THE POSTMODERN ANTIQUARIAN writes:

I often tell my wife that I’m a materialist, but just a very bad one. The same is true for my Epicurean aspirations, and I’m not sure that’s a negative trait. Let me explain.

Last night, I indulged in a feast at one of the finest restaurants in our area. The first course consisted of raw oysters, served with a sauce of “compressed fennel” and “carbonated lemon.” I cannot tell you what compressed fennel is, nor can I explain how to carbonate a sauce, but I can tell you it was exquisite. Veal agnolotti with a carmelized broth and a tender rib-eye steak followed. The meat induced in me an almost infinite gratitude that I am not a vegetarian. I can neither spell nor pronounce the name of the dessert, which involved lightly fried pastries with a hazelnut sauce, but by then I was numbed with ecstasy. (more…)

  JESSE POWELL writes: It appears the Twilight novels and movies have started a new craze of teenagers biting each other to show their love and passion. This is not a joke; apparently some teens even go so far as to draw blood in their bites. The health risks of this are emphasized in the articles on this subject.  Michael Kaplor, 16, is quoted as saying, "I think a lot of people draw blood because they want to feel very powerful, when you bite the other person you get the huge adrenaline rush and it feels like you can't stop and some people just take it too far".  I haven't heard this said explicitly, but it seems to me this biting is something boys do to girls much more than the other way around. The ABC News article linked above includes a vidoe that is four minutes long and well worth watching.

THE POP STAR Lady Gaga has brought the normalization of pornography to new levels. Her sadomasochistic Youtube music video Bad Romance is probably the most popular video on the Internet, with 242 million views. It features erotic dancing, nudity, simulated intercourse, and violence. Gaga makes the sign of the cross while swiveling her hips and the final scene shows the star in bed with a charred skeleton, her breasts emitting flames. The video has been viewed by many millions of teenagers.

Gaga apparently sees herself as the leader of a quasi-religious art cult with Michael Jackson as her inspiration. She states in Rolling Stone, “Michael got burned, and he lifted that glittered glove so damn high so his fans could see him, because he was in the art of show business. That’s what we do. I don’t even drink water onstage in front of anybody, because I want them to focus on the fantasy of the music.”

Jesse Powell writes:

The latest cover of Rolling Stone magazine features Lady Gaga almost in the nude looking tough holding two machine guns. In the teaser for the article it states: Lady Gaga tells contributing editor Neil Strauss art is life and not being fierce isn’t an option: “When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl,” she says. “Then I say, ‘Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.’  (more…)

FASHION models in Berlin this week showcase the work of designer Patrick Mohr.

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ROSE writes:

Here is a glimpse of Disney’s postmodern take on Rapunzel in the trailer to Tangled, which is coming out this fall. It’s nothing but the heroine violently assaulting the hero. It reminds me of Shrek where Princess Fiona beats up Robin Hood. Apparently the only important “real woman” quality is to punch things, especially men. (more…)

I APOLOGIZE for posting such a large version of Australian Conservative leader Tony Abbott in a bikini swimsuit. It’s true that the image is unsettling and so I have reduced it in size. Fortunately, this phenomenon of the Man-in-Pampers remains relatively rare on American beaches, at least on the beaches I know. (more…)

A READER WRITES:

In the face of all the cultural and political forces which dominate our lives and have brought so many negative consequences, I have to admit at times I wonder what the heck any of us can really do to change things. It seems that the traditionalist worldview that you advocate is simply never heard, and when proposed in even the mildest forms, is shouted down vehemently by our cultural controllers in the media, the entertainment industry, mainstream politics, and the universities.

What I keep coming back to is the idea of starting small, with whatever we have, and wherever we find ourselves. This year I have the opportunity to teach an introductory Literature and Composition course to freshmen at a nearby college. In the tradition of true liberal education, I would like to include some texts which might help my students to begin to question much of the received wisdom of our age, as your blog has helped me to do of late. (more…)

TONY ABBOTT, Australia’s Conservative Opposition leader who will be running against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in an upcoming election, stated today that it was unfair for voters to consider Gillard’s atheism on election day. “[Faith] is a personal thing,” Abbott said in an ABC Radio interview. “Just as my Catholicism should not be held against me, her views or lack of views on the subject should not be held against her.”

