Random Thoughts

***
Two words you never want to hear together: creative cruelty.

***
I once read that Jews have a Yiddish term that means "a shame to the goyim" to describe Jews who disgrace themselves publically in such a way that it could make all Jews look bad. It's long past time Christians had such a term for those who make us look bad to non-Christians.

***
Although I like patriotism, I've sometimes found myself sitting at redlights, staring at the automobile ahead of me and wondering what good those magnetic Support Our Troops ribbons do for anyone other than magnetic ribbon manufacturers. And I think I've figured it out. The War on Terror (more accurately, the War on Islamofascism) is as much a war of ideas as of bullets, and "American fighting men deserve our support" is an idea--not the largest idea in the war, but an idea nevertheless. Good on those people who propagate that idea for everyone to see.

****
Can't we as a nation agree that we've heard far too many jokes about prostate exams and encourage comedy writers to move on?

****
Why did we need a law against taking a minor across state lines for an abortion without parental permission? I thought it was illegal to take a minor across state lines without parental permission for ANY reason.

***
One result of making the morning-after pill available OTC that no one mentions is that stores would have a new high-theft item to worry about; people (teenagers, presumably) already steal condoms surprisingly frequently. But I guess theft is low on the list of potential problems.

***
I saw a teenaged boy at mass wearing brown corduroy slippers. Maybe he thought if girls can get away with wearing pajama pants all over town, there's no reason he shouldn't wear bedroom slippers in public.

***
There's something mildly odd about turning over an "I <3 America" product and seeing a "Made in China" sticker. We can't even make our own patriotica?

***
Being "heteronormative" is like being right-handed normative, only even more so, as there's a lot more left-handed people than there are homosexual people. I see protest potential--lefties, start those protests at the scissor companies and the letter-writing campaigns against people who use "right hand man" as a compliment. Oh, and against all churches that use the Apostles or Nicene creed.

***
The Three Investigators (children's series book characters) had the perfect (late) childhood setup. But the series was also very much a boy's fantasy. Does that mean the perfect childhood is a boy's childhood?

***
Brenda Ueland (or was it Natalie Goldberg?) said writers expect more from the most peewee of efforts than any other artists-craftsmen. I think sometimes we religious folk are like that--we expect a continuous supply of enormous blessings when we're barely willing to give God a few minutes at the end of the day.

***
Re Jonah Goldberg's "Welfare Kings" article: As disgusting as our current state of farm subsidies may be and as nice as it might be to give Third World a chance to prosper (see sixth paragraph), I can't help but think it would be unwise to leave much of our food production to others.

***
I know it's good to pray for peace and all, but given that war is one of the things there is a season for (Ecclesiastes 3), sometimes it makes more sense to me to pray for the strength to do what needs to be done.

***
At the bookstore I saw a boy of about eight dressed in a shirt at least two sizes too big, denim shorts with the crotch hanging down to his mid-thigh, and large athletic shoes--and I couldn't tell if he was dressed that way because his parents were poor and a bit neglectful or if they'd voluntarily paid good money to have him dressed like an urchin.

A Little of What I Like and Hope to Like

Some years back, after rather too much time spent in a library (hard as it is to believe such a thing is possible), I asked my husband, "Does it mean there's something wrong with me that I can't read much literary criticism without feeling sick to my stomach?" His answer: "It means you're a normal person."

But writing about books can be very worthwhile, when it's actually about the book, rather than the author's pet political theory or his desire to sound impressive. I think writing about books is most useful when the author gets us to notice something in the work we wouldn't have otherwise. Case in point: Recently I pulled out my Bevington Shakespeare to look up something in As You Like It, and I looked at the introduction. I've read AYLI many times over the years, but Bevington showed me something in the Ages of Man scene that I'd never noticed.

Jaques gives his speech, dividing the life of man into seven stages. In the sixth, the formerly vigorous man has shrunken muscles and his voice is becoming childish again. And that stage is succeeded by the helplessness of extreme old age, when we become "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." That final line, delivered by a really good actor, is devastating. But Bevington points out something I'd never noticed: that line is immediately followed by Orlando coming in supporting the old Adam, bringing the old man to food and rest before he would take any himself. Adam is moving rapidly toward the seventh age of man, but he is clearly not "sans everything", because there is human kindness and love working in the hearts of the people around him. Something to think about.


Speaking of AYLI, I just found out not more than a couple of months ago that Kenneth Branagh is releasing a movie version of AYLI later this year. How I missed hearing about it until production was complete, I don't know, but it was welcome news (all the more so because it came at a time when it seemed every headline was about the government doing something incredibly stupid, some celebrity saying something unpatriotic or blasphemous, or some technological "advance" that threatens to chip away the foundation of what it means to be human.) AYLI is one of my very favorite plays, and I have high hopes for this production. For one thing, I loved some of Branagh's previous films; for another, I like Kevin Kline; and for a third, Branagh has brought some Japanese elements into this production and, true-dyed Westerner though I am, I am fond of many things Japanese. Also I like the movie poster; a good movie poster doesn't guarantee a good movie, but it never hurts ticket sales and I'm hoping in this case it shows attention paid to quality throughout.

(Does "true-dyed" count as one of those portmanteau terms Tweedledee and Tweedledum talked about--encompassing both "true blue" and "dyed-in-the-wool"? Either that or I'm just linguistically awkward.)

Random Thoughts

***
The lefty/progressive slogans about how "the personal is political" and we should "think globally, act locally" have nothing on Christianity, which holds that everything we do has eternal consequences in the way it affects our souls.

***
The now-old joke about the gene pool needing a little chlorine is only funny until you ask yourself who'd get to administer the chlorine.

