The discussion about popular culture, and how to reasonably and effectively protest it, has continued in the post Remaking Rome. 

 Here are comments from Clark Coleman and from me:

Clark writes:

I touched on two different issues in my earlier reply: the level of protest that certain things would elicit in a previous generation compared to our own, and conservatives using their dollars to support the decline of our culture. You have to have a certain critical mass of protesters in order to succeed, and I agree that this is unlikely to be the case today. Controlling your own environment is the way to go, as Laura mentioned.

As for the morality of supporting the enemy with our money, my comments stand and I believe that conservatives need to spend a little time thinking about it.  How can we complain about the depravity of our popular culture while supporting the depravity financially?

 Laura writes:

The fact that there is good among the dross, as both Diana and Clark mentioned, keeps conservatives coming back for more in the hope that they don’t have to take a more radical stand. It’s important to remember this: There will always be some good in popular culture. Unfortunately the overwhelming preponderance of the bad and immoral requires a rejection of the good that is there.

I’d like to restate my earlier First Law of Popular Culture, mentioned in the discussion of Kate and Jon Gosselin:

The more absorbed a person is in popular culture, the more removed he is from his own culture.

Many conservatives and thinking people justify staying abreast of TV and movies with the argument that they are obliged to stay attuned to the times and the world at large. This is wrong-headed. Popular culture removes people from their real cultural surroundings, deprives them of deep pleasures and furthers the decline of our civilization with breathless speed. There will never be a day when in order to reject it and improve it we won’t have to also toss out some decent movies, TV shows and music as well.

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As mentioned in the previous post, international adoption has soared in the last 40 years and yet is a relatively unexamined cultural phenomenon. A new study looks at the confused identity experienced by many transracial adoptees from foreign countries.

The study does not examine a major cause for the growth in transracial adoption: feminism. The rejection of motherhood in early adulthood has caused dramatic increases in infertility. Feminists have concealed the facts of biology from ordinary women, and as a result many have found they could not conceive on demand.

Feminism has also promoted abortion. Given the rate of sexual activity among the young, pregnant women should be a common sight on our college campuses. But they are rarely seen. Millions of children that might end up in the care of infertile couples are never born.

Many thousands of transracial adoptees have found loving homes in the West.  That’s an undeniable fact. But it’s important to be honest. It would be far better if fewer women were infertile. And it is ideal for children to be raised within their native cultures. To say this is not to lose sight of the happiness, love and good fortune many foreign adoptees have experienced in Western homes. 

These children are now full members of  Western society and it must wholeheartedly embrace them. But the future of this trend should be placed in check. To do so, it’s necessary to admit just how numerous the casualties of feminism are. Here is an ideology that would rather send mothers-to-be halfway around the world on a desperate quest for children than recognize the sacred and primary call of motherhood itself.

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  INTERESTING observations by readers have been added to the following posts: Transracial Adoption: the Undiscussed Issue The Overly Affectionate Mother (about the Obama family portrait) Remaking Rome  (See exchange between Diana and Clark Coleman on conservatism and popular culture.)                                                                        

Since 1971, American parents have, by conservative estimates, adopted more than half a million children from foreign countries, particularly girls from Asian orphanages. These children have been given loving homes, but the cultural and psychological implications of these adoptions are seldom discussed. A study released on Monday by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute examines the first generation of adoptees from South Korea and concludes that many have struggled with ethnic and racial identity.  This conflict typically was mild in early childhood but intensified in adolescence and adulthood.

“Race/ethnicity is an increasingly significant aspect of identity for those adopted across color and culture,” the report states. It also says,  “A significant majority of transracially adopted adults reported considering themselves to be or wanting to be White [sic] as children.”  In an article in the Sunday New York Times, two Korean adoptees speak of their satisfaction with the study:

“This offers proof that we’re not crazy or just being ungrateful to our adoptive parents when we talk about our experiences,” said Mr. [Joel] Ballantyne, 35, who was adopted at age 3 and who grew up in Alabama, Texas and, finally, California.

Jennifer Town, 33, agreed.

“A lot of adoptees have problems talking about these issues with their adoptive families,” she said. “They take it as some kind of rejection of them when we’re just trying to figure out who we are.”

Some 468 adopted adults responded to an online survey for the study, making it the largest study of its kind, the authors of the report said. The Times article, an unusually candid discussion of the report, also quotes another adoptee:

Sonya Wilson, adopted in 1976 by a white family in Clarissa, Minn., says that although she shares many of the experiences of those interviewed in the study — she grew up as the only Asian in a town of 600 — policy changes must address why children are put up for adoption, and should do more to help single women in South Korea keep their children. “This study does not address any of these issues,” Ms. Wilson said.

