasts emphasise the portrayals of human emotion. Perhaps his most famous work is Prisoners also known as Fidelity of 1869 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight) in which a young poacher and his dog await trial in a bare prison cell. The sympathy of the faithful dog for his master caught the imagination of the Victorian public and it was a similar appeal to that of Landseer’s Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner (Victoria and Albert Museum). Riviére’s biographer Walter Armstrong has described the artist’s ability to depict emotion in the expressions of his animals without overly anthropomorphising them; ‘Speaking of him broadly as an artist, Riviére’s strong points are his sympathy with animals, his pleasant sense of colour, his directness of conception, and his fine vein of poetry.”

The most successful of Riviére’s compositions are those in which a solitary human figure is shown with a dog.

PAUL writes:

With rare exceptions, I have grown to dislike modern Fantasy novels (as opposed to the Lord of the Rings) because women dominate men in these books or equate men with women. I want to read Fantasy (and virile authors such as Ludlum) because of the virility. I have not been finding similar novels. If I read a novel, I skip the female-male character parts and don’t miss anything. Maybe I will need to look harder. Jonathan Kellerman is good (despite his charismatic homosexual non-sexual partner). A writer friend of mine once told me some years back the reason was 70 percent of Fantasy is read by women. Read More »

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 »