***

There's a lot of talk about how women find it easier to talk about their feelings, to say "I love you", and so on. But really, when it comes to love, isn't it easier for anyone to say it than it is to show it with concrete actions. There's a reason we have the expression "talk is cheap".

***

It's amazing how the visual media penetrate our thoughts. Recently I reread Emma and the whole time I was reading I was picturing the blonde girl (Gwyneth Paltrow?) on the poster from the movie of a few years back--and I never saw that movie! I can't even remember how my former mental Emma looked.

***

I saw a TV ad telling men they could enter their girlfriend, wife, or sister in an amateur pole dancing competition. Whatever happened to men wanting the women in their lives to be protected from that sort of thing?

***
Someone I read once suggested that many of the angry young Islamic men have a bit of an inferiority complex about how the West is so technologically advanced and prosperous while the Islamic Middle East, once more advanced, is not. Sounded a little iffy, but recently I wondered if he might be right when I saw an article about how there's a youth fashion in Palestine for copies of US military clothes. We might be hated there, but the US military is seen as strong and the young Palestinian men wish to be seen as strong too.

***

Hippie-esque slogans to the contrary, "going with the flow" is not necessarily a good thing. Tissue in a toilet goes with the flow. So does your dropped cell phone, your earring, etc. And I, for one, don't want to go where they're going.

***

Have you ever noticed that a lot of the things that say "for mature audiences" would be more accurately labeled "for sophomoric audiences" or "for adolescent male audiences"?

***

I've said in the past that I suspected the sexual revolution was won by dirty old men. Maybe it's more accurate to say it was won by loutish young men--there's a lot more of them.

***

One for the Wendy Shalit women who choose to wear slit skirts but frantically grab and hold the slits together when a wind comes by files: UP saw a woman wearing low-rise pants with a tattoo on her lower back repeatedly trying to pull her pants up.

***

I have to wonder about the motives of the young men wearing pants that sag to show their underpants band. Is the fact they're designer underpants supposed to impress anybody? I'd be more impressed if they knew how to pick out pants that fit.

***
Although the line in my last post is the best line I've heard recently, this from Thomas Sowell's column at Townhall.com today is worth repeating:

"If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the
Middle East would be
the most peaceful region on the face of the
earth..."

Best Line I've Heard Lately and Why

I watched Spanglish last week. I saw a couple of good reviews of it when it came out, but I never would have watched it then because it had Adam Sandler and because I figured it was likely another "Americans bad, Mexicans good" thing. But recently my husband wanted to see 50 First Dates and having, to my surprise, enjoyed it, that got rid of the first objection and I was willing to try Spanglish. (As to the second objection, there is a little of that in there, but not enough to offend even me; I thought if was more that the mother wanted to be the one who exercised influence over her daughter, not so much that America is bad.) Turns out it is pretty good, as those reviews said.

The line I mention comes in when the self-centered, selfish wife of Sandler's character has moved on to out and out adultery. Her mother guesses and tells her that if she keeps on doing what she's doing, she will lose her husband. She says a few more, needed-to-be-said lines, and turns to leave. Daughter says something like, she could always count on her to make her hate herself. Mother turns, comes back, and says gently, "Honey, lately your low self-esteem is just good common sense."

That gave me my only LOL moment in the film, and it was a good long one. See, I've been waiting for someone to say something like that for a long time now. The high self-esteem brigade would have us believe that all people should feel good about themselves all the time. But I don't think so. If you're cheating on your spouse, neglecting your children, or running con jobs on elderly pensioners, then I don't think you should feel good about yourself. If you're stealing money from your company or stealing gas from the local gas station, you've earned your low self-esteem. If you're lying to your spouse about your spending habits or to your significant other about where you spent the weekend, that niggling sense of guilt is a healthy thing, not a sign you need a self-esteem workshop. Guilt, disappointment in ourselves, or just generally feeling bad about ourselves are often deserved feelings. And they can and should be spurs to help us repent and do better.

Of course, I'm not suggesting we should hang on to those feelings after they've passed their usefulness. It is natural to have some regrets over past misdeeds, but once we have repented and done our best to correct the problem, we should let it go. Jesus didn't say to the woman taken in adultery, "Go and wallow in guilt", he said, "Go and sin no more."

Sign of the Times

Out in Los Angeles some members of an Hispanic street gang are being tried for hate crimes for allegedly conspiring to kill blacks. Here's part of their defense:

Defense attorney Reuven L. Cohen told jurors last week that one of
the slayings cited in the charges — the 1999 shooting of Kenneth Wilson — was
not a hate crime but "a simple gang killing committed out of boredom."

See, they didn't kill him because they hated him, they killed him because they were bored.

Oh, well that's a relief.

Wait--no it's not. I'd rather live sandwiched between a family of KKK members and another of Louis Farrakhan's followers than have even one person on my block who's decided that murdering fellow human beings is an acceptable solution to the problem of boredom. Really. The latter is clearly the more dangerous. The racists might hate me (or other people on the block), but they probably don't hate enough to kill and even if they do, it will likely take some grievance, real or imagined, to set them off. With the murder-to-alleviate-boredom guy, everyone on the block is in danger every time there's nothing good on TV.

In a sane society "I killed him because I had nothing better to do that day" could not be considered a defense--no way, no how.

Random Thoughts

***
If tailors/manufacturers can put inside pockets in men's jackets, why not in women's jackets? They can't even use the excuse of "ruining the lines", the way they do with pants & skirts, because 1.) it doesn't ruin the lines on men, and 2.) it would be less likely to do so on us as women are already more "lumpy" in that area than men.

***

Here's something you rarely see: men in kilts riding bicycles. The question is, is it really something we want to see--and I'm asking that as a lover of kilts. (FWIW, this crossed my mind while watching Hamish Macbeth, a program set in Scotland.)

