I am running myself ragged, dear reader, trying to keep up with the latest lies in our preeminent newspapers. According to this story in the Wall Street Journal, men will have more sex with their wives if they (the men) do more housework. Is this the ultimate form of feminist blackmail, or what? 

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Karen I. writes in response to the previous post about the “amazing” progress women have made since the 1960s:

Born in 1971, I was a member of one of the first generations of children whose mothers routinely left their children to outside care so they could go to work full time. My father had a good, not great, job but one a family could live on and my mother chose to work so they could have more material possessions. When I was small, I used to forget where I was supposed to go after school because caregivers included my grandparents, my mother sometimes, a neighbor, my mother’s workplace (where I would sit quietly for two hours and wait for her to take us home), or an after-school program. My mother sometimes used all these options in one school week, so there was no consistency. Every caregiver, including my mother and grandmother, acted like we were a burden and I remember my poor grandmother lying down in the middle of the day, exhausted from long days of caring (for no pay at all) for the small children of her three successful working daughters’ children.

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Rose responds to the post How to Disown Your Parents, in which I stated, “If desire cannot be trained or modified [in homosexuals], the same is true for heterosexuals and for pedophiles:” 

Friedman does not appreciate the traditional corollaries that accompany his biological determinism. Certainly if men can be born with inherently feminine natures and women with inherently masculine ones, it must follow that women can have inherently feminine natures and men inherently masculine ones. But that would be sexist. This is rather like the leftist contradiction that a male transsexual’s desire to wear a frilly dress and ribbons is congenital and instinctive and to be tolerated (or celebrated) for that reason but a woman’s desire to do the same is merely an arbitrary social construction. Friedman’s essentialism stands in stark contrast to the Foucauldian theories recently condemned at View from the Right. Gay activists and sympathizers tend to bounce back and forth between the two positions depending on which is useful to them at the moment.

Laura’s point about pedophilia is a good one and it is for this reason actually that I think conservatives should on principle refuse to argue about whether homosexuality is genetic. Successfully reformed pedophiles are rare but whether a desire is inborn or not has nothing to do with the moral status of its expression.

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  Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana justice of the peace who made national news for refusing to marry an interracial couple, continues to be disarmingly honest in his statements about the incident. His candor and lack of racial animosity have probably made a few people think twice and the story has briefly reopened an ancient theme that is now rarely discussed in public. "It's kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven't done wrong," Bardwell told a radio reporter over the weekend.  He refused to officiate at a ceremony involving a black man and a white woman. He said he does not approve of interracial marriage because of its effect on children. "I've had countless numbers of people that was born in that situation, and that they claim that the blacks or the whites didn't accept the children," Bardwell told CBS. "And I didn't want to put the children in that position."   .

  If parents reject an adult child for embracing homosexuality, they are guilty of scientific ignorance and should be disowned for their hostility to truth, according to Dr. Richard Friedman, professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. In a column  about "toxic" parents in yesterday's New York Times, Friedman described a patient who was harshly criticized by his family for his homosexuality. Friedman met with the man and his parents to bring about a reconciliation. He wrote: The session did not go well. The parents insisted that his “lifestyle” was a grave sin, incompatible with their deeply held religious beliefs. When I tried to explain that the scientific consensus was that he had no more choice about his sexual orientation than the color of his eyes, they were unmoved. They simply could not accept him as he was. I was stunned by their implacable hostility and convinced that they were a psychological menace to my patient. As such, I had to do something I have never contemplated before in treatment. At the next session I suggested that for his psychological well-being he might consider, at least for now, forgoing a relationship with his parents. Friedman is one of a vast army of psychology professionals who spout this pseudo-scientific bigotry. The major professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, virtually command orthodoxy on the subject, untroubled by the fact that homosexuals were capable of essentially changing the color of their eyes in less tolerant times. If a person has no…

God is in all of nature. Paradise is eternal springs, blooming roses and an unending harvest of apples. Such were the convictions of Saint Dorothy, believed to be the subject of this exquisite painting by the Venetian artist Sebastiano del Piombo. I like to think of Dorothy as protectress of gardeners, especially as they lay down their spades and pitchforks for winter. Dorothy lived in the Roman province of Cappodocia, now in Turkey, during the reign of Diocletian. Her story is filled with poetical beauty. According to legend, she was condemned to die after refusing to marry or to renounce her faith. She was said to have declared: "I serve the Son of God, Christ, mine espoused! His dwelling is Paradise; by His side are joys eternal; and in His garden grow celestial fruits and roses that never fade!" It was winter and, en route to her execution, she was approached by a cynical young lawyer, Theophilus, who derisively asked her to send him some of the roses she had spoken of on joining her bridegroom. To which, she answered, "Thy request, O Theophilus, is granted!" The young woman was beheaded and, immediately after, an angel appeared to him with a basket of celestial fruit and flowers, saying, "Dorothy sends thee these!" Gerard Manley Hopkins imagined Theophilus' response in his poem, St. Dorothea: You waned into the world of light, Yet made your market here as well: My eyes hold yet the rinds and bright Remainder of a miracle. O this is bringing! Tears may swarm While such a wonder's wet and warm! Legend has it that…

Few have captured the female humanitarian with such devastating precision as Henry James. Here is his description of Miss Birdseye, the Boston lady reformer of his novel The Bostonians. She  lives on, different and yet the same, in cities such as Cambridge, San Francisco, London and Oslo.

