HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN’S story “The Bell,” about a town searching for a pealing bell, is a good bedtime story to read aloud to children. In this translation, it opens:

IN the narrow streets of a large town, people often heard in the evening, when the sun was setting, and his last rays gave a golden tint to the chimney-pots, a strange noise which resembled the sound of a church bell; it only lasted an instant, for it was lost in the continual roar of traffic and hum of voices which rose from the town. “The evening bell is ringing,” people used to say. “The sun is setting!” Those who walked outside the town, where the houses were less crowded and interspersed by gardens and little fields, saw the evening sky much better, and heard the sound of the bell much more clearly. It seemed as though the sound came from a church, deep in the calm, fragrant wood, and thither people looked with devout feelings.

AFGHAN WOMEN choose to kill themselves because their lives are so restricted, writes Alyssa Rubin in today’s New York Times, examining the case of one mother of six children who attempts suicide after being scolded by a relative. Rubin, who does not compare the female suicide rate in Afghanistan with that in America, writes:

It is shameful here to admit to troubles at home, and mental illness often goes undiagnosed or untreated. Ms. Zada, the hospital staff said, probably suffered from depression. The choices for Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted: Their family is their fate. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom a woman marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her primary job is to serve her husband’s family. Outside that world, she is an outcast.

Imagine the New York Times giving the same amount of prominent play on the front page to the story of an American woman who has killed herself after having an abortion, a woman for whom “family is her fate” in an entirely different sense, and you may begin to grasp the subtext here. It is interesting how the writer turns what is an act of horrendous violence by women into an act of violence by men:

“Violence in the lives of Afghanistan’s women comes from everywhere: from her father or brother, from her husband, from her father-in-law, from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law,” said Dr. Shafiqa Eanin, a plastic surgeon at the burn hospital, which usually has at least 10 female self-immolation cases at any one time.”

Women in Afghanistan, it seems, have no part in their own happiness, are not themselves capable of cruelty of any kind and live under the regime of men who bear them open contempt. Life is no doubt hard for many women in Afghanistan. There are extreme difficulties involved with adolescent marriage, with the Muslim worldview and life in extended families, and it is always sad when someone chooses to end her life. But it is worth comparing this appraisal of the powerlessness of Afghan women with James Kalb’s recent description of life in rural Afghanistan.

Like so much of feminist propaganda, this article is based on the assumption that women who do not make money are too stupid to affect any of the conditions in their world. Sometimes I think feminists live in a big plastic bubble that hangs above the earth. How else to explain their blithering ignorance about the mass of real women except that they only see them from some artifically-imposed distance?

IF YOU are in any doubt, if you think you can raise your children as if you are living in normal times, then read this from today’s New York Times:

The school district in Helena, Mont., revised its new teaching guidelines on sex education and tolerance, after parents criticized them as being too explicit and an endorsement of homosexuality. Read More »

WHY WOULD the ultra-patriotic, ostensibly conservative Sarah Palin call those who believe women should raise the next generation “Neanderthals?” Where does this withering disdain for Neanderthals come from? Neanderthals, in this context, are all those generations of women who devoted themselves to the care of their husbands and the formation of their children. They refined character and culture. They guarded privacy and sentiment. They kept the home from being crushed by the State. Why despise them?

This superiority complex, so common and so rooted in the hearts of feminists, can be traced to the modern cult of the future. As G.K. Chesterton said, it is much easier to project oneself onto the blank pages of the future then fit oneself into the humbling records of the past. We may never live up to its standards. The feminist fears even the homemade cakes and pies of yesterday, which is why she heaps such condescension upon them. “The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes,” Chesterton said. “… And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.”