***

Uncle Pookie and I watched PBS' American Masters program on John Wayne and John Ford. While they were talking about The Quiet Man, one of the men commenting said that, by that time, Ford was aiming for a transparent style; if a shot didn't work for the characters or the story, he didn't want it. I like that. It shows a humbleness before the story that is admirable.

Not that Ford the man was all that humble. I think it's often the case that good or great artists become larger men while making their art than they are in their personal lives.

***

I know our cat only "cared" out of self-interest, but it's still kind of (sorta, almost) sad that no one cares anymore when I open a can of tuna. No one wants to drink the tuna water, either.

***

Like many Americans, I enjoy English accents, but with age I'm finding the more I hear Irishmen speak, the more I prefer an Irish accent. At least on men. There's something sexy about real Irish accents (as opposed to those TV leprechaun ones) coming from a man.

***

Modern people are supposed to be so much more sophisticated than previous generations because our fictional heroes always have faults--i.e. we're too sophisticated to believe in unmitigated goodness. But we're also the people who increasingly hold that the Founding Fathers were complete scum because some of them owned slaves. So...we're sophisticated enough to believe that heroes must have some fault, else they're not really believably human, but we're not sophisticated enough to believe that otherwise great--even good--men may have moral failings.

***

I don't know why the wearing of casual dresses ever fell in favor, especially in hot, humid climates. I found an attractive olive denim shirt dress at the thrift store a few months ago and, man, is it easy to wear. Just pull one garment out of the closet, put it on, add some sandals, and you're dressed; there's no matching tops and bottoms, and there's plenty of air circulation to keep you--well, as cool as is possible in a former swamp. Yet most women around here wear pants or shorts all summer.

***

You know what I'd like to see? A kimono made of a red plaid--something like the design you used to see on metal lunchboxes, maybe--worn with a black obi. Let the cross-fertilization of cultures accelerate!

***

I saw the practice of medicine referred to as a white collar job. I guess it is, yet I can't think of any blue collar or service industry job that has the potential to get you so nastily dirty as doctors sometimes get while pursuing their job.

***

If a religious group promoted the wearing of hobble skirts, they would rightly be denounced as oppressive to women, but if designers or fetishists promote it, somehow it's all about fun, fashion, and freedom.

***

I like the word "pop" a lot more when it's the onomatopoeic word than when it's the shortening of "popular", though I know a lot of people wouldn't understand that. (FWIW, I don't like it at all when it's the word for soft drinks, but that's just a regional prejudice.)

***

Wouldn't it be great to have a room with all sorts of great words (synagogue, macadamia, gumbo, gazebo, encumber, corinthian, biofuel, fustilugs, provender, ...) decorating the walls? There's some delicious words here: http://www.myfavoriteword.com/

***

I'd really like to get me one of those rings the Green Lantern has, but I don't think those weird little men who supply them would give one to someone who'd have to be constantly fighting the urge to form a giant green mallet and whack annoying people on the head with it.

***

I have never seen a woman on the history aisles in any bookstore I've been in. Are we leaving the study of history to men?

***

It is funny--as in sad, pathetic, and frustrating--that so many people in America are so hyper-sensitive to anything that might possibly be perceived as racial in nature, that any discussion of race is strongly taboo. At least any discussion that goes beyond, "Racism is terrible, isn't it?" "Why yes, it is, I was just thinking the very same thing! And what a shame it is that we don't think about how terrible it is more often." "Stereotypes are truly the language of hate." That particular non-discussion we are all allowed to pat ourselves on the back with.

***

Some factoids are just plain fun. For example, just today I learned that 1.) there is such a thing as turtle farms, and 2.) Mississippi turtle growers used to be referred to as the Turtle Mafia. Not only is the idea of a turtle farm cool, my rather dull, tired (tiresome doesn't cover it) day is a little brighter for having heard the term Turtle Mafia. I want to say it again and again: Turtle Mafia, Turtle Mafia!

I Guess I'm Hopelessly Catholic

I saw a bit of Sonny Montgomery's funeral on TV, and as nice as I suppose it is to have important people come to your funeral, a lot of politicians standing up and making speeches doesn't seem very funeral-like to me. Even if they keep their remarks on the deceased (unlike what we've seen at some--if not political, then politicized--funerals recently.) I can imagine no greater honor for my own funeral (or anyone else's) than the celebration of mass. No greater presence--not even a former President--than the Eucharist.

A Derbyshire-Chesterton Coincidence

Today's NRO had an article by John Derbyshire on Lolita, which hardened my years-long intention to read that book into a--well, into a firmer intention. I then, while searching for something entirely unrelated by Chesterton, happened across this essay in Chesterton's All Things Considered. Both Derbyshire and Chesterton were writing near a literary anniversary (the 50-year anniversary of Lolita, the 200th birthday of Fielding) , both talk about a book called immoral by many of its readers and non- or partial readers, and both talk about the increasing tendency of wimpy moderns not to want to confront the truth of human nature. In the Lolita essay, this mostly comes down to the politically incorrect fact that men continue find young, pubescent or post-pubescent women attractive. In the Fielding essay, it's the inconvenient fact of the complete human--that is, the way a man (or woman) may be a bewildering mess of virtues and vices and may commit quite a lot of sins and stupid mistakes along with some good while aspiring to do much better. Both essays are worth the few minutes it takes to read them, even if, like me, you only know Lolita through the movie and Tom Jones through a radio dramatization.

Maybe It Was the Violent Video Games--Er, Cave Paintings?--That Caused It

Here's something from the BBC News (link via The Corner):

Early Neolithic Britons had a one in 20 chance of suffering a skull
fracture at the hands of someone else and a one in 50 chance of dying from their
injuries. ...Blunt instruments such as clubs were responsible for most of the
trauma. ...