She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in séances; in her faded face there was a kind of reflection of ugly lecture lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned toward a pubic speaker, with an effort of respiration in the thick air in which social reforms are usually discussed. She talked continually, in a voice of which the spring seemed broken, like that of an over-worked bell-wire; and when Miss Chancellor explained that she had brought Mr. Ransom because he was so anxious to meet Mrs. Farrinder, she gave the young man a delicate, dirty, democratic little hand, looking at him kindly, as she could not help doing, but without the smallest discrimination as against others who might not have the good fortune (which involved, possibly, an injustice) to be present on such an interesting occasion…. No one had any idea how she lived; whenever money was given her she gave it away to a negro or a refugee. No woman could be less invidious, but on the whole she preferred these two classes of the human race. Since the Civil War much of her occupation was gone; for before that her best hours had been spent in fancying that she was helping some Southern slave to escape. It would have been a nice question whether, in her heart of hearts, for the sake of this excitement, she did not sometimes wish the blacks back in bondage. (more…)

  There is no need to worry about the massive erosion of American health due to obesity, as discussed in previous posts. If the proposed Baucus health care bill passes, our legislators will dramatically alter the relationship between citizen and government. We can just hand over our personal affairs to our overseers. For the first time, citizens will be ordered to purchase a specific product, in this case health insurance. How long before the government gives us menus and tells what to eat each day of the week? Why don't we just go ahead and shred every last copy of the U.S. Constitution? It's irrelevant now. This bill will exacerbate one of the most serious health problems facing Americans: their passivity in the face of their own physical destiny. By the way, more comments on the obesity issue have been added here.

  I hope you will read my article Obesity in America. It's tempting to think there are public policy solutions to this problem, but the real heart of it lies in both overindulgence and the desire for ease. Let's say I became Czar of Health tomorrow and set about banning all pizza and soda, two major factors in  America's weight problem. The truth is it wouldn't matter. Instead of pizza and soda, Americans would consume more burritos and lemonade. Twenty-ounce bottles of lemonade would appear in all the vending machines. I could then ban burritos and lemonade, or at least place a very high tax on them. Presto.  Americans would start consuming more lattés and grilled-and-gooey sandwiches. On and on it would go. America is killing itself slowly and creating a human landscape that is repulsive and obscene.

  Gourmet was once a great American magazine about travel and the art of entertaining and cooking. It was literate and restrained, with photographs of exquisitely decorated tables set for meals with no people in sight. These scenes were fantastically suggestive and encompassed everything from intimate aprés-ski parties to large Easter buffets. The travel articles were evocative and well-written; the recipes were flawless. The magazine was debauched under the reign of former New York Times food writer Ruth Reichl, who turned it into a journal for urban "foodies" with their decadent obsession with chefs and the hottest restaurants. She defaced it with photographs of  smiling models, a  violation of the Gourmet aesthetic which always left something up to the imagination, and filled it with bizarre recipes that called for exotic ingredients in uninviting combinations. Condé Nast announced on Monday that the 69-year-old magazine would shut down, blaming it on the economy. It had to go. Old bound editions of the magazine will be treasured for years to come.

  A female reader writes: I am a stay-at-home mother of two. I have been a homemaker for ten years now, and the rude questions and comments from outsiders still take me by surprise sometimes, though not the way they used to. I just wanted to say I love your blog. I read a response you wrote to a young homemaker who was insulted by a friend on Facebook and I so wish I had read that when I was first a homemaker and others were making constant comments about what in the world I was doing. I had some very valid reasons for staying home, but I did not care to share our business with the world so I meekly took the comments and issued few comebacks. I have a college degree I worked hard for, and your observations about what is encouraged in our society are completely correct. I got more affirmation for being a court reporter writing rubbish for the front page of the local rag than I ever did for staying home and taking care of my family. Your advice is fantastic and your observations show keen insight into what homemakers face. Laura writes: Thank you very much. Yes, after a while, I started to think of myself as a sort of suburban Solzhenitsyn, without the beard or the gulag. A middle class housewife who is committed to her vocation is a social dissident whether she likes it or not.