Did you ever read a more stunningly oblivious statement by a politican before? Why, even atheists believe their faith matters.

Christianity and atheism. These are two different faiths, that’s all, sort of like whether you drink Coke or iced tea.

“I have never ever let religion dictate politics because decisions that are made by politicians in a secular, pluralist democracy like Australia have got to be driven by what are objective, standard, ordinary commonsense considerations,” Abbott said. Objective, standard, ordinary, commonsense: these are pre-existent and unquestioned, matters of faith we will not call matters of faith. 

Whether life has meaning, God exists or our actions have any consequences, these have no bearing on what is objective, standard and ordinary. Abbott deserves to lose against his radical socialist opponent. At least she is faithful to her beliefs, changing what she believes to suit the moment, believing in expedience and will. (more…)

  Behold Who told how countless stars congregate? When light competes with light, There are so few. One, two, three. One night in California, I saw eighty drop onto the hills. Four, five, six. But visibility takes the seen. Darkness gives the unseen. In this vast and intimate ceiling, Once I saw one. Seven, eight, nine. Gratitude always was and always will be. Consider it An enumerating thing. Ten, eleven, twelve. May there ever be stars uncounted, One, two, three, These gifts we never view.                            -- Laura Wood                         

WOMEN in Great Britain are perhaps growing wise to the relentless propaganda of recent years. The annual Social Attitudes Survey shows a significant increase in the number of women who want to remain home with their children and be married to men who are the breadwinners. According to The Daily Mail, in 1998, only 21 percent of British women thought family life would suffer if mothers worked full time. By 2006, the number had risen to 37 percent.

Still the statistics are grim. According to the survey, only 17 percent of women with children under four said men and women should have different family roles. In contrast, 40 percent of women thought so in 1986.

Here’s the bottom line about these surveys. If asked whether they want a man to support them, women will say yes. If asked whether women should be mainly responsible for child-rearing and home, they will say no. They want to have everything at once.

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TEENAGE BOYS sometimes become suddenly bored and apathetic with school. This indifference does not afflict girls as often and there are numerous possible causes for it. For one, high school allows little opportunity for the sort of mastery or obsessiveness that appeals to boys. There are too many classes in too many subjects.

Gary North looks at the subject in this article and offers some suggestions. A teenage boy, if at all possible, should focus on something that interests him. Parents should give him the chance, within reason, to make his own way and his own mistakes.  

Here is the article:

There are a lot of reasons — good reasons — why teenage boys do poorly in school. I hope your under-performing son has one of them.

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THE SHOCKING silence of the mainstream media regarding the link between the birth control pill and breast cancer is explored in this episode of the Michael Coren Show. See the segment (at 23 minutes) which features Dr. Angela LanFranchi, of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. Studies have shown that both abortion and oral contraceptives are what is known as Group One carcinogens for breast, cervical and liver cancer. Tobacco is a Group One carcinogen for lung cancer.

LanFranchi, a breast surgeon and professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, says the prescription of oral contraceptives to teenagers amounts to “child abuse.”

“You take a very intricate system, the endocrine system… and you throw a Group One carcinogen onto those healthy women what could you expect but disease?” she said.

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JULIA GILLARD became Australia’s first woman prime minister last month in a parliamentary ambush of the unpopular Labor leader Kevin Rudd. Will she be an inspiring model for women, especially if she is elected soon by popular vote? It’s very unlikely. Feminists in power are often walking advertisements for traditional roles.

The 48-year-old Gillard is childless and lives with her boyfriend, who is her former hairdresser. She presents a realistic image of the practical implications of feminism and socialism. She is the modern female eunuch. By contrast, Sarah Palin, who is attractive, the mother of five, and married to a good-looking man, sells the feminist dream, which is not to reject femininity but to have the advantages of being both a woman and a man at once.

The Labor Party, by the way, has a rule that 35 percent of its parliamentary seats must be reserved for women. This sort of blatant favoritism never seems to embarrass feminists.