Rick Schulting of Queen's University Belfast and Michael Wysocki from
the University of Central Lancashire looked at 350 skulls spanning the period
from 4000 BC to 3200 BC.
"We generally think of Neolithic people as living
peaceful lives - they were busy looking after cereal crops and rearing
livestock," Mr Wysocki told the BBC News website.

Well, I guess that's what they get for turning to agriculture and sky god religions. Just a few thousands of years before, when everyone hunted & gathered and worshipped the Great Goddess (which worship is proven by their having scratched chevrons into rocks), human nature was completely different and no one hit people in the head with clubs at all.

Polonius May Not Have Been Perfect, But At Least Laertes Had a Father

At a recent library book sale, I picked up some old magazines, including an Oxford American that listed "Drunk on Shakespeare: A Family Drama" on its cover. This personal essay by an Eric Ormsby turned out to be a not-very-interesting account of how his dysfunctional household communicated (or not) by hurling quotes at each other. But there was one bit that struck me. At ten or eleven the author was taken to see his first performance of Hamlet and found himself fascinated, not just by the familiar words put into action on stage, but by the actor playing Hamlet. "Coming as I did from a house dominated by women, I had a frank curiosity about men," he says, and he found himself wanting to imitate everything about--in fact, to become--that man. He says,

"A boy without a father is supremely vulnerable. He has
inexhaustible resources of love and loyalty and devotion. And he aches to bestow
these on some man who shows him what he might, if he is lucky, become. The heart
of such a boy hangs on the smallest of tokens and is to be had for the slightest
expression of regard; is to be had, I mean, passionately, irrevocably, and for
life. And for what? For a glance of interest, a question, an autograph on a
program."

I don't care for the way the writer expresses this, but I think he's telling the truth here. Boys need fathers. Boys without fathers are vulnerable, because they are looking for any man who will give them some attention, some evidence of concern. Grown women can say children don't need fathers as much as they want, but the boys themselves are apt to feel differently. If I were a single woman with a son, I'd be asking myself what kind of men my son is being exposed to, both in real life and in the media, and if I'd want him to grow up imitating any of them.

I Need to Edit My Profile

Our little family unit is down one (auxiliary) member. A few days ago, Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie's elderly cat died during the night. She was with me for twelve years, and the people I got her from said they'd had her five years, so she had a good run. Moreover, she'd become increasingly decrepit, so her death was a relief in a way; we'd have had her euthanised already if we hadn't sentimentally not wanted her last hour or two alive to be filled with terror (she didn't like strangers, animal or human, and riding in the car absolutely terrified her.) But oddly enough, once she was dead, in our minds she went from what she'd been these last months back to what she was when she was before she became unhealthy, and we miss her.

Uncle Pookie most of all, perhaps, as Kitty had become his official (constant, anyway) lapwarmer and computer companion. But he's had to be away a lot this week, and it occured to me one night that in our whole marriage, I've never been completely alone in the house, Kitty was always there. (One overnight post-op stay at the vet excepted.) It's odd her not being here. What am I supposed to do with dropped ice cubes or cereal bowl dregs now?

It's also weird not having a pet. I've sworn for years that, when Kitty went, I'd never have another cat. She was a reserved, grouchy cat who suited us very well, as well as being the prettiest cat in every neighborhood we've lived in, having very soft, pettable fur, having no bad habits, and (until she became old and decrepit) being really clean and not being susceptible to fleas; I have no confidence in our lucking out like that again, and besides which, I'm tired of cleaning the cat box. But I don't feel up to housetraining a dog right now, so I guess we're going to be petless for a long time. Having a husband to lavish affection on, a pet doesn't mean as much to me as it did when I was a child or teenager. But you do get used to having them around, don't you? I can't quite imagine never having a pet again. It's weird enough not having one now.

Quote of the Day

In truth, there is often more independence of mind to be found among those who care most for tradition and have conservative views about society, than among professional progressives adhering to their 'line'. (A. L. Rowse, William Shakespeare: A Biography)

Random Thoughts, Snarkiness, Whatever

***

Uncle Pookie hooked up an inexpensive antenna a couple of months ago, so we have TV again after a little over two years absence. As I suspected, we weren't missing much.

***

Being brave in a single, really bad moment is easier than being brave over years of a more ordinary level of bad times.

***

I don't actually care what people's personal aesthethic preferences are, but I think it is a little odd that, in today's hyper-PC world, so many people think nothing of talking about the supposed horror of having white skin showing in summer or recommending ways to fix this "problem".

***

It's just occurred to me John Goodman could play Falstaff without padding. He's a good actor and I have sometimes thought it's a shame his size and shape limit (I assume) the roles he gets. But now I can't decide if he could play Falstaff or not. That's a BIG role. We're talking, to reverse Eddie Izzard, Scooby & Shaggy level big. I'd be willing to watch him try, though. God knows he could do no worse than Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania.

***


I think Genesis may be the most exciting book of the Bible. Aside from a few short begats bits, it's mostly stories of sibling rivalry (including sexual jealousy), betrayal, love and sex, father-in-laws screwing over sons-in-law, etc. Those kind of things make good reading.

***

Do TV people not listen to what they write? I caught a promo for an upcoming program about Hurricane Katrina making the people of Louisiana "despair"? If they've all despaired, why is there all this talk of rebuilding? Then again, maybe I've not been paying close enough attention, maybe it's only Mississippi--the state that was actually hit by the hurricane--that is talking of rebuilding better than before, while Louisiana sits huddled in a corner, despairing.

Or maybe the TV ad writers are postmodernists and have decided words don't mean anything, in which case, it's just as well I didn't want to see the show, because I wouldn't be able to trust that "Saturday at 6PM" (or whatever) meant what it said.