  Sarah Palin's life story is ready to hit the stands soon. Palin's relatively uneventful life seems thin material for a memoir. Her ghost writers (she surely did not write this book herself) will play up her outdoorsy, frontierswoman persona, as is clear from the cover and title. If she can shoot a moose, she can lead a country. By the way, is that a windbreaker she is wearing? That makes sense. It's tough-gal chic. I am looking forward to soaking up all the details about Palin's high school basketball triumphs.                                                           

Here’s the photo that accompanied the article mentioned in the previous post. It’s a glowing “family” portrait of a homosexual couple and the boy in their care. It does not trouble the Times, or the two men, that this boy has been deprived of a mother. What’s so special about a mother?

The Times’  report was intended to show the unfair economic costs homosexual couples pay. I see no sign of financial distress in this photo. Also, I wonder if this little boy will be eager to pose for a photo with his two dads when he is a teenager.

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  What is the cost of being a homosexual parent? The New York Times set out recently to find out in a spirit of complete impartiality. You have a heart of stone if, after reading this, you do not cry out at the inherent injustice of a system that imposes financial penalties on homosexuals. According to the Times' personal finance columnists: Much of the debate over legalizing gay marriage has focused on God and Scripture, the Constitution and equal protection. But we see the world through the prism of money. [Laura: Hey, thanks for being honest!] And for years, we’ve heard from gay couples about all the extra health, legal and other costs they bear. So we set out to determine what they were and to come up with a round number — a couple’s lifetime cost of being gay. Tara Siegel Bernard and Ron Lieber then go on to analyse the inequities created by Social Security, taxes and health insurance programs that do not view these couples as man and wife. There's one major inequality the Times does not mention. These couples typically spend significant sums to even have children. They go to sperm banks and adoption services to create their artificial families. It's true that some lesbian couples simply resort to male friends, which is a cheap route and a great way to exploit the father of one's future child. But, many choose the more expensive alternative. Given the exhaustive nature of the Times analysis, why didn't the writers mention this extra cost? Could it…

  The discussion abount interracial marriage continues in this entry. See Hannon's comment: "Color blindness" is like fence-sitting. If you feel it is somehow wrong to choose a side for yourself, or your family, in terms of ethnic fidelity, that is a corruption of natural affinity and affiliation. Usually this is not held in conscious awareness (whites being the bellwether example) and normally it should not need to be. But periodically it asserts itself as a matter of survival, as when one's nation is being inundated simultaneously by mass immigration of people from foreign cultures and its political complement, the hegemony of liberal non-discrimination doctrine.  

As I’ve said before, many Western women are functionally schizophrenic. If you are a man who has married a sweet, even-tempered woman only to find yourself  living with a feral, foaming creature who needs medication or a strait-jacket, you are familiar with what I say. If you are a woman who in the aftermath of her wedding day feels as if she has undergone a form of demonic possession, you too know what I mean.

Here’s the reason for this prevalent psychiatric phenomenon. Everywhere she goes, a woman is told to pursue her native talents until she has converted them by hard work and sheer wizardry into some impressive professional feat, perhaps chief of brain surgery at a metropolitan hospital or, at the very least, third grade teacher. But she must not be just any third grade teacher. She must be a teacher who so dazzles a community with her energy that she is appointed Educational Curator of the World.

At the same time, in daily news reports, a woman is told the truth. And the truth is that her children will be unhealthy, stupid and unruly if she, or some very attentive and highly-paid servant, does not pay abundant attention to them. The truth is her home will be a mess and her marriage will be a war zone if she does not have a personal staff or devote a great deal of time to these things.

The media have no problem with feeding women this pack of contradictions. In fact, they love contradictions. These inconsistencies create anxiety and psychological dependence. People keep returning to the same sources of news to try to sort it all out and to ease the very anxieties the media have fostered.

Here’s a perfect example of what I mean. In this recent story  in The New York Times, Jane Brody, a woman who spent years bragging about her ability to effortlessly juggle career and family, reports that is essential for mothers to talk to their babies from birth. I agree. It is important for mothers to talk to babies. Babies are not baggage. Babies are not toys. They are human beings, often filled with curiosity and the frustrated desire to communicate.

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  In a single year, support for abortion appears to have declined significantly despite the election of a pro-abortion president. According to the New York Times, a Pew Research Center poll taken last year showed 54 percent of respondents for legalized abortion and 40 percent against. The same poll this year shows 47 percent for and 45 percent against. The Times speculates that abortion supporters "may have grown complacent." Perhaps people have begun to see the logical fallacy behind the position of someone like President Obama. Obama says abortion is not wrong and yet he says the numbers of abortions should be reduced. If something is not wrong, why does it make any difference how many instances of it there are?