A READER wrote in earlier this week about Sarah Palin’s appearance with Geraldine Ferraro on Fox News. I have just seen the clip. Never has Palin so passionately stated her opposition to the traditional family. The issue of whether mothers work outside the home is “petty little superficial meaningless,” she says with characteristic eloquence. “Neanderthals” consider it important.  Palin says she cheered Ferraro when she ran for vice president, as if every female candidate feels automatic solidarity with any other female candidate. How “great for our nation” it was that Ferraro ran. Golly gee willickers. The supposedly pro-life, small-government Palin applauds the efforts of someone with an entirely different political philosophy simply because she is a woman. Read More »

ALAN WRITES:

Regarding libraries as sanctuaries for the homeless: “The homeless” is code for bums, loafers, panhandlers, parasites, and worse. All of them enjoy the refuge of public libraries. I have seen them sleep at library tables for hours, annoy staff and patrons, misplace books at whim, chat up women, and talk with each other about who’s in and who’s out (of jail). They love to loiter for hours, gaping at beautiful, expensive books on art, architecture, and photography and discretely removing pages they especially like. 

Librarians must suffer their presence because those who run libraries (not necessarily librarians) will do nothing to kick them out or keep them out. Indeed, librarians and other staff are expected to defer to their plight with sympathy and helpful advice on how to improve their situation. Read More »

DEREK TURNER, writing in Taki’s Magazine, examines the much-publicized conversion of Lauren Booth, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law who proclaimed herself a Muslim six weeks after having a mystical experience in a mosque. He writes:

Lauren’s conversion has been greeted with hilarity. Her father scoffed: “I mean, come on, the girl doesn’t have a spiritual bone in her body.” Read More »

MARKUS writes:

I don’t have a TV, but as of last year I started watching the odd hockey game over the Internet, which provides live feeds through Canada’s government-sponsored network, the CBC. Throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs, and continuing into this season, viewers have been treated frequently to this bit of propaganda (see link to commercial): 

The ad is by Plan International, an organization that used to be kown as Foster Parents Plan International. Seems their name has gotten shorter even as their, uh, mission is expanding. Read More »

A NEW REPORT on the disastrous state of the American family was issued recently by Princeton University and the Brookings Institute. “The Future of Children” contains all the bad news you already know, such as the nearly 40 percent illegitimacy rate and the harmful effects of single motherhood on children, and some news you may not know, such as that most unwed parents are actively involved with each other upon the birth of their child but break up within a few years.

Equally distressing are the recommendations and prescriptions offered by the report’s authors who suggest more programs and services, more marriage education classes, more daycare, more useless nagging of the poor and uneducated. They seem determined to disregard the obvious: that we are quickly becoming a matriarchal society from the bottom up, and why this is so. Radical sexual and economic freedom for women and the decline of masculinity, with government subsidies of single mothers aiding that decline,  have been a disaster. No government program will undo this reversal of roles. The authors seem to fully support the egalitarian society and its attendant assault on the traditional family. 

Here are their recommendations: Read More »

DAWN EDEN writes about the works of J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, in The Weekly Standard:

Throughout his career, his men remain boys. They may be boys who have charm, or pride, or courage, or brains, or (like the title character of The Admirable Crichton) all of the above. In his final play, the biblical drama The Boy David, he turned the young king of Israel into a proto-Peter Pan—even to the point of, as with Peter Pan, writing the role for a female actress. Not only are his men boys; his women are boys and, like David, are destined to rule, but minus the divine call to parenthood. Theirs is the independence of pure isolation from responsibility, the kind that the 19th-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton championed: an impregnable “solitude of self.”

Read More »

LAST MONTH, a judicial board in Britain asked judges to treat women defendants with greater lenience. The notion of special standards for women is also gaining ground here. Los Angeles County Court has seen a steep increase in female criminals in recent years, as have many jurisdictions. It now boasts of a special program especially for women.

Women convicts do face difficult circumstances, particularly as mothers. However, as the blogger Simple Justice notes, these circumstances should be viewed individually, not on the basis of sex. He writes:

When there’s a special court for women, it by definition precludes men. Some women deserve a break, having been manipulated and pressured into committing crimes, or having done so to feed their children. So do some men. But there’s no court for that.