***

Petty annoyance number--oh, who am I kidding, I can't count that high: Microsoft's "Warning: Page has Expired" thing that tells you you have to click the Refresh button to view the page you want--well, I'm fine with that, but then it pops up with an annoying, triumphant-sounding beep and tells you it can't refresh without resending the information and do you want to retry or not. Note to Microsoft: I think I speak for most of your users when I say, IF I DIDN'T WANT THE COMPUTER TO RESEND THE INFORMATION I WOULDN'T HAVE CLICKED 'REFRESH' TO START WITH.

***

Apropos of nothing, I fully expect to turn into Victor Meldrew when I get a few more years on me.

***

I wish there were some way to lay bets that most of the young girls who now firmly declare that they don't wear pants that come up to the waist and who recoil at the sight of shoulder pads will, when fashion changes, happily wear those things.

***

It's rude to let yourself sound bored when you're talking to people, and I don't think it stops being rude just because you're an adult talking to a child.

***

This time every year for years now I've found myself thinking, "I wish I could go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest, it looks like such fun!" This year, reading about Bruce Springsteen's lame anti-Bush shtick, it was, "Too bad I wasn't there, it could have been fun to boo." And I'm not even feeling friendly to Bush right now.

***


I'm tired of writing "iced tea" when just about everyone where I come from says "ice tea". (Well, that's when we bother to say it at all, mostly we just say "tea" or "sweet tea"; tea is automatically assumed to be iced here, so we serve tea and hot tea, not tea and iced tea.) I may start spelling it without the d. Why not, when I already refuse to write "crayfish".

***

I saw a commercial for some sort of PDA or something, and it enthused about how wonderful it is that, with that product, a park bench can become an office, a telephone booth, a movie theater, a gaming station. Yes, God forbid anyone should have to sit on a park bench and look at a tree or make eye contact with another human.

A Few More Things I've Never Understood

I've already mentioned anti-Semitism, cake mixes, and people who think Shakespeare is too hard to understand and also insist on using nothing but the King James Version of the Bible. Here's some more.


* The attaching of guilt to food--for example, "guiltfree menus" at restaurants or "eat all you want without guilt" advertisements. This doesn't make any sense to me. The only way I would ever feel guilty eating something would be if I were to eat something that belonged to someone else.


* Women who get angry if their husband or boyfriend doesn't give them a present on their birthday/Valentine's Day/Mother's Day/whatever--or worse, get angry if he doesn't give a good enough gift; or worse still (and I've only known one or two women this bad), get angry if he doesn't send the Valentine's gift to their workplace so their coworkers know they got a gift. What are these women, queens demanding tribute? I'm all for men treating their wives like queens, but gifts should be graciously accepted as gifts, not angrily demanded as your due. And in the case of the women who want their Valentine's booty in public, rather than private--how shallow can a person become without drying up completely?


* Women who trash their husbands to other women. Not only is it disrespectful and makes them look bad, but I'll bet they'd have a fit if they heard their husbands criticizing them to other people. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you applies in marriage at least as much as anywhere else.


* People who date, live with, or marry people they don't trust. Especially marry. I wouldn't want to sleep in the same house with a man I didn't trust, much less tie my economic future to him.


* People who say "I hate water". That's like saying "I hate air".

Viva la France! (And Ireland)

Yesterday Reuters had an article about experts pondering the "high" French birth rate--1.9 children per woman, the second highest rate in Europe. Leaving aside the sad fact that a below replacement level birthrate (replacement level in modern industrialised nations is 2.1) can be considered high in today's Europe and leaving aside my suspicion that non-assimilated Muslims may account for a lot of France's birth rate, I want to say "Hurrah for France!"


I know it's popular among many Americans to mock and criticize France and I'll admit to having repeated some French jokes since the Iraq war (before that my response to friends who repeatedly made those jokes was, "Why do you pick on France? Have you ever met any French people?"), but there are things about France that even a conservative can love. High on the list for me is that they showed some (un)commonsense and forethought back in the seventies about a potential scarcity of oil and built nuclear power plants; it's my understanding they now they make about 80% of their needed power with nuclear plants. Possibly due to more of that forethought, they've offered some incentives to child-bearing and are now less close to dying out than most other countries in Europe. Also I've heard creditable people say that, whatever their problems, the French have done a better job of keeping down the fomentation of Islamic terrorism within their country than the British have.Their cultural heritage--especially pre-twentieth century--is nothing to sneeze at, their language is beautiful (even if a French teacher and Francophile I used to know did describe it as "Latin spoken by ignorant peasants"!), and even people who don't like the French are apt to like their food.

And then too French immigrants contributed to south Louisiana culture. It's not a coincidence that the only feast descriptions I've ever been moved to read aloud to my husband were Peter Mayle's mouthwatering description of the dinner he was invited to at a neighboring farmhouse in Provence and a description of some cross-country walkers stopping for a meal in the backwoods of south Louisiana and, when the proprietors heard they weren't accustomed to that food, being given a sample of everything they had (all washed down by real Coca-Cola in a real glass bottle kept so cold it had bits of ice in it; it's Uncle Pookie's idea of heaven.)


I'm not saying I'll never repeat another "cheese-eating, surrender monkey" type joke, but I'm glad the French are having babies and wish they'd have even more.


Oh, and BTW the Irish are having the most babies. At 1.99 per woman, they're almost at replacement level--Go Irish!

I Don't Know About Its Accuracy, But It's Pretty

What Kind of Princess are You? - Beautiful Artwork (Original Music is BACK!!!)

The Traditional PrincessYou are generous, graceful, and practical with both feet planted firmly on the ground. You tend to be a little on the old-fashioned side. You value home, hearth, and family life and love to be of service to others.

