LOU LUMENICK writes in The New York Post about the new movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s paean to female narcissism:

A year-long, around-the-world quest for self-fulfillment that basically goes nowhere, Eat Pray Love is a very shallow, very glossy 2½-hour travelogue starring a miscast Julia Roberts as a spoiled, self-centered divorcée who decides to get away from it all.

Though it’s based on a hugely popular, Oprah-endorsed memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, there’s little in the script or in Roberts’ wrongheaded Big Movie Star Performance to explain why, in the space of six months, Elizabeth dumps both her husband of a decade (Billy Crudup) and a younger actor/yogi (James Franco), both of whom adore her.

Most likely she’s bored, a sentiment that will likely be felt most acutely by guys dragged to see this overproduced, self-congratulatory collage of New Age-y clichés.

HERE’S a video of the Victory over Japan celebration in Honolulu on August 14, 1945. There’s no burning cars or looting, just joy and sailors cruising through the beautiful streets of downtown Waikiki before they were transformed by high-rise towers and designer boutiques.

READER N. writes:

The discussion of unmarried women and their children has been interesting. But in the real world, yet another powerful woman, Jennifer Aniston, has yet again declared fathers to be totally unnecessary. I’ve heard this notion for so many years, that I no longer notice it, so when this interview was given I just ignored it, until someone brought it to my attention. You may or may not find it useful.

Excerpt:

“”Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child,” Aniston, 41, said. “Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long.” Read More »

IN THIS entry, Alan Roebuck writes:

We need conservative evangelism, which delivers the bad news that people are lost and society is crumbling because of the false and destructive system of liberalism, along with the good news that liberalism is false, that human life does make sense, and that there is a better system in which the individual can participate.

We are calling people like Asher to repent. This does not mean “instantaneously stop thinking and acting like a lost liberal.” As the Greek word of which the New Testament word “repent” is a translation (“metanoia”), repenting of liberalism means to acknowledge that one has oriented his mind and soul toward a false and evil system and to turn one’s inner orientation away from liberalism and toward conservative truths.

And by calling on him to repent we are not superciliously condemning him. We are calling on him to get saved.

AS I HAVE SAID before, pizza is the Fix-a-Flat of foodstuffs and the gastrointestinal equivalent of fiberglass insulation blown into crawlspaces. People shove it in to fill the void. Here is a great idea for a pizza utensil. It’s a personal rotating saw for cutting through glutenous board and rubber cheese.

Read More »

THE discussion about whether a bachelor should marry a single mother continues in several of the foregoing entries. In this entry, I write something which I have stated before and that is important to keep in mind regarding illegitimacy.  Unwed mothers in a healthy society do not receive any financial support from the government, and that is the way it should be in our world. No woman who has had a child without marrying should be supported by the government, and her children should not be supported by the government.  Unwed mothers also should not be entitled to government-mandated child support from men to whom they are not married.

Read More »

IN THIS entry, Ilion Troas wrote:

Further, consider fairytales — the “evil stepmother” is a stock character, but there is no “evil stepfather” stock character. I think the reason for that is that men are self-sacrificing, and that they tend to love their stepchildren as fully as they love the children of their body. That is, when a man chooses to love and marry a woman, when he chooses to live the life of giving his life for that woman — in contrast to choosing to use women as masturbation machines, as ‘Asher’ clearly has chosen to do — then he also chooses to love and give his life for her children. 

Now, I will admit that, all things being equal, I’d prefer to marry a woman without children than one with. But, how often are all things equal? Read More »

LAWRENCE AUSTER makes disrespectful remarks about the recent wedding of Rush Limbaugh and his third, I mean, fourth wife. The photos have finally been released (Congrats, Rush!!! Congrats, Kathryn!!!!) and they depict the sort of soulful and triumphal celebration of conjugal love one might expect from someone who likes marriage so much he tries it four times. (Congrats, Rush!!! Congrats, Kathryn!!!!)  Only a grump would deny this lovely couple their day. I particularly liked the modest floral arrangements, reminiscent of Rome at its height of decay, and was moved by the solemnity of the guests and the preacher, which bodes well for this sacred match and the perpetuation of family values in America. Read More »

MICHELLE BELL writes:

I think Charles and Kristor have touched upon this idea with regards to Asher’s statements in “Disillusionment and Marriage“, but I wanted to expand upon it from a woman’s point of view.  I had an opportunity to chat with my grandmother earlier today about some family history to make sure I had gotten it right, and it seems to have pertinence to this discussion.