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  There is one bright spot in the ongoing debate over so-called health care reform. And that is the fanatical, unreasoning, unquenchable, blind and ever-vigilant devotion to abortion rights by supporters of socialized medicine. So unthinking is this devotion it may, by some slim chance, doom the ultimate success of proposed reform bills. To truly understand the inextinguishable nature of this fire, this burning passion for abortion "rights," it's important to know how much an abortion costs in this country. It costs on average less than $500. That's right. Less than five hundred bucks to destroy a life and damage a woman's soul and her ability to love. Now, $500 is not so much money that most women in this country could not somehow come up with it through loans from family and friends. But, abortion activists are not happy with that. They want a woman to be so unimpeded in her search for an abortion that she need only take out a few bucks from an ATM and be on her way. They don't want simply the freedom to abort, they want abortion to be automatic and quick, leaving no time for reflection. President Obama, as unthinking an abortion advocate as one can find, said yesterday that he is unhappy with the bill passed in the House on Saturday because it does not allow women to obtain government-subsidized insurance that covers abortion. He hopes to approve a bill that allows extra premiums or co-pays so they can have…

  A man dressed in a business suit walks onto a crowded suburban commuter train. He sees no place to sit until he notices a passenger next to an empty window seat. He walks up to the male passenger and says in a polite voice, "Excuse me, Sir. The train is very crowded. Do you mind moving in so I can sit down?" The passenger explodes in rage and spits out these words, "You over-pompous, over-privileged [idiot]!" An argument ensues in which the polite man defends his right to be polite. This incident was witnessed by a friend the other day.

Kidist Paulos Asrat offers some reflections here on this official portrait by photographer Annie Liebovitz of the Obama family. She points out the way Malia is draped about her mother.

This is characteristic of the open affection often displayed by mothers today with their older children. Affection is good and important. But what we’re seeing is something on an entirely different level from normal and healthy maternal love. I have seen grown adolescents sitting in their mothers’ laps stroking them and kissing their necks. This is fine in private, but what is strange is that it is done in front of outsiders and in the middle of conversations with others.

It seems physical contact has replaced other forms of intimacy – most especially the intimacy to be found in words and conversation – in relations between men and women, and within families. This outward display may seem to signal intense rapport. But in truth, I believe it often masks distance and a lack of  inner connection. Open hugging and vows of love – hastily and very publicly delivered by cell phone – cover up the void.

It’s also very difficult for a mother to maintain any sense of authority with her older children when she allows them to publicly sit in her lap. It becomes impossible to send out the subtle and all-important maternal signals of approval and disapproval.

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THE HBO series Rome, which was made in collaboration with the BBC and aired from 2005 to 2007, was such a popular success that a film version is in the works with Bruno Heller, producer of the TV series. In the meantime, past episodes are still shown on HBO 2.

According to a reader named Diana, the lavishly produced TV show, filmed on a five-acre lot in Italy and billed as an “intimate drama of love and betrayal,  masters and slaves, and husbands and wives,” panders to modern female audiences with wild distortions of Roman history. It also underscores the dark side to the contemporary fascination with ancient Rome.

Diana writes:

A few years ago HBO and BBC TV collaborated on a  blockbuster, highly-touted miniseries on ancient Rome, focusing on the crucial transitional period from the Republic to the Empire. The series was touted as being a genuine, historically accurate depiction of life in ancient Rome, as opposed to the fake, artificial products of “Holly-Rome.” The first season focused on the events leading up to and culminating with the assassination of Caesar in the Senate The second season focused on the consequences of that act, and the rise of his adopted son Octavian as the first emperor.

As a counterpoint to all the comings, goings, and doings of the patrician political class, the series focused on two real, historical plebeians: a legionary (infantryman) and a centurion (officer), both of whom were soldiers mentioned in Caesar’s chronicles of the Gaul campaign. (Caesar apparently pointed out these two otherwise unremarkable commoners because they had put aside personal difficulties to save one another’s lives with exceptional bravery.)

I am not an expert in ancient Roman history. But I can smell horse manure, and every time my antennae went on alert, I looked up the record on the Internet and discovered that my gut was right.

In the interests of brevity I will focus on two aspects of the series that I found most dismaying: the portrayal of Roman women and its depiction of sex.

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THE HEALTH CARE LAW passed by Congress yesterday represents an unprecedented seizure of power by the federal government. If it is upheld by the Supreme Court, we will be divested in a new and dramatic way of our constitutional foundations.

Never before in our history has the federal government ordered citizens to buy a specific product or service. There is no provision in the Constitution relegating personal health or medical commerce to federal oversight. Remember the Tenth Amendment: 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

While it’s true the federal government has exceeded its mandate for years, never before has it so boldly dispensed with the limitations on its powers. Let the facts be submitted to a candid world. The people have lost.

By the way, according to the Congressional Budget Office, an individual earning $44,000 in pre-tax income will pay an average of $7,300 a year for the mandated government-controlled insurance and for out-of-pocket medical expenses, totaling 17 percent of  total pre-tax income. A family earning $102,000 will pay an estimated 20 percent of its pre-tax income.

I highly recommend this article at the American Thinker for a full summary of all that is wrong with this health care bill.