Role Models: Snow White, Maid Marian

You are most likely to: Discover a hidden talent for spinning straw into gold.


http://www.quizilla.com/redirect.php?statsid=42&url=http://www.quizilla.com/users/FaerieFriend/quizzes/

Misc.

***

Uncle Pookie's One-line Review of Scary Movie 4: "I gave up staying home, doing the taxes, and giving the government money for this?"

***

FYI, something I discovered when making my Easter dessert: Milled flax seed, mixed with melted butter and a bit of cinnamon, makes a decent substitute for a graham cracker crust for cheesecake; I mostly prefer crustless cheesecake, pies, and quiche myself, but I found this tasty.

I also tried a new (to me) product called Altern. It's an artificial sweetener for cooking made of maltodextrin and sucralose. I got it because the store was out of Splenda in the bag, and it seems to work as well as the Splenda. It's probably worming itself into my cells and killing me even as I type, but then I figure all the artificial sweeteners are killing me, just doing it differently and (it is to be hoped) a mite more gradually than the white sugar would.

***

I found this site months ago, and I can't remember if I linked it back then. It's too big for most of us to be interested in all of it, but I especially like the Insane Projects page; I think it represents what would happen if you combined Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie into one person and gave that person more energy than either of us has.


***

I blogged a while back on the coming revolution in bra technology. Here's something sort of related--a post about the effect of chest shape on bra fit. Do check out the link to the breast augmentation site. It shows why, even with good-sized breasts, some women don't have impressive cleavage.

***

Funny product siting: Sugarfree Honey. Obviously this is imitation honey, but they put the word "imitation" in smaller letters than the rest, so you're apt not to see it until you've already said "what?"

***

Of interest only to people who like looking at old and/or exotic clothes: Oriental Costumes Their Designs and Colors. Lots of plates of traditional clothes; in most instances, you can see the structure of the garments really well.

***

Someone posted this list of quilting acronyms on PatternReview:

FIUF: finish it up frenzy
WOMBAT: waste of money, brains, and timeS
EX: stash enhancement excursion
FART: fabric acquisition road trip
PIGS: projects in grocery sacks
PHIB: projects hiding in boxes
STABLE: stash accumulation beyond life expectancy
HSY (pronounced "hussy"): Haven't started yet
Brazen HSY: years-old HSY

The applications go far beyond quilting. Let "stash" refer to something other than fabric--say, gaming modules or DVDs--and we could be talking about many different hobbies, and WOMBAT, of course, refers to many management decisions I've encountered over the years.

***
I have some "serious" sewing projects planned (not to mention the ongoing PIGS and PHIBs), but what's a to-do list for if not constant expansion. So here's a couple of possible "silly" projects (possible meaning I may possibly think about getting around to doing them one day) I've found.

A free penguin pattern. Uncle Pookie likes penguins and the example ones are awfully cute.

Tea-cozy, with or without irony. I've been trying to wean myself off drinking so much iced tea and, as a tea-free life is out of the question, I'm trying to up my consumption of hot tea; admittedly this plan has not faced a Mississippi summer yet. Maybe a tea-cozy would lend a certain something to the whole tea-sipping experience? If I can come up with a theme that isn't too terribly twee. I remember Sarah Kellerman (one of Charlotte MacLeod's series characters) once made fancy tea-cozies, so maybe a convivial codfish or something in homage?

(Actually, what I really need for my cute little metal pot is a handle cosy. When I asked the clerk wouldn't the handle conduct too much heat, she claimed it was made of a special spage age alloy that doesn't conduct heat well. She may have believed that, but t'aint true.)

***

This isn't exactly a miscellanous, but HAPPY EASTER!

Best Quote and Strangest Thing

Best Quote I've Seen Lately:

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were
faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the
funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably
multicultural:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We
also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their
necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will
build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow
ours."

(Mark Steyn column 3/25/06)

Strangest Thing I've Seen Today:

McCall's 4103. It's a children's pattern for a gi, basic pull-on pants, and what looks for all the world like a scrub top. The gi I understand--lots of children take karate or other martial arts classes--and a child could wear the pants just about anywhere, but how many children need scrubs? And why is McCall's catering to the niche market of children hospital workers when the company doesn't currently carry so much as one pattern for men's basic fly-front, zippered pants?

Random Thoughts

***
Seersucker is an odd word. It sounds as if it should be either an insect or an obscure insult from a fantasy novel.

***

As far as I can tell, my kitchen garbage can has only two states--empty and completely full; I have never seen it, say, a third full. I wonder it it's some sort of reverse Schroedinger's cat thing.
***

I wonder if the most lasting result of my reading Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons will be that I'm haunted by the term "voluntary quadriplegia".

***

Another thing that haunts me is Jung's (?) line about how everything that irritates us can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves. It often wanders through my head when I'm--again often!--irritated by some petty thing or other. What does my irritation say about me?

***

Community is very important, but any place-based community will have one or two people who just don't fit in and never will. Humans may be social animals who work best in packs, but some of us are lone wolves. In the Renaissance, I would have been that eccentric woman on the outskirts of the village, happily talking to the toads and plants, who, if she were sufficiently unlucky as to her time and place, ended up on a fire. Valuable as it is to bloom where you're planted and to learn to get along with people you might not have much in common with and all that, I have a lot of sympathy for the guy who strikes out for Alaska to be a hermit in the wilderness.

***

I've seen beautiful older women (two famous ones would be Sophia Loren and Maureen O'Hara), but neve a cute one. Until recently. I was watching Rosemary and Thyme and UP remarked of the now 60-ish Felicity Kendall (whom we both know from the delightful Good Neighbors), "She's cute." He's right, but I might not have thought it possible for a woman that age to be cute before I saw her.

