THIS Gregorian chant, Rorate Coeli, or “Drop down, ye Heavens from above,” is sung by Schola Cantorum. It is a beautiful recreation of lines from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 45:8) and is often sung in Advent, which begins today. Here is an English translation:

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity : behold the city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert. Jerusalem is desolate, the house of our holiness and of thy glory, where our fathers praised thee.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One. (more…)

I READ yesterday the news stories about the first same-sex wedding ceremony at West Point’s chapel and was completely uninterested. This “wedding” between two elderly lesbians, whose enormous smiles belie an immense disdain for our heritage and for civilization itself, was news around the country but it is not news. It’s just another all-too-predictable ceremony of the liberal state. These two women, and homosexuality itself, are convenient characters in the drama. These uplifted swords, with their evocation of America’s martial past, and this Gothic chapel, with its reference to the fortress of Christianity, are magnificent props. They serve in the most theatrical way to affirm the power of the liberal state and to proclaim its victory. It has conquered our most treasured institutions. It has stolen right up to the foot of the altar. Liberalism has defeated the greatest competing authorities to itself: traditional morality, masculine initiative and the family. It has defeated God himself. This wedding is an assertion of power. There have been many like it for years and there must be more and more ceremonies of its kind. For the forces liberalism has conquered are the forces of life itself.

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READERS are racking up very poor scores in the sexism test mentioned in the previous entry. Terry Morris comes in at the very bottom on his “benevolent sexism” score.

Mr. Morris writes:

I often act as though I’m going to be a gentleman and hold the door open for my wife, then suddenly close it in her face just as she is about to go through. The more people there are around to witness this, the more likely I am to do it. But she’s starting to catch on. (more…)

IN PENNSYLVANIA, a “single mother” who earns $29,000 a year takes home a total of $57,326, counting welfare subsidies and benefits, according to a state official quoted in The Delaware County Times. A single mother who earns $69,000 takes home $57,045.

Imagine if the same level of support were given instead to couples who had been married for a minimum of four years and had two or more children. There would be a rise in fertility and an explosion in the numbers of women who could stay home. I’m not advocating that kind of state support, but just illustrating how much the government encourages family breakdown and how we all pay for it.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge goes into these numbers and their effect on motivation in detail.

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KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT in a post about celebrity women writes that the actress Keira Knightly, who is now starring in Anna Karenina for those who can stomach it, brought a “pouty narcissism” to the role of Elizabeth Bennet in the movie version of Pride and Prejudice. She writes about the photos below:

Left is English actress Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet in a serious moment, and right is Keira Knightly also trying to evoke a similar serious turn as Elizabeth Bennet. Who looks more authentic? Who looks more mature? (more…)

JAMES N. writes:

There are many crimes which, although I would not actually do them, I can imagine how the perpetrator came to commit the crime. There are some crimes for which I can say, “there but for the grace of God go I.”

But I cannot fathom the common scenario where a woman takes on a boyfriend who then murders or abuses her child.

And yet, this is quite common. The most dangerous place in the world for a child is in a home where his mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend. On the other hand, violence against children by their father’s girlfriend is almost nonexistent.

Nevertheless, we (society) exercises a strong, strong preference for the extremely dangerous single mother/boyfriend household over the single father household. Here is a link to the latest one of these crimes. (more…)

JULIA writes:

A relative of mine recently got married to his partner in an upscale, expensive same-sex wedding ceremony. I saw the pictures from the wedding and I was struck by the blank look on his face in one photo after another. It was supposed to be the happiest day of his life, one he waited so long for, but he was expressionless, like he could not believe he had just married another man.

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JANE R. writes:

I just finished listening to This American Life with Ira Glass on public radio. I want to steal a minute and tell you about the episode. Ira Glass was being interviewed on his own show. I missed the introduction to the show and assumed they were talking about a child with physical and emotional troubles. Turns out they were talking about his and his wife’s dog! Yes, the iconic Ira Glass (born 1959), the master of political correctness, has no children and has devoted his life towards caring for an emotionally disturbed dog with serious allergies. Liberalism at its finest. A whole branch of the Glass family tree ends with a dog.

