JOHN P. writes:

I’ve been following the occasional discussion at your site on pizza and modern food with some interest and I’d like to offer a dissenting opinion. I think there may be some mythologising going on here. I’ll concede the point that young people probably eat too much pizza but in principle a dish made up of meat, cheese, green peppers and tomatoes, etc. is not so bad. Same thing for the various wraps available at fast food places.

Contrast this with the diet my parents had as children: boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, boiled carrots and a bit of fish, almost seven days a week. They might have a small portion of beef on Sunday. Everything was boiled, no roasting, and maybe some frying. They had porridge with milk and brown sugar for breakfast every single day. The English-speaking people have never been notable for the excellence of their indigenous cuisine. (more…)

KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, is a leader in liturgical fashion. At the website Bad Vestments, one commenter recently wondered whether this particular get-up with its flaming sleeves was intentionally designed to earn a posting at the site. Another said Jefferts Schori looks like a cross between the Queen of Hearts and the Wicked Witch of the West.

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DUE TO important family events, including a college graduation and a wedding anniversary, activity at this site has been slower than usual this past week.

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NO ONE elopes in an era of sexual freedom. Couples spend 15 months or more planning weddings that impoverish them for years. They don’t feel the need to run off. They don’t get married secretly because of unexpected pregnancy or urgent desire. Hardly anyone asks for permission from parents to marry anyway. The very idea of eloping now seems antiquated and foreign. It belongs to a distant era, along with arranged marriages and dowries.

The secret, rushed wedding of the past wasn’t a proper way to marry, but many couples who eloped stayed married. Here is one woman’s story of just such a wedding.

THE DAY MY PARENTS ELOPED

By Lois Wauson

My parents, Bertie Lee Goode and Lawrence Zook, eloped on May 28, 1931. It was a common practice in the Depression for couples to just “run off and get married.” They would go find a preacher and get married. No big fanfare or celebration. There was not much money for big weddings, so a couple would go in to town to the nearest preacher or justice of the peace, get married then go home. (more…)

ROGER G. writes:

Ralph Henry Barbour (1870-1944) was a prolific American writer of adolescent fiction: adventure and sports for boys, romance for girls. A great deal of his oeuvre is free online.

Barbour’s sports stories are generally set at fictitious colleges and private schools (or occasionally public high schools), and involve resolution of moral dilemmas over the course of an athletic season or school year. The plots, character, and dialogue, as well as the sports action, are great (in my opinion, anyway). An excerpt from Weatherby’s Inning (1906) illustrates why I like these books so much. The protagonist, Jack Weatherby, is a freshman at Erskine College in Maine. (more…)

JESSE POWELL writes: 

According to U.S. Census statistics released last week, six of the 25 largest cities in America have such high levels of family breakdown that the majority of homes with children are not headed by a married couple. Those cities are Boston, Washington D. C., Philadelphia, Memphis, Baltimore and Detroit.

The Married Families ratio (the proportion of homes with children under 18 headed by a married couple) continued to decline in all of the 25 most populous cities except New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

It held virtually steady in New York and increased by almost four percentage points in Washington, D.C. Looking at the figures for major cities, one finds vast differences. Chicago had a significantly higher Married Families ratio (57.3 percent), than both Philadelphia (44.4 percent) and Boston (49.1). The ratio was 62 percent in Phoenix and 37.5 percent in Baltimore. Heavily Hispanic cities have more married couples than comparably black cities.

The Married Families ratio in the worst city in 1950 was better than the best city in 2010, by a wide margin (83.6% versus 76.5%). Blacks had a higher Married Families ratio in 1950 than whites did in the year 2000 (80.1% versus 77.6%). (A racial breakdown for 2010 is not yet available, but the comparison obviously still holds.)

In 1950, the Married Families ratio for the nation overall was 92.3 percent. In 2010, the Married Families ratio for the nation overall dropped to 67.9 percent. (more…)

NOT TO KEEP
By Robert Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying… And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive—
How else? They are not known to send the dead—
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, and ask,
“What was it, dear?” And she had given all
And still she had all—they had—they the lucky! (more…)

ALEX A. writes from England:

John Lavery’s evocative painting of a woman playing tennis shows us a serene world that has utterly vanished. Apart from the graceful woman at the centre of the picture, notice also the nonchalant posture of the gentleman watching the game. Sport was just a way of relaxing in those times – very far from the modern meretricious scrabble for adulation etc. (more…)

JOHN E. writes:

Thank you for directing attention in your post “The Father and His Rightful Authority” to this very good essay. It is a unique admonition to men in that it presents first what is positively expected of men as husbands, and doesn’t mince words in doing so. Most admonitions men hear these days, if they are positive at all, are positive only in a weak or vaguely general sense, and reserve the specifics and forceful statements to be made in the negative, such as “Husbands, don’t lord it over your wives!” Men in our society are understandably scratching their heads wondering what they could possible hold in their possession with which to lord over their wives in the first place! (more…)

THE tornado that swept through Indiana, Illinois and Missouri on March 18, 1925 was 219 miles in length and killed 695 people. Known as the Tri-State Tornado, it was the most devastating in U.S. history. The 1,115 tornados of this especially destructive season have killed a total of about 550 people. (more…)

  THIS painting of a Victorian lawn tennis match by the Irish artist Sir John Lavery just sold for 756,000 euros, about 1.07 million dollars, at Christie's in London. I wonder if many years from now anyone will pay that kind of money to hang images of today's tennis gladiators on a wall. I guess it depends on the artist.

ALL of civilization depends on the father. As goes the father, so goes society. When fatherhood as an institution is strong, when a man governs his commonwealth in obedience and submission to God, order radiates throughout society.

“Power, like nature, abhors a vacuum,” writes Fr. Chad Ripperger. “Either the man will be head of the house or the wife will; it is that simple.”

Today, women rule not just their homes but the world. The pop singer Beyoncé is right: Women rule the world. They rule the world with their passions. They rule the world with their mounting unhappiness. They rule the world with their frustration and its accompanying irrationality. They sometimes rule like those capricious and unpredictable goddesses of the ancient world who alternated between wrath and seduction.

They rule because men have let them. Men have progressively denied their authority until it is all but gone.

A man is not in essence superior to a woman. But by the accidental conditions of nature, he is placed in loving authority over her. At his website Sensuus Traditionis, Fr. Ripperger’s essay “Parental Roles and Leadership” examines the issue of paternal authority. The essay is so excellent and so thorough in its exploration of the subtleties and complexities of the issue that I offer this lengthy quote:

If a wife refuses to submit to the authority of her husband, she loses the spiritual protection and providence of her husband. Whatever rises against an order or authority is deprived of that order and the principle of order. (more…)

  EXPATRIOT writes: Here is a composition by one of my students, a 19-year-old Japanese girl. I think it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read, and I offer it here without comment, since it speaks for itself: My future dream is to be a mother. Since I was a little girl, I have been dreaming of becoming one. I would like to have a husband who likes children, and someone who would take care of the children with me. I wouldn’t want someone who is aggressive or violent. I want my children to be honest, active, and loving. I want to raise them with lots and lots of love. I want to take them to zoos and amusement parks. From my experience I would love to take my children to my parents’ house. I remember from my childhood that visiting my grandparents was fun. I like the road to my grandparents’ house, and I also liked staying the night at their house. My mother’s parents are living with my cousin’s family, so it is a big family. I think they would have a nice time at my parents’ house, like I used to because my parents are fun people. My father loves telling jokes, and playing sports. I bet he would try to teach them golfing because he loves golfing. My mother is very nice and loving. She cooks very well, and she also bakes. Her cheesecakes are…

BRETT writes:

You got me thinking about what types of food are popular in modern times. While I think canned food is emblematic of the era, I also noted that in addition to your favorite (pizza) there are sandwiches, the burrito, the salad and the wrap. These are all popular because, like modernity itself, they are the same mundane experience dressed up as variety. (more…)

HOWARD SUTHERLAND writes:

The top story at Rorate Caeli yesterday was depressing and another example of how the liberalism of Vatican II has indeed let the smoke of Satan into Christian sanctuaries: Italian prelates’ advocating the building of an “official” (and no doubt enormous) mosque for the “Moslems of Milan.” (more…)

NO ONE is more immune from criticism in America than the black man. It’s true that when he is caught in the actual commission of a crime he is held to account for his actions as an individual, but not as part of a larger group. Otherwise, he can live a life of hedonism, selfishness and ingratitude without risking his image. The black man is guilty of only his own most outrageous crimes. While the white man is responsible for the sins of all white men, the black man’s sins are his alone, but even then he is suspected of being a victim. There are neighborhoods of hundreds of black families where there may be as few as half a dozen married men. We are to believe that the black man, due to the ravages of slavery, was forced to hand over support and care of his children to the government and the overworked black woman, who is his sex slave and economic drudge.

Still, despite the behavior of his peers, the black man is considered worthy of fame and adulation in the athletic world. (more…)