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DAVID LEAN’S 1952 movie The Sound Barrier, about test pilots attempting to exceed the speed of sound, captures the beauty and grandeur of aviation in black-and-white images of lone machines soaring above the earth and penetrating magnificent bulwarks of clouds. Thomas Bertonneau argues here that it is “the finest aviation film ever.” As he notes, the film is also a compelling and sensitive examination of one woman’s honest struggle with her deep-seated view that women are morally superior to men. Exploring the natural barrier between the sexes, the movie is sympathetic to the feminine idea that security and loyalty come first, but it ultimately defends masculinity, risk and danger. I highly recommend it and Bertonneau’s excellent analysis of the film.

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ENNA writes:

I have recently discovered both the “manosphere” and the small number of anti-feminist blogs. While I disagree with some of the writings at both types of blogs, most of what is written has forced me to confront and deepen my conception of human nature, and I am glad of it. I have come to realize more (although I was already aware to some extent) the differences between men and women, and the general strengths and weaknesses that each sex possesses. However, I encounter some confusion when I try to apply these principles to myself. In your recent post, “Men are Slow to Ripen,” you wrote:

I used to be baffled by why men seem so much slower at housework. I now think this is a major reason. They are trying to figure out a system, like a boy building a castle with Legos. They are architects, not housekeepers. Most women, even those who are extremely neat, don’t create abstract plans as they work. If they were domestic strategists, the world would fall apart within a matter of hours. Similar disaster would ensue from the failure of men to conceptualize. (more…)

MERCEDES writes:

I enjoy reading The Thinking Housewife very much, and appreciate your defense of traditional values and morality. I discovered your website through my favorite traditionalist website, Lawrence Auster’s View from the Right. I read both of them on a daily basis.

I hope you won’t find my question frivolous, but I have always wondered what the eye on your masthead signifies, if anything.  Perhaps, with apologies to Freud, “Sometimes an eye is just an eye.” (more…)

 BUCK O. writes:

Happy Fourth of July. 

I’m a former Marine Sgt. (40 years ago this September), who occasionally peruses U.S. Marine news. I came across this article and almost immediately thought to send it to you. (Your website is like a drink of cool water during a forced march through the desert). I’m not sure what to think about this married couple. I’m a tad jealous and also troubled. Their story is described as a classic romance. Hopefully they go home together and begin their family. 

I remember what was always said about marriage when I was in the Marines. “If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.” Sounds cold, but it made clear the answer to any questions about commitment. This circumstance seems to be about as close as you can get to a literal wife/husband being issued by the Marine Corps. What preoccupies the minds of each of these Marines, in the throes of romance, when they hear of each other in the throes of battle? How can this further the mission of the United States Marine Corps and strengthen a weakening America? 

How does a nation constitute and maintain a force of warriors (McChrystal?) and also blend them in with it’s liberal society and culture?

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THE DUTCH painter Hendrick Avercamp depicted captivating winter scenes of skaters on the frozen canals and waterways of 17th Century Netherlands. Falling into the same tradition of Flemish landscape painting begun by Bruegel, he created paintings filled with bright color, brooding skies, and tiny human vignettes.  A small exhibit of his work is on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. During a visit to the museum yesterday, I was enthralled by these evocative works with their miniature episodes on ice.

Avercamp (1585-1634) lived and worked in the small port city of Kampen on the Zuider Zee during the period known by meteorologists as the Little Ice Age, when the winters were cold enough to freeze rivers and canals. Bruegel was the first to paint winter landscapes, but Avercamp is considered to be the first to specialize in the genre. Little is known about the painter’s life, but he was possibly mute and deaf, which may account for his striking attention to detail. The paintings seem to contain every variety of gesture and pose, and they depict the full range of social types, from peasants to burghers to aristocrats, all skating, conversing or working on the ice. Up close, one sees a woman overturned in a fall, her skirts askew; a poor peasant carting a wooden box; elegantly dressed figures in black gowns and masks to keep off the cold; a washerwoman working alongside a hole in the ice; fishermen and workers hauling peat; and men playing the ice game of colf, which was a precursor of golf. Skates were metal blades, curling at the end, which were attached to shoes. (more…)