FEW PAINTERS have conveyed the muted beauty of a winter day as powerfully as Pieter Bruegel. In his Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap, painted in 1565, at a time when landscape paintings were rare, the frolicsome skaters are dwarfed by the whitened sky, trees and snowy bank, and yet it is as if nature is made for them. For Bruegel, winter is humane. It contains a muted holiness and joy.

Some of the Flemish painter’s scenes, such as Hunters in the Snow, are so often reproduced they are now difficult to see fresh. In 1949, Kenneth Clark wrote of Bruegel’s paintings:

Few works of art are less in need of commentary. They are like Handel’s Messiah and the Pilgrim’s Progress, amongst those very rare works of the first order which have a widespread, immediate appeal. His Hunters in the Snow has come to hold almost the same place in the popular imagination as was held by the madonnas of Guido Reni and Sassoferrato a hundred and fifty years ago, and in wintry weather people may be heard muttering the name of Breughel [sic] much as, in the eighteenth century, travelers invoked the name of Salvatore Rosa, and with a good deal more justice.

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AT Intellectual Conservative, Alan Roebuck has an essay titled “What to Say to the Leftist Gestapo.” Roebuck recommends defending the right to think politically unacceptable thoughts whenever facing censure for expressing improper thoughts. Beliefs cannot be controlled and liberalism has always defended the right of people to think whatever they want in private. Someone charged with saying the wrong thing could respond:

They say that we must all celebrate diversity and be tolerant and nonjudgmental. OK, I celebrate and tolerate, as ordered.

Also know that I do not apologize for the beliefs I hold in the privacy of my mind. There is no rule in America that you have to think a certain way. I’m not telling you what those beliefs are, because they’re none of your business, but I do not apologize for them. Thank you, and have a nice day.

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IN a discussion at VFR about women as commercial pilots, I wrote:

Let’s say you had a load of cargo that needed to be driven across country. Who would you prefer to do it, a man or a woman? I think most people, knowing the differences between male and female drivers and that men handle machinery and navigation much better than women, would answer that they would prefer a man. The vast majority of people, if they were honest with themselves, would probably say they prefer male pilots too, and for good reason.

It is well established that men have superior mechanical ability and spatial skills. Are these not still involved in flying a plane? Men also handle stress better and are less distracted by interpersonal concerns. Finally, a woman pilot is much more likely to have an exhausting work life if she has a family and that could affect her job performance.

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EMILY HALL writes:

Your blog, in general, has inspired me to invest in my home the way I used to invest in my resume and to document my efforts.

Thank you.

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HANNON writes:

  DIANA writes:

The movie “Young Adult” is the story of Mavis Gary, a young woman from a small town in Minnesota who on the surface seems to have it all. She’s beautiful, lives in a luxury high rise in the big city (Minneapolis), has a cool job ghost-writing young adult “you go girl” novels for a best-selling franchise, and has her pick of men.

The irony of the title “Young Adult” is that this purveyor of fantasies for young adults is a fraud. She’s a big child, a bundle of needs with no responsibilities. Her apartment is a mess, she’s beautiful but is always slovenly except when she’s cleaning up for a date or to manipulate people, she secretly despises her job, and her only emotional bond is with her toy dog, a Pomeranian. She drinks heavily and pigs out on junk food when things don’t go her way. (more…)

AT VFR, Mark Jaws writes:

Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 whites have been murdered by blacks. On average blacks murder about 750 whites per year, while the annual “white” on black murder rate (no doubt many Hispanics are included among the “white” perpetrators) is about 250. According to the Tuskegee Institute, between 1880 and 1950 white mobs lynched 3,300 blacks. Thus in a period of 45 years approximately ten times as many whites have been murdered by blacks than all the blacks lynched in America during the allegedly murderous reign of Jim Crow. Facts — indisputable, and so sadly, unmentionable.

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THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC’S New Year’s Day concert scored record television ratings this week. As I wrote here, the Austrian orchestra has resisted the multicultural and feminist changes embraced by most of the Western music world. (more…)

HERE is another example of Pennsylvania German fraktur, in this case a house blessing, or haussegen. It is written on behalf of the head of the household. The translated inscription [it appears to be a rough translation] reads: (more…)

BRENDA writes:

Your grandfather’s letter was truly beautiful. For some reason it makes me think of a scene in National Treasure, where Abigail Chase is talking to Ben Gates about the language of the Declaration of Independence. She says to him, “People don’t talk that way anymore.” Ben replies, “No, but they think that way.”  (more…)

KAREN I. writes:

Below is an excerpt from an article in Redbook magazine in which a working mother admits that she left her 18-month-old child in the care of someone whose last name she didn’t know so she could get to work when her nanny called in sick! (more…)

DIANA writes:

May I suggest your readers take some time to read about the Student Non-Discrimination Act. Under the benign language of “non-discrimination,” the federal government will be able to force schools to accept the behavior of flamboyant, gender-nonconforming kids as normal. (more…)

ROGER G. writes:

Donald Trump said on the Sean Hannity Show yesterday that the once mighty Kodak has gone bankrupt because they didn’t get the U.S. government to protect them from Fuji. Trump argued that Fuji destroyed Kodak by selling below manufacturing costs.

Kristor, please address this. (more…)

JEREMY writes:

You may have seen the news about Penn State’s post-scandal memos. Frankly, it’s everything I expected — but why was reading it so sickening to me? (more…)

WHY did Michele Bachmann do so poorly among women voters? According to polls in December, she had less than 8 percent of the female vote in Iowa.

The answer to this question perhaps can be found by looking at Sarah Palin’s popularity. Though Palin withdrew, it’s safe to assume she would have done much better among women voters. (more…)

THIS SATURDAY is the 61st anniversary of the death of my maternal grandfather, whom I obviously never met. Reading through family papers this week, I came across once again this eloquent letter he wrote to his mother from the front lines in France during World War I. And, I thought I might share it with readers.

My grandfather was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He volunteered for the British Expeditionary Force in early 1917, before America entered World War I. He became one of several hundred physicians loaned to the British Army for the duration of the war. He had the rank of lieutenant and spent two years tending to the wounded on the front lines.  After the war was over, he married, fathered seven children and ran a busy medical practice. Exposure to mustard gas during the war caused his health eventually to fail. He became seriously ill in his late fifties and died at the age of 62.

His mother, who had eight children, was widowed in her forties. My grandfather’s sisters worked as secretaries and teachers to put him through medical school at Georgetown University before the war. Here is his letter home on May 11, 1918 on the occasion of Mother’s Day.

Dearest Mother,

I happened to see in the Paris paper that Sunday, the 12th is Mother’s Day and that we might celebrate by writing to our Mothers, such letters to receive special consideration in the mails. So these are my thoughts to you Mother mine.

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HERE is another handmade Pennsylvania German birth certificate in the fraktur style. It records the birth of Elias Nicholas in 1823 and was created by a young woman named Elizabeth Borneman Dieterly. The inscription records the names of the infant’s parents and godparents, the date and location of his birth, and a few other important details. It also includes this message:

Scarcely born into the world, it is only a short measured pace from the first step to the cool grave in the earth. O with every moment! Our strength diminishes, and with every year we grow more ripe for the bier. (more…)