***

We often say/think how fragile life is--how one seemingly light blow to the head can kill a cat or a man, a tiny clot of blood can fell someone in otherwise perfect health, etc. But at the same time, it can be very hard to kill a person or an animal. Look at how much effort it took to kill Rasputin or how even a caterpillar will fight when you try to knock it to the ground to step on.

***

Green tea probably doesn't count as a St. Patrick's Day food.

***

I wonder if the women who obsess over dress size would be helped by stopping themselves saying, "I am size 12" (or whatever) and instead saying "I wear size 12".... Then again, probably not. I've heard of women who won't let a friend sew them something, because they would have to buy a pattern in a size larger than their RTW size--never mind that the physical objects, unlike the numbers attached to them, would be the same size. That kind of obsession is probably beyond any help vocabulary juggling could provide.

***

Are more people suddenly saying "if I was" instead of "if I were"? Everywhere I turn this past week I hear/read someone saying "if I was". When I mentioned this to him, Uncle Pookie had something to say about "bundling", but maybe there were always so many people using this construction and I just never noticed until now.

***

Heard from Uncle Pookie: "I don't have a sarcastic bone in my body. My cartilage, on the other hand..." Change that sarcastic to smart-assed and it's a perfect bon mot.

***

Why when we say "martial arts" are we always talking about traditional Asian fighting skills? Martial arts should describe all the martial skills, modern as well as old, Western as well as Eastern. An American recruit in basic training is learning martial arts, yet when we say martial arts we picture Bruce Lee or the kids in the local tae kwon do school.

***

Perfectionism is a more complicated problem than it might seem (saying "Just lighten up!", while sensible advice, won't cure it) and perfectionists often have what's called poor self-esteem, but I wonder if sometimes there isn't a bit of arrogance in the mix too--"I'm too good to make a flawed product or perform badly." You have to be humble to be willing to make a mistake.

A Nice Place to Visit, But They Wouldn't Want You to Live There

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that this weekend evangelical Christian teenagers rallied in San Francisco. The rally, "Battle Cry for a Generation", was held by a group called Teen Mania whose goal is to guide teenagers away from the negative influences of pop culture. Not surprisingly for an evangelical group, they also want to create more youth who are evangelizers, helping other young people with problems and trying to bring them to Jesus.

A San Francisco Assemblyman said of the evangelicals, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco." I suppose rallies of any kind are bound to get loud, but funnily enough, the article does not mention even one act by the rally attendees that might earn them the designations "obnoxious" or "disgusting". Could it be there were unreported incidences of rude behavior or crimes by the attendees that made the Assemblyman hostile to them?

According to the article I linked, the city's Board of Supervisors "earlier in the week"--i.e. before the teenage evangelicals got to San Francisco--passed a resolution condemning the gathering. Hmm. The city officially condemned the evangelicals before they had a chance to do anything. That makes it sound as if the problem the city has with them is their presence--perhaps even their very existence--not anything they've actually done.

I don't have a problem with the private citizens who protested the rally (even if they do bring out the rather tired epithet "fascists"), because I would expect it and because I support freedom of speech and assembly--even by people assembling for speech I disagree with. But it seems kind of odd for city officials to say these things. As long as the rally members are law-abiding, gathering peacefully, and not endangering the community by committing or encouraging others to commit dangerous & illegal acts, shouldn't the city be neutral?

I don't necessarily agree with everything the rally organizers and attendees believe. For one thing, I find their referring to the filth of much pop culture as "virtue terrorism" distasteful. For another, I'm neither an evangelical nor a fundamentalist. I'm a Catholic. I consider the people at that gathering fellow Christians--what many Catholics call "separated brothers and sisters"--but at least a few of them probably think I'm a heathen statue-worshipper, so needless to say there's some theological differences. But we're more alike than we are different.

I guess that means San Francisco wouldn't want me either. Maybe I should be impressed by myself. Considering some of the pictures I've seen of various protests & gatherings (none condemned by the city, as far as I know), being too "disgusting" for San Francisco is quite a feat.

Two Kinds of People...

I'm rereading the Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. The best thing about them (after those wonderful charcoal or soft pencil illustrations by Garth Williams; as a child Little House on the Prairie was my least favorite of those books because it was the only one I had in an edition without the illustrations) is that you get to see people making things. Making a garden, making cheese, making bullets, making straw hats, etc. Sometimes you ask yourself questions like, If I were alone somewhere, two days from a town, and I needed a secure door for my house, would I be able to figure out how to make one?

I'm not all that big fan of the "two kinds of people in the world" thing, but... I think there's two kinds of people in the world: those who enjoy the challenge of figuring things out and "making do" and those who don't. My father is one of the first; just as one example, I introduced him to (purchased) vine charcoal, and the next time I saw him he'd made some on his own. My mother is one of the latter. I knew her on several occasions to make a fairly clever substition in cooking due to being out of an ingredient, but she seemed to regard it as degrading and I never saw her take any pleasure in figuring things out generally.

As it possibly is with any of these "two kinds" divisions, people in one camp may not understand people in the other camp. I know I'm one of those who enjoy figuring things out on my own and making do, and I can't understand why anyone wouldn't. When I figure out how to do/get/make something without resorting to a trip to the store, I not only have the pleasure of problem-solving, I get a little charge out of being independent enough to do it on my own.