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MALCOLM POLLACK writes:

Making the rounds today is an item you may have missed  —  a scholarly paper on the subject of “benevolent sexism” (known to the rest of us as “being a gentleman”).

It’s a serious problem, as it turns out: apparently it makes people happier, and therefore must be done away with.

The abstract is here, and I comment briefly on it here.

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IN response to Congresswoman Jackie Speier’s call for Congress to denounce psychological treatment for teenagers who have homosexual desires, a reader named Will G. writes:

It infuriates me that they want to criminalize those who wish to help people escape the slavery of that life. Wretched people!

I spent fifteen years living as a homosexual and began to leave it 12 years ago. While I did see a therapist for a short time, it was the Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace, who ultimately gave me freedom (and a fantastic wife). It took about four years to pry myself loose from all of the entanglements with my job, friendships, gay neighborhood, which all reinforced the status quo. I did not escape without contracting HIV. Fortunately my disease has not kept me from being able to have a life. I am now married to a magnificent wife and we adopted my precious baby girl three years ago. (more…)

IN A WAY, it’s endearing that some parents still believe that they can send their little children off to the local elementary school and keep them from encountering the freakish and abnormal. It’s endearing because it suggests that these parents have been living in an oasis of some kind where their innocence has been mysteriously preserved, and that’s good, I guess.

Here’s an example of a very innocent parent. (more…)

  JAMES P. writes: You wrote in the entry about Ruth Bader Ginsburg hoping for an all-female Supreme Court someday: "Funny, how feminists never notice that men have dominated the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs too. They’re not clamoring to be plumbers." In 2011, there were 4,609 fatal workplace injuries in the U.S.A. Of those deaths, 4,234 were men (92 percent). Women, you have not yet achieved equality in this important realm! Go baby, go!

CASEY writes:

I have read up on your discussions about the difficulty of finding traditionalist attire in the modern world and thought you and your readers might appreciate another recommendation. Shabby Apple is a retailer I recently discovered that offers very tasteful, modest clothing. In fact, I think it’s the best clothing site I’ve ever come across! Their motto is “Beautiful Dressing Shouldn’t Be Complicated,” so they clearly recognize the ridiculousness of having to purchase cardigans and sweaters separately in order to cover oneself; and the average dress length hits just below the knees. The only general downsides are that most of the dresses are pattern-less, probably not ideal for housework, (as you mentioned before patterned dresses show less dirt) and are a tad bit expensive (though they still appear worth investing in). I’ve messaged them about my wanting less single-colored dresses, so maybe if more women do the same they will put the idea to work. Also, sights in the maternity section warm my heart! Here’s a beautiful image:

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  IN JANUARY, a law will go in effect in California making it illegal for psychotherapists to help clinically teenagers who have homosexual attractions and who want to live normal lives as heterosexuals. Even if the teenagers and their parents want the sex-orientation therapy, they will be prohibited from receiving it, provided that the law, which is being challenged in court, goes into effect. Now a Congresswoman, Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, is calling on Congress to denounce sex-orientation change therapies for teenagers. So the United States Congress may officially condemn humane efforts to keep teenagers from becoming homosexual. The effort to normalize homosexuality, by its very nature inhuman and totalitarian, leads us to ever deeper circles of hell. See some great analysis of Speier's proposal at VFR.

IN A piece at The Brussels Journal, Thomas F. Bertonneau describes the British author H.G. Wells’s observations on the dictators of the twentieth century. Of particular interest is the description of Wells’s interview with Stalin. Mr. Bertonneau writes:

Stalin in Wells’ eyes was a “lonely overbearing man… damned disagreeable,” and yet possessed of “an intelligence far beyond dogmatism.” In The Experiment, the description of the interview goes on for eight pages (684 – 691). (more…)