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       SUMMER DAYS

When Mother hangs the laundry out
Along the backyard lines,
I steal between the flowing sheets
While all the morning shines.

The sheets are cool and dripping wet                                                             
And it’s shady here inside,
As I walk my breezy corridor
In my favorite place to hide.

I can smell the bleach and soap
In a world all white and clean,
In this hallway of the clouds
Where I know I can’t be seen.

When I reach the morning light
Outside the sheets and shade,
I hear my Mother calling me
As her voice begins to fade.

It’s time to do the morning chores
Before the sun’s too high,
To gather from our garden
The beans before they dry.

When Mother brings the laundry in
I’m there to help her fold.
I think about the sun in them
In bed when nights are cold.

                                   —- James S. Taylor
 

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  A 400-year-old Connecticut oak, birches in Vermont, a lost pear tree of childhood, and the ancient sentinels of the South American tropics. Readers eloquently describe their favorite trees here.   The Granby Oak

A TREE is movement that never quite moves. Its roots protruding from the ground, an oak seems as if it is just about to take a step. Its limbs bare of leaves, the tulip poplar reaches and points and gesticulates. A row of old Japanese maples near where I live is effeminate and expressive. It is as if a choreographer had once come by and said, "Okay, girls. Arms up! That's right. Now wave. Wave as if you were billowing sails!" When the choreographer left, the trees held their billowing sails in place, awaiting his return. A tree is movement frozen in place, even when its limbs sway in the wind. But that is not all. A tree is wisdom. I was raised by human beings, but I was also raised by trees: oak mothers and fathers; poplar siblings; maple aunts and hemlock uncles; pine and spruce cousins, plus a host of extended arboreal relatives whom I cannot classify. I consider them family because they have that essential feature of all relatives. There is always the mysterious feeling that they know me. I was tree-taught and tree-tutored. I have gone to tree school, leaning against the windowsill on winter nights when there was a full moon and the ancient oaks beyond by window were clarified by the light; walking through their blazing hallways as they dropped their leaves on my head in fall; and resting on spring days against their rough and tender bark. They taught me their alphabet. They taught me tree arithmetic and tree geography, tree philosophy and…

  Grief is like a garden made of rocks and sand. We enter its lonely recesses upon the death of someone we love. We go there day after day to weed and to dig, to pick through the same rocks, to pray for a few drops of rain. The soil is poor and the climate is worse.  It seems nothing will grow. In a world in which there are few rituals for the dead, no sacred fires burning and few public commemorations, this garden is the only place where our memories can be sustained. After a time, things do grow, but not always to our satisfaction. The dead are always with us. From the lifeless earth, out of rock and regrets, our love for them brings forth new life.

  You could have gone to college and become a human resources director. You could have gotten an MBA too. You could have refused to sweep or toss the cinders. You could have tried on another shoe. O Cinderella, what were you thinking? As a role model, you just won't do. .

Housewives and plumbers are natural comrades in arms. They have something very basic in common and that is, they are always and everywhere needed. They address the most fundamental and routine needs of human existence. Civilization cannot function well without them, and yet so rarely acknowledges its dependence upon them. There is something shameful about both the housewife and the plumber because of this dependence. They point to the most trivial of human weaknesses. No day proceeds without clean dishes, swept floors, cooked meals, laundered clothes and unclogged plumbing.

I have a friend who is a plumber. He never goes to social events and limits all casual interaction with anyone but his customers. He lives in perpetual anxiety that harmless interactions with neighbor or friend will lead to requests for his services. I once invited him to our home for dinner and the event was ruined by his suspicion that at any moment we were going to ask for his professional expertise in pipes, drains or septic systems.

So it is with the housewife. People are often eager to create an informal tie with her. She cooks. She cleans. She takes care of young and old. Compared to the average adult today, she seems to possess an eternity of time. She has absolutely nothing to do.

The truth is she has far too much to do. The world is overflowing with need of her services and for the order, tranquility and health these services provide. A neighborhood boy used to show up at our door everyday at 7 a.m. His mother never asked if he could come over before school started. She just assumed because there was a mother at home, her services were there for the taking. The housewife is often veiwed as a de facto employee of the public school and it continually invents the most petty of projects to indenture her.

Of course, the housewife is glad to aid the world. The very best thing about her vocation is that she can meet the spontaneous needs of friend and relative as these needs arise. She can help others without the burdensome scheduling and impersonal interaction that characterizes the commercial world. She is glad to help. The spirit of charity runs thick in her veins. But, the need for the plumber is about as infinite as any basic need in this finite world. So it is with the need for the housewife. She must exercise some discretion. I believe many women have fled to the relative predictability of offices because they could not manage this demand for their time. It’s so much easier to say, “I have to go to work,” than, “No, I can’t do that today.”  This demand would be less pressing  if  the housewife weren’t such a rarity and if more organizations respected her privacy. As it is, she must be like the plumber. She is entitled to her privacy and some leisure. If she’s not cautious, she may be draining pipes night and day.

[See comments below.] 

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