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Monthly Archives: July 2011

The House of Commons, 1924

  THIS painting by the Irish-born artist John Lavery is a study for his work “The House of Commons – Ramsay McDonald Addressing the House” of 1924. (Thank you to the website, Victorian/Edwardian Paintings.) Leaving aside its historical meaning, I find it interesting as a painting of politicans, a subject matter rarely chosen by twentieth century artists. Although it [...]

The Racial Dimensions of Day Care

  A RECENT REPORT by the Heritage Foundation on the effects of non-maternal care on children made an astonishing admission, an observation I have not seen anywhere else. The report by Jenet Jacob Erikson, which analysed 30 years of studies of children in day care, stated that there are racial differences in mothering. White children are more damaged [...]

More on Pursuing Prettiness

  THE DISCUSSION in the previous entry of the search for modest and feminine clothing in the desert of feminist junkwear and ultra-bland chinos and polo shirts continues here. It has yielded great suggestions from readers of retailers and styles. You can even go so far as to buy historical reenactment wear. This dress above could be worn with [...]

The Victimology of the Men’s Movement

  SKM, who is a man, writes: I enjoyed your discussion last year on Paul Elam and his call to exonerate all rapists. It’s encouraging that there are a few websites critical of feminism that aren’t dominated by “MRAs” and “masculinists.” I especially enjoyed the comments of Jesse Powell. It’s also encouraging to know that I’m not the [...]

In Pursuit of Prettiness

AMY writes: I have been enjoying your blog for nearly two years now and have been enjoying a look down “blog memory lane” while perusing your archives. The wisdom contained in your archives is immense and your perspective both refreshing and fascinating. Several afternoons a week I sit at my computer with a cup of tea [...]

More on Non-Maternal Care

  KATE writes: I wanted to make a comment that goes along with the caregiver’s comment in the previous entry, and that speaks to the differences between children who are in day “care” and those who are raised early in the home. It is absurd to me that we are still having this debate. I guess [...]

The Devil Has Been Cast

  LOUISE writes: I just read this morning that Hollywood is planning an adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Bradley Cooper, the actor slated to play Satan, had this to say: I’m very excited. I studied that poem at Georgetown, and I fell in love with that character. Satan is very compelling. You understand his argument. [...]

 

A “Caregiver” Shares Her Notes

  A FEMALE READER writes: I am no early education scholar, and I do not hold an advanced degree in child psychology, but I have taken care of children (my own and those of other people) for twenty years. Somehow, I feel at least moderately qualified to add to your recent posts about maternal employment [...]

The Self-Appointed Avenger

  ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK was not a man driven by belief, as is everywhere asserted. He was a man driven by fantasy and adolescent rage. M. Mason at VFR writes: Strip away the quasi-religious cant and this guy is basically a clever variant of an anarcho-terrorist. He tarted himself up with a lot of medieval Catholic symbolism [...]

Breivik’s Mother

  JUSTIN writes: Speaking of Breivik’s parents, did you read about his mother, Wenche Behring? Not much in the establishment media about her, that is for sure, perhaps here is why. According to him, she has been debilitated by a sexually-transmitted disease. At the age of 48, she married a man who frequents hookers in [...]

More on Breivik’s Father

  THE INTERVIEWS widely circulated today with Jens Breivik, the father of Anders Behring Breivik, offer a chilling portrait of a selfish, disengaged parent who viewed his son as nothing more than a passing acquaintance. He divorced his son’s mother when the boy was one and had little to do with him afterward, though he [...]

We’re All Teenagers Now

  ALAN writes: In 1965, American teenagers listened to the “music” of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and other such groups. But grown-ups did not enjoy it and would not have dreamed of playing such “music” in retail stores or supermarkets. Fifty years later: “Music” that grown-ups in 1965 regarded as raucous or juvenile is [...]

Every Little Girl Loves a Wedding

  HERE are Mayor Bloomberg’s remarks at the “wedding” of two aides on Sunday. Looking at this scene, one wonders how male friendship, let alone real marriage, can flourish in the modern world. How can men fight side by side and love each other on the battlefield of life when there is the possibility that one might stop [...]

And the Crow Had His Too

  A. WRITES: I wish I had taken a picture the other day of a crow sitting on a stop sign in my rural neighborhood with something really huge in its mouth. Yup. Pizza, from the neighborhood pizza parlor.  I promise a picture if I see it again.