What this perversely reflects is the inability of the criminal justice system to lose the rhetoric of blame and give every case the degree of individualized thought it deserves. There’s no reason why a woman before a criminal court shouldn’t be given the depth of scrutiny necessary to determine whether she’s an evil, malevolent person, but rather a victim of circumstance who is undeserving the typical harshness our system metes out. There’s no reason every person who comes before a court shouldn’t receive that. Read More »

SPANISH newborns automatically receive the last name of their fathers (with the mother’s surname coming first) unless the parents choose to have the two names reversed. Under a proposed law, in cases of non-agreement or uncertainty, a baby would receive the parents’ names in alphabetical order. The idea is to remove any trace of patriarchal favoritism.

This is a country, by the way, that has one of the lowest birth rates in the developed world.          Read More »

THE PAMPLONA CRUCIFIX, located in the parish hall of St. Augustine’s Cathedral in Tucson and believed to be 600 to 800 years old, is being restored by art conservators. This is the new look, replacing the one below. Read More »

ALAN WRITES: 

You and your readers made many excellent points in your recent discussion of public libraries. Permit me to add these.

The St. Louis Public Library is a model of political correctness. The building itself is an architectural gem that opened in 1912. But what goes on inside the building is another matter. 

Its policymakers worship at the shrine of egalitarianism. Shelves abound with books and periodicals favoring leftist causes. Posters promoting trendy music concerts proclaim “Not So Quiet” – a slap in the face to the American library’s traditional rule of enforcing quiet so that patrons may read, write, or do research. Pretentious comic books on slick paper are called “graphic novels” and shelved alongside Dickens and Twain. Shelves in the children’s department bulge with colorful, slickly-designed books promoting the standard leftist causes of multiculturalism, globalism, feminism, and egalitarianism. That department is also the site of many books designated by the non-word “parenting.” Can you imagine librarians in 1930 or 1950 assenting to an idiot-neologism like “parenting”? 

The library ceased long ago to be “just” a library; it is also now a movie and music rental store, and a trendy café is being added. If you took your children there fifty years ago, they would have seen a large Christmas tree and heard a concert of Christmas carols in its magnificent main hall. Such things brought joy, beauty, and inspiration to library staff, patrons, and visitors alike. If you take them there today, you will not risk exposing them to those things, because those things are now outlawed. Instead, you may browse among books like:  Read More »

NATASSIA writes:

Bennett: Why are you so angry? 

Carolla: It’s probably just hyperbole to sell books. But you could argue that there are parts of the book that are dripping with venom. Read More »

AS THIS election season comes to a close, let’s remember one of the most significant facts about politics in America: a very small number of people pay the bills. As the MoneyHoney Blog wrote earlier this year:

Consider this: the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of federal income taxes, the top 5% pay over 60%… while the bottom 50% pay less than 3%! (Data from the Congressional Budget Office, latest available tax burden release, 2006.)

Half the population is getting something for nothing, and they call this fairness?

As is always the case with expanding welfare states, generous entitlements are paid for by everyone except the actual beneficiaries. Read More »

BRANDON B. writes:

In regard to your post on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, just last night while watching election coverage, I saw Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferraro interview together. The topic was women who run for public office and the so-called “discrimination” they face. Palin first praised them and said they were carrying on the legacy of Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Then she launched into a tirade that made her, the “social conservative,” sound like a garden variety progressive liberal. After using the phrase “glass ceiling” a number of times, she basically said that those who think wives and mothers shouldn’t run for public office are (her exact words) “Neanderthals” who need to “evolve” to have a more “modern” view of things. 

What a disgrace. Read More »

THERE are many bright spots in yesterday’s elections and one of them is that some of the newly elected Congressional representatives have raised the possibility of eliminating the Department of Education, which has been spectacularly expensive, as well as a massive failure at improving education in this country. Richard W. Rahn of The Washington Times advocates at least a serious reduction in the department’s funding. He writes:

The U.S. Department of Education was created with the primary stated goal of increasing students’ test scores, but test scores for 17-year-old American students have remained essentially flat since 1970. The department’s budget has grown to a whopping $107 billion this year. Per pupil, taxpayer-financed education spending (adjusted for inflation) has risen by more than 200 percent since 1970 (and 150-plus percent since 1980). Clearly and unambiguously, the department deserves a grade of F. Read More »