BEN JOLLY writes:

I have greatly enjoyed your commentary on the plague of pizza. I have worked off and on for Papa John’s in the last four years as a side job or full-time when I have been laid off (aerospace is a rough world). I’m sure you are aware that PJ’s brands itself as a high-end product, with better quality ingredients and more consistent quality, and not surprisingly a higher price. Yet it is still pizza.

I was a delivery driver in the suburbs of Dallas, and again in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. I could probably write a small book on all the strange, interesting, disgusting, or frightening scenarios one encounters in that occupation. One’s colleagues can also fall into the four aforementioned categories. PJ’s doesn’t drug test (at least at any of the places I’ve worked for them) so you can imagine some of the individuals that work there. Here are some of my observations into the standard issue junk food, and the culinary state of our culture in general.  (more…)

 STEVE KOGAN writes:

Some research into book bundles led me to this mother of all book bundles at an exhibit at a gallery called the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh in 2006. In the long range shot, it appears in a corner of a large, loft-like space, standing floor to ceiling in the form of cross section of books, like the base of a felled tree. (more…)

JOHN PURDY writes:

Here is a letter to the editor I sent to my local newspaper in response to this column about slut walks.

To the Editor,

This is a typical example of feminists making a cause célèbre out of an inept remark. I doubt very much Constable Michael Sanguinetti was trying to imply that sluttily dressed women deserve to be raped. (more…)

THIS ARTICLE in today’s New York Times about nannies in Brazil and their ability to claim higher and higher salaries is written in the seemingly non-judgmental style of most articles about the abandonment of home and children by modern mothers. In truth, the article is highly approving of the trend. The writer Alexei Barrionuevo says the phenomenon has only one serious drawback – it’s hard for some women to instantly find a nanny.

Wealthy women have hired servants for many centuries. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is deeply wrong when a culture’s brightest and wealthiest women leave their homes en masse for jobs. It is immoral. Why?

1. This phenomenon creates more job competition, lessening the ability of men to support their families and forcing other women, including many middle class women, to work.

2. It creates unrealistic standards for the middle class and poor, standards which encourage the societal abandonment of child-rearing and lead to everyday domestic chaos for non-wealthy families.

3. It deprives families and communities of the moral, spiritual and intellectual vigilance of women whose lives are not directed to commercial activity.

4. It creates a society that worships technocratic competence and disparages love. It harms marriage and family bonds.

Many women who leave their homes every day for high-powered jobs love their children and do remarkable things for them. But a society of women who leave their families is soulless and corrupt. (more…)

JEFF W. writes:

To me these corpses of books are modern-day versions of the Roman household gods, theLares and Penates.

Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess said that there are three spirits of the modern age: Apollo the god of knowledge and science, Pluto the god of wealth, and Mercury the god of thieves. These fake books are idols or talismans invoking Apollo the god of knowledge. In the minds of many modern people, scientific human knowledge is much superior to a backward, superstitious Jesus or a sadistic Jehovah. That is why some atheists call themselves “the Brights.” I also notice that guests on TV talk shows often sit or stand in front of a loaded bookshelf. That symbolic display marks the guest as a devotee of Apollo. (more…)

FROM the Pottery Barn catalogue:

Avid readers know that a stack of books can be a comforting sight. We’ve taken authentic vintage books and turned them into art objects by removing their covers and binding them together in sets of four. Neutral in color with deckled and uneven pages, they bring relaxed style to a bookcase, mantel or side table.

• Approximately 8.5″ wide x 6″ deep x 4.5″ high
• Each bundle features four real books with covers removed so that they are all paper.
• Pages are glued shut and books are tied together with twine.
• Purely decorative; contents and titles are not important.

(more…)

                                                AN ESSAY ON BOOKMOBILES AND BOOK FURNISHINGS

                                                                            by Steve Kogan

In her post “The Un-Read Book,” Laura Wood remarks that “there’s something profoundly unsettling about the use of books for interior decorating.” In themselves, books can certainly adorn a room and have been doing so for centuries, but, as Penelope Green of The New York Times observes, the latest “artwork” by Lisa Occhipinti turns them into ornamental “accents,” both inside and out, which complement “the activities of set designers and store stylists who are throwing around what are known as ‘book bundles’ – stitched and ripped old paperbacks in neutral colors – the way they used to set out green apples or lemons in a bowl.” 

I belong to that generation when “they used to set out green apples or lemons in a bowl” (as did still life painters in even earlier times), and there was nothing edgy or hip about having classical music and interior decorating go hand in hand for the commercial appeal of the combination. This effect was promoted by the English actor John Williams, who played Chief Inspector Hubbard in Dial M for Murder (1954) and later hosted a successful TV ad for a box set of classical “hits” put out by Columbia Records. (more…)

  THE WEBSITE Bad Vestments recently featured this photo of an Episcopal canon on Easter at St. Mary's Cathedral in Memphis. A female commenter at Bad Vestments wrote: The feather boa, once a symbol of seduction and worn by women with loose morals, perfectly symbolizes the current state of affairs in the Episcopal Church and should be the required stole for officiating at same-sex (and third, fourth time around) couple blessings.... ... Feathers also being light and airy, express the air-head, breezy, flighty attitudes of TEC toward things rational, theological and Scriptural. Another commenter wrote: So, does the boa go with liturgical pole dancing? ....