During the war (World War II), my grandmother and her sister were married.  My grandmother had just gotten married to her high school sweetheart before he shipped off and had gotten pregnant the week following her wedding with my eldest aunt.  Her sister had several children with her high school sweetheart.  (We’re an Irish Catholic family and her parents and the in-laws had all come from Ireland to settle in the land of opportunity, so babies were in abundance).  My grandmother’s husband came back, her sister’s husband didn’t.  Read More »

YOUNGFOGEY writes:

The incoherence of Asher’s original comment has already been pointed out by others, so I will forego that.

When I read his comments, I couldn’t help but think of a guy who had a crush on some girl as a teenager and found her pregnant by some other dude. What clearer sign of rejection can there be than undeniable evidence that this girl wasn’t against the idea of having sex, she was just against the idea of having sex with him. I don’t deny that such an experience would be very painful. It would be. Indeed, it might be painful enough to cause a man to engage in casual sex with multiple women as revenge and to adopt a worldview that allows him to dismiss women he perceives as similar to those who rejected him. This is what Charles and Kristor are picking up on and labeling “whining.”

The worst part of the men’s rights movement is that much of it promotes this kind of whining. It also promotes the idea that we’ve seen here again and again that men have a natural inclination against raising a child they did not sire that is so strong they cannot overcome it. This is just flat stupid. I wouldn’t deny that indeed there will be problems in that scenario that have to be addressed, but that is what a man does. He addresses problems. The truth is that any child I live with and provide for, whose trust and devotion I earn, who respects and obeys me is “mine.”

By encouraging men to shirk responsibility in the ways it does, the men’s movement keeps many men immature. This will not work in the long run. If men want to see a return to patriarchy, they have to act like patriarchs.

Laura writes:

This reminds me of the previous entries here about fatherless children gravitating toward men who are strangers and lapping up any attention they can find from men. Children adore their fathers. And, their fathers, in the most meaningful sense, are the men who care for them.

Read More »

NEWT GINGRICH, who is scoring well in early polls on 2012 Presidential contenders, says this in an interesting interview with John H. Richardson of Esquire:

There’s a large part of me that’s four years old. I wake up in the morning and I know that somewhere there’s a cookie. I don’t know where it is but I know it’s mine and I have to go find it. That’s how I live my life. My life is amazingly filled with fun.

Read More »

ASHER writes, in regard to the recent entry on the culture war:

After becoming disillusioned with the feeling that the three of us, me, you and Alan Roebuck, were talking past each other I decided to take a step back and personalize this conversation. The reason this is necessary is that the traditionalists, such as you, are presenting nothing to men like myself that addresses our own personal circumstances. In personalizing this conversation I would submit my formative political experience, which occurred over a period of two to three years around the age of twenty. Read More »

THE READER David K. attended the same college as Rachel Held Evans, author of Evolving in Monkey Town and a recent guest columnist for the religion section (so they call it) of The Washington Post. David sent a letter to Mrs. Held Evans in response to her piece.

He wrote:

Dear Ms. Rachel Held Evans,

Wow. You know you’re doing the right things when you grace the pages of The Washington Post religion section.

It certainly took a lot of guts to expose the underbelly of evangelicalism and to take on such names as William Jennings Bryan and his ilk. Also taking the opposite view of your parents and church and broadcasting that to the world? Well, you certainly deserve all the social approbation and results that such a maneuver warrants. Read More »

NATASSIA writes:

Although it has a catchy tune (I’m 26, so please excuse my poor taste), the fact that this song with these lyrics was Number One on the Billboard charts is depressing:
 
Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna and Eminem (I’ve highlighted the most atrocious parts):
 
Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that’s all right
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that’s alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I Love the way you lie Read More »

THE DISCUSSION about lesbians in the neighborhood continues. This has brought to mind an interesting incident from my own childhood.

When I was 13, one of my best friends, whose house was across the street, moved away to a distant state. I had spent hundreds of afternoons playing in her house. In place of her family, a large family with 13 or so children moved into the house. They were Protestants from the Assembly of God denomination. Read More »

ALAN ROEBUCK writes:

Commenting on the marvelous photos of the old America, Kilroy M. said

…it seems like the decline of modern architecture, industrial design and with it the form of vehicles is somehow representative of our culture’s departure from celebrating the beautiful, to worshiping the merely useful.

He hasn’t taken his observation far enough. We have changed from celebrating the beautiful to celebrating the ugly. Think of it: Almost every major fashion movement in the last 50 years or so has been to elevate the status of what was once regarded as (and still is) ugly. Read More »

IF YOU have never made gazpacho, the cold Spanish soup, I suggest you try it. Here is a great way to use summer produce that involves no cooking. This recipe is from one of my favorite small cookbooks, Cold Cuisine, by Helen Hecht. Read More »