Something I've Never Understood

Cake mixes. They're supposed to save you so much time; I've heard women say they won't make scratch cakes, only mixes, because scratch cakes are "too much trouble". But what time does a cake mix save you? You dump the mix in a bowl, and you still have to measure out oil or butter, milk, and eggs. The mixing takes the same amount of time, so all the work the mix has saved you is measuring and pouring your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and, assuming this isn't a plain butter cake, flavoring--or if you use self-rising flour, only the measuring of the flour; the dumping of it in the bowl would be the same as dumpting the cake mix in. You might also have to wash an additional couple of measuring spoons and possibly an extra measuring cup. All in all, a mix saves you maybe two minutes of time. Maybe a carrot cake mix would bump it up to nearly five minutes, since you no longer have to grate a carrot, but the point is mixes don't actually save you much work; they cost more (unless we're talking double coupons on top of a loss leader sale or something like that), they don't taste as good, most of us don't know what some of the ingredients are, they're less versatile than the ingredients for homemade cake, and yet they still don't save you any significant amount of effort. Why bother?

I haven't bought a cake mix since a day or two before I was married, a little over eleven years ago, and that was only because I wanted chocolate cake in what was still a bachelor's kitchen. If I want cake, I make one from basic ingredients I keep on hand. It's bucking a trend though. As I said (read "overgeneralized") to my husband, if women in my grandmothers' generation wanted cake, they made one from scratch; if women in my mother's generation wanted cake, they used a mix (possibly jazzed up with apricot nectar or something); and if women my age want cake, they go to the store and buy a cake. Maybe making any food at home is weird nowadays. I'm only an adequate cook (defined as "no one will starve around me"), but some people nowadays apparently can't cook at all; I have seen many grocery carts filled with nothing but frozen meals, deli items, and things like Pop Tarts.


Other things I don't understand include anti-Semitism and why people who say Shakespeare is "too hard" are sometimes the same people who insist on using only the King James Version of the Bible.

And the Blogger Rambled On-- A Post About Cooking, Sewing, Advertising, the Cult of Experts, and Possibly the Kitchen Sink As Well

You know how you occasionally read something that really strikes you and leads you to read something else and something else? PatternReview had an article (and follow-up discussion in the forum) nearly two weeks ago that was like that for me--and I don't even know why, since I didn't really learn anything wholly new from it. It was an article by Sarah Jacobs, called "Quick Cheap Sewing"; I almost didn't read it because I figured it was just a few timesaving and thrifty hints, but it turned out to be more interesting than that. (I'd link to it, but the articles are only available to PR members--to free members for 7 days only.) Basically, the article draws some analogies between cooking and sewing.

Most of us who do much cooking have sort of mental slopers (a basic design that more complex designs can be built on) or master recipes for various dishes. For example, we know basically what to do to get a casserole, so we can just look in the kitchen and cobble together a casserole from whatever we have on hand; or, even more simply, we know the basics of roasting a chicken, so we can follow those basics every time to get a dish that is recognizable as roasted chicken and doesn't give us salmonella, but by varying details such as seasoning we can make that dish have a wide range of tastes. For dishes that we seldom cook and so don't already have a mental sloper for, we can look in cookbooks at one or several recipes for the dish to get the basic proportions of ingredients and then build our own version, based on our own preferences and on which ingredients we actually have. This is my main way of using cookbooks--as general reference, rather than explicit directions--and I was pleased to see the article's author saying she uses cookbooks that way too. A more formal version of this practice--which led to a more formal (i.e. written, not mental) master recipe--would be the Tightwad Gazette lady's description of how she came up with her Universal Muffin recipe.

Ms. Jacobs talks about enjoying browsing cookbooks, especially the 1943 edition of The Settlement Cookbook. (I'd never heard of it before, being from the South rather than the Midwest, but the story of this cookbook is pretty interesting, as cookbooks go--you could see it as a womanpower success story. The earliest versions are public domain, and the 1903 edition has been reprinted by at least two different publishers and is available from Amazon and scans of the 1901 edition can be viewed online for free.) Ms. Jacobs said that as a girl she was amazed at the existence of recipes for things we normally buy, like marshmallows; nowadays, some people are amazed if you make cake, let alone marshmallows, from scratch. The Settlement Cookbook had recipes for plain, everyday sort of cakes, as opposed to a Martha Stewart sort of cake. Ms. Jacobs gave us her version--Quick Plain Cake--of a Settlement recipe called Cheap Plain Cake, which is exactly what both of its names say it is. I've already adapted it into a cranberry upside down cake that pleased me; I don't do much making of sweets because I discovered early in my marriage my husband prefers storebought candy, but this recipe is going in my file because it is so easy, quick, and adaptable. (I'd long been thinking of working out a recipe for a tiny cake--just enough for one big or two small servings--and this may become my basis for that.)

The point of the article is that, while many of us approach sewing like the cook who always looks up fancy recipes and follows them exactly, sewing can also be like this everyday kind of cooking. The author cites the early '50s Sewing Made Easy that told its readers how to take a basic commercial pattern and alter it to get many styles of skirts (like altering the flavoring of Plain Cake to get different cakes); people measuring hips and waists to make a skirt (you know the basic shape so you only need the details, like with making a quick casserole you only need to know what you have in the cupboard and how many people you need to feed); and the Jamaican woman who showed the author how to cut around an existing garment to get the pieces for a new one. This version of sewing or cooking can be plainer and quicker and cheaper than the close- following-of-recipe version--cheaper, if for no other reason than you buy fewer patterns. It will definitely reflect the creator's personality more, as she decides for herself which details she wants--from outer appearance to construction methods.

Perhaps most important is that this approach makes the seamster ("sewer" never looks right in print) less dependant upon experts. In the forum discussion of this article many people said that their grandmothers sewed this way, but that the method had not been passed on. Two people specifically said that, although grandma had done it, mother had not had the confidence to deviate from a pattern or recipe; the first said she wondered if the post-WWII advertising had been to blame. I read this right after reading in Crunchy Cons (book and blog) speculations about 1950s advertising convincing people that storebought convenience food was better--cleaner, more scientifically wholesome--than homegrown and/or homecooked food