AT Oz Conservative, Mark Richardson writes about an Australian man, Michael Fox, who forced the closure of Sydney Harbour Bridge on Friday after abseiling down the bridge and unfurling banners to protest being denied access to his three children in a custody case. Richardson writes:

He has successfully brought the issue of father’s rights to public attention. He told a Sydney radio station:

I’ve asked for help so many times – no one wants to help the blokes. The chicks get in first and start throwing stones, the blokes don’t stand a chance. (more…)

AT her blog Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat reflects on slut walks, “sex positive feminism” and the trend of very short, itsy-bitsy skirts for women, which make it impossible to sit down without exposing oneself. She writes:

One thing I’ve noticed here is that young women are wearing extremely short skirts, and now in spring, they’re donning very short cut-out shorts, often (as though this will help) with dark tights. These skirts are dark, dreary, and ugly. At least the sixties brought color and pizazz with mini-skirt fashion. (more…)

  THE power and Promethean force of a space rocket never ceases to amaze. When the space shuttle Endeavour took off yesterday, it was impossible not to be awed as it rose from the rumbling earth in a pillar of flames and heaving clouds of smoke. A space ship suggests that all of nature - even human nature - can be transcended.  For homeschoolers who would like details on the mission, the NASA site has excellent descriptions of the particle physics detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, which Endeavour will be delivering to the International Space Station.

  HERE is an excellent letter to the editor in today's New York Times: Whatever the result of the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, his arrest is an exhilarating example of the evolution of justice. For most of human history, a servant accusing a politically powerful man of rape would have been laughed at. In much of North America and Europe this is no longer the case; if there is sufficient evidence, anyone can be tried and convicted. At this point Mr. Strauss-Kahn must be awarded the presumption of innocence. But the fact that the maid who accused him was given the respect she deserves and her accusations treated seriously shows that there can be dramatic progress in our ideas of justice and a just society. David Hayden In contrast, the men's rights blog In Male Fide rushes to defend Strauss-Kahn of what its writer says must be false rape charges from a maid seeking to victimize a powerful man. If men's rights advocates had their way there would be no rape charges filed by women. The male of the species is as pure as the driven snow.

  READERS of this blog know that history is divided into various phases: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and now, the Age of Pizza. A teenager I know is a student at one of the fanciest prep schools in the country. He recently attended his senior prom. No expense was spared for the event, which was held in a major football stadium. (A father of a student owns the team that uses the stadium.) Limos were rented. Girls agonized over their gowns. Corsages were purchased. Pre-prom and pre-pre-pre-prom parties were held. What, you might wonder, was served to eat at this first formal occasion for these excited students? Pizza. The students stood around in their formal attire eating pizza. The pizza-fication of America proceeds apace. It is only a matter of time before pizza is served at all state dinners and banquets. Pizza is to modern cuisine what socialism is to political life. It represents the leveling of aspiration. It is the only significant consequence of radical democracy that Alexis de Tocqueville failed to predict. Pizza is the denim of dining. It even tastes like blue jeans. Pizza is the anti-soul food.

ERIC writes, in response to the entry “When a Daughter is a Lesbian:”

I had a grade school chum once who grew up into a homosexual man after I had moved away and dropped out of touch. I returned to my boyhood town and inquired about him. (more…)

AT Galliawatch, a blog which reports the latest in French news, Tiberge writes about the sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund who has been accused of attacking a hotel maid in New York City. She writes:

In a culture weakened by so much rot, Strauss-Kahn is just another symptom. But the problem is that he is an international celebrity and he has temporarily dragged France down with him. And he may have committed a crime, not merely an immoral act.

I should add to the above that the United States strongly approved Strauss-Kahn’s nomination to head the IMF. This was in September 2008.

Second, I really do not think any French person should feel ashamed. This was a scandal waiting to happen. The best thing for the country now is just to get rid of the worst politicians and put in people who have some integrity. (more…)

IN A brief essay titled “The Internet and the Dangers to the Soul,” the Rev. James Jackson discusses the spiritual dangers of blogging. The essay appeared in 2007 in the parish bulletin of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Littleton, Colorado. Father Jackson’s bulletin inserts often include interesting meditations on moral and cultural questions. His essay on tattoos was previously featured here. He wrote of blogging, “Firing off ignorant opinions about everything is a self-destructive exercise in the vice of pride.”

Father Jackson wrote, 

Blogs—short for “weblogs”—have become a standard form of communication among Catholics in the English-speaking world, especially in America. Mr. R. J. Stove wrote a feisty article attacking this phenomenon of blogs, and Internet discussion groups, which appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Oriens, a fine Australian traditionalist journal. He asked the question whether Catholics should be blogging at all, and argues that for the most part, they should not. (more…)