THE NEWS that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have separated is not surprising. The couple never considered their marriage important enough for them to have the same name. They both have celebrity egos. He has a history of infidelity. She speaks and writes about women’s empowerment. Finally, neither of them takes the faith they profess seriously.

In 2008, Shriver told The Washington Post that she likes the “compassion and justice of Jesus Christ,” but can’t abide the Catholic Church’s positions on homosexuals, divorce and abortion. In other words, she’s a typical American Catholic at a serve-yourself buffet. “I’m a cafeteria Catholic,” she said.

She also said, “I consider myself a Catholic in good standing [even though] I don’t spend a lot of time squaring my own daily life with the institutional church.” (more…)

  THE CHIEF of U.S. Navy chaplains has announced that same-sex marriage ceremonies must now be permitted on Navy bases in any state that recognizes homosexual marital unions. In a memo dated April 13, Rear Admiral Mark L. Tidd told all chaplains that pursuant to the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," the Navy reviewed its guidelines regarding weddings on Navy bases. He said, "base facility use is sexual orientation neutral." In any state where same sex marital unions are legal, wedding ceremonies are now permitted on bases, though chaplains are not required to officiate. This reverses previous policy that forbade same-sex "marriage" ceremonies on federal property.

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

Today’s spoiled feminists, who try to change the things that just “are,” remind me of the Persian ruler Xerxes I, who ordered the waters of the Hellespont lashed after his bridges across the strait were destroyed by storms. I thought you might enjoy this post on him.

Also, in case you have not seen this photograph, it is the tea house at Kew Gardens in England, destroyed by suffragettes in 1913. What did the tea houses ever do to them to deserve being burned down?

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THERE IS far too much to comment upon in the public ruminations on Mother’s Day. Suffice to say, if you thought Mother’s Day was a time to actually celebrate sacrifice rather than pushy entitlement, you were wrong.

Even the supposedly conservative Phyllis Chesler, in a paean to motherhood, makes the ridiculous assertion that if only British poet Ted Hughes had been a good wife to Sylvia Plath, and tenderly served her every need, the doomed poetess might not have killed herself. For Chesler, Mother’s Day is an appropriate time to reflect on how self-sacrifice has made women unhappy. The narcissism of contemporary women observes no holidays. If veterans exhibited the same whininess on Veterans Day, we would have to retire our armed forces for good. 

Stephanie Coontz in The New York Times writes:

One of the most enduring myths about feminism is that 50 years ago women who stayed home full time with their children enjoyed higher social status and more satisfying lives than they do today. All this changed, the story goes, when Betty Friedan published her 1963 best seller, “The Feminine Mystique,” which denigrated stay-at-home mothers. Ever since, their standing in society has steadily diminished.

She then goes on to prove that mothers who stayed home in the fifties  must have enjoyed higher status. Nothing else could explain why they would do something so demeaning. Housewives of the fifties, Coontz argues, were overworked, depressed and physically assaulted by their husbands. Thanks to feminism, the lives of homemakers are better. They are only depressed today.

Coontz fails to mention that there are relatively few full-time homemakers left. Feminism has not just destroyed the status of homemaking, it’s virtually eliminated the homemaker herself. (more…)

  LAST WEEK, Attorney General Eric Holder asked a New Jersey appeals court to reconsider the deportation of an immigrant involved in a homosexual civil union, sending the clear message that the Justice Department does not intend to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The day following Holder's action, a Connecticut judge responded by suspending deportation proceedings against another homosexual immigrant.  Under DOMA, legal residency cannot be extended to partners of citizens in civil unions or so-called same-sex "marriages." Many thousands of immigrants would like citizenship on the basis of homosexual relationships, their organized advocates say. According to The New York Times, a Justice Department official stated on Saturday that Holder would continue to enforce the law. But clearly this is not true.  The implications of legally-recognized same-sex unions with regard to immigration rulings are rarely considered in the public debate on the issue. But once a same-sex union is accorded the same recognition as those of heterosexual couples, it is impossible to logically deny the claims of those in homosexual unions who want to gain U.S. citizenship. The possibilities for short-term unions undertaken for practical advantage are enormous.

I ONCE knew a woman who gave birth to her first child in her early thirties. Just a few hours later, a doctor came to see her in her hospital room and told her that the back pains she had experienced during pregnancy were caused by serious bone cancer. She had only a few weeks to live.

Six weeks later she died. Strange to say, those six weeks were filled with happiness. She was transformed and elated by the love every normal mother feels when she sees and holds her child. This love is so common. Its commonness does not lessen its singularity. She knew that not much else mattered, even her own pending death. The important thing was that she had lived long enough to give birth to this child and to express her love for him.

This is mother power.

Feminists would have us believe that women have always been denied importance. In truth, no greater power can be possessed by mortals. To create life and express this love, that is power.

