THIS IS a famous, intensely evocative photo, taken in 1894, of Alexander Graham Bell, Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller (seated). Bell introduced Keller to her famous teacher. Keller wrote in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, about her first meeting with Bell:

Child as I was, I at once felt the tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many hearts. That interview would be the door through which I would pass through darkness into light…

… [H]e is never so happy as when he has a deaf child in his arms. His labours on behalf of the deaf will live on and bless generations of children yet to come; and we love him alike for what he has himself achieved and for what he has evoked from others.

She dedicated the book to him. (more…)

THE FOOD JOURNALIST Michael Pollan approvingly quotes a statement blaming feminism for wrecking a culture of shared food and civility. His assertion seems far too timid given that millions of children now eat chicken nuggets in front of the TV. But Anna Clark at Salon objects:

Blaming feminism for luring women out of the kitchen, stealing the ritual of the family meal, and thereby diminishing “one of the nurseries of democracy” is both simplistic and ridiculous. It’s true that shared meals are powerful spaces for building relationships and “the habits of civility.” But if we’re going to talk about who’s to blame for our current culture of processed food, why not blame untold generations of men for not getting into the kitchen, especially given Pollan’s characterization of the family meal as having a meaningful role in cultivating democracy? If it’s so important, why is their absence excusable?

That’s right.  Men have been doing nothing all these years while women slaved away in the kitchen. Here’s an all-points bulletin: Do not accept a dinner invitation from anyone named Anna Clark. Unless you like chicken nuggets.

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PEOPLE who make bread are the happiest people in the world.

Look at this painting by the Dutch master Jan Steen, The Leiden Baker Arend Oostwaert and His Wife. Notice how glowing Arend is and how sallow his wife. That’s obviously because he is the handler of the dough. Kneading dough is an unparalleled sensual experience and Arend’s countenance speaks of this ancient reality. I mean, it’s almost unparalleled. Anyone who makes bread from scratch at least once a week is guaranteed sanity and a better disposition than if he didn’t make bread once a week. People who never make bread suffer from repression. It doesn’t matter what it tastes like. Making it is good enough.

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SCIENTISTS HAIL the creation of artifical life, drawing attention to intelligence and creativity. This development is missing the spontaneity of Darwinian processes.

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KAREN I. writes:

It is interesting that Siti “kind of assumes you draw your inspiration” from the fifties. I am sure she is not alone in that and you even agreed, saying “the word housewife conjures images of that era, doesn’t it?” As a housewife today, I wonder why the 1950s are so consistently associated with being a housewife. There is a curiosity about housewives of that era that does not exist for any other time, even though some women have always been housewives. (more…)

LAWRENCE AUSTER compares Michelle’s shocking appearance last night at a state dinner to Victor Mature in a gladiator movie. Our First Lady appears to have been slathered with oil, as if she’s about to enter the Coliseum. Auster writes, “Michelle is to female style and attractiveness what her husband’s presidency is to America–a deliberate transgression, aimed at redefining it as something else.”

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 CHRISTOPHER ROACH WRITES HERE:

One interesting phenomenon of our times is that the old-fashioned view that one may act on the basis of sincere belief has been hammered out of existence. We don’t even say, “I think” or “I believe” anymore. It’s “I feel.”

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LISA BELKIN, of The New York Times, is to feminist propaganda what the H. J. Heinz Company is to ketchup. If you look at the enormous smokestacks of a Heinz factory, you get some idea of what goes on in there. Heinz keeps churning it out and people keep lapping it up. It’s the same thing with this one-woman factory of feminist lies and inanities. People apparently love it even though it sticks in the bottle. Now I know you will say that’s unfair. Ketchup is good and Heinz is the best. But it’s literally true and you’ll have to take your ketchup sensitivities elsewhere.

The latest Belkinism comes in the form of this article about the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Lisa is ever ready to launch into artlessly contorted logic to prove that women are oppressed despite outrageous favoritism and she doesn’t depart from her high standards here. She is skeptical about the correctness of Kagan as a nominee. Kagan is not a mother and thus her nomination gives the untutored masses the impression that a mommy cannot rise to the highest pinnacles of power. This is pernicious discrimination against mommies. (Like all feminists, Belkin can’t imagine that the welfare of children might be anywhere in the picture.) There are hockey moms and soccer moms and PTA moms. Why not Supreme Court moms? It’s true that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by some fluke of nature, is a mother and so is Sandra Day O’Connor, but Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan are not. That’s unfair. Look at all the daddy judges.

Here is what I propose. Let all the genetics labs and fertility clinics in the country devote themselves to this just cause. Let’s make Sotomayor and Kagan mommies. Even if we have to resort to cloning, let’s get the job done. It’s only fair.

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