We no longer live in an age when many women die in childbirth or in the days and weeks after they give birth, as did this woman. It is fitting on Mother’s Day to remember those who lost their lives to bring others into this sad and beautiful world, and to recall the immense power even these ill-fated mothers possessed. Here is the poet Robert Herrick’s reflection on one. (more…)

THIS review by Steve Sailer is several months old but it’s well worth reading. Sailer looks at Thomas Geoghan’s recent book about the German economy. Sailer writes: 

For decades, American economic sages such as Larry Summers, Tom Friedman, and Alan Greenspan have implied that manufacturing stuff was more or less obsolete—that the building blocks of the economy of the future would be cheap labor and expensive finance. The Chinese will make everything, while Americans will get rich selling each other ever more sophisticated financial instruments. (more…)

THE PIZZA CHAIN Sbarro has filed for bankruptcy, suggesting there is either a limit to the American appetite for cheese-covered fiberglass or we are in far worse straits than we thought. With more than 1,000 outlets, this ubiquitous chain has been stuffing the intestinal ductwork of Americans for more than 40 years. If it were to close, we might have to resort to asphalt shingles with sauce and mozzarella or the Army Corps of Engineers might have to come up with something, perhaps the mass distrubution of used tires sprinkled with oregano. Writing at Slate, Justin Peters examines the state of the pizza chain. Sbarro has tried everything to stay afloat short of selling an edible product. He writes:

For a long time, you could make a lot of money selling terrible pizza. For most people, a bad slice of pizza is better than no pizza at all, and Sbarro has banked on this for decades. (more…)

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HERE IS Alfie, the unforgettable little boy in a series of children’s books by the well-known British illustrator and author Shirley Hughes. When they were little, my sons and I read the Alfie books again and again, particularly the one (Alfie Gets in First) about the day when Alfie accidentally locked his mother out of the house and the other (Alfie’s Feet) about the time he goes to the shoe store to buy new boots. Hughes’s illustrations are charming. With their warm, rich colors and interesting domestic details, they vividly capture the expressions and movements of young children. Hughes has a sense of how ordinary episodes become for them high drama.

When Alfie gets his new boots, he comes home and puts them on right away. He goes to the park, but discovers something is seriously amiss. Most children have experienced at some point the same problem, which is why people sometimes write R’s and L’s on perfectly good boots. (more…)

  THIS IS an illustration from Life Magazine of 1912. It offers one view of the dilemmas facing the modern woman.  The unhappiness involved in moving away from home and love is written on the woman's face, and yet children and marriage are choices at the very bottom of the stairway. This whole consuming question - what should a woman choose to achieve happiness? - has been a preoccupation in the press for many, many decades. Lost in the endless discussion is the notion that there is objectively a right way and a wrong way, that fulfillment of one's duties, not personal happiness, is the ultimate goal. Regardless of what women want or do not want, what they feel or do not feel, what makes them happy or does not make them happy, there is a job to do and only women can do it. That job is creating a new generation and preserving morals, manners and learning - in short, preserving civilization itself - by raising the next generation well.

THOUGH IT IS indecent in parts and not recommended for children, this Mother’s Day video called “Dad’s New Girlfriend” is hilarious and honest. The actress is Stephanie Courtney.

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AS REPORTED at Adweek, the clothing retailer J. Crew, which recently unveiled an ad of a mother (the company’s creative director) painting her son’s toenails pink, has a new ad featuring a homosexual couple. No mention here that both of these men are likely to suffer serious illnesses or physical inconveniences, not to mention sterility, due to their chosen lifestyle.

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THE “It Gets Better Project,” started by homosexual columnist Dan Savage, is a campaign to encourage homosexuality in teenagers. The theme, inspired by teen bullying, is that homosexuality “gets better” with time.  Celebrities, including Suze Orman and Adam Lambert; politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi; and corporations, including Gap and Facebook, have contributed to the 10,000-some videos on the project’s website, which amount to a loving virtual embrace of  the confused and lonely. Google’s new entry is a warm appeal to teenagers who may have experienced hostility from friends or family. “Your life will be amazing but you have to tough this period out and you have to live,” says one adult in the ad. “You are perfect and wonderful just the way you are,” says another.

All in all, the project is a remarkably powerful use of Internet and video technology. It may be unprecedented in its reach and beguiling message.

The “It Gets Better” project is similar to an ad campaign assuring addicts that drug use gets better with time. Such a thing would never be permitted. But when it comes to public promotion of homosexuality, the dangers are never mentioned. Nowhere do these videos speak of the health consequences, especially for men. There is no mention of the drastically reduced life span, the host of diseases or the high suicide rate. According to the American College of Pediatricians,  diseases frequently found among male homosexual practitioners as a result of anal intercourse include: (more…)

AT HIS blog, Bruce Charlton ponders the relatively low fertility of intelligent women from an evolutionary perspective. If maximizing reproductive success is a driver of human behavior, why do many women pursue childlessness or near-childlessness?

The second of his two answers, in which he discusses the social orientation of women, seems closer to the truth. However, I would rephrase it this way. Women are not loners, for obvious biological reasons. Women prepare for child-rearing by forming communities. In modern life, community revolves around institutions. In contrast, the actual physical community – the neighborhood or town – is a non-hierarchical place into which the more intelligent woman cannot find a place or a natural role. She spends years working to find a stable network in an institutional society. This paradoxically leaves little time for actual investment in child-rearing. Evolutionary behavior is for her non-evolutionary.

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DAN MULHERN, the wife, I mean, husband of Jennifer Granholm, the former Democratic governor of Michigan, has written an inspiring letter to his 13-year-old son in Newsweek, telling him that if he’s lucky he may be a housewife someday. Mulhern tells his son:

When I launched my leadership consulting business, I enjoyed “eating what I killed,” as the macho maxim puts it. But the choices Mom and I made to put her public service in front of my career, and for me to lead at home, left me vulnerable and caused me to rethink what it means to “be a man.” It has not been a tragic end to my manhood, but a wondrous beginning. It’ll get even better for you…

… As a modern man, you’ll learn way more than if you were large and in charge. It used to be a man’s world (and, in some measure, it still is). If you lead like Mom, you’ll know how to persevere. You need not fear strong women, or dismiss gentle men. And if you so choose, you’ll be a great stay-at-home or lead parent, giving and receiving incredible lessons and profound joy. Either way, it’s a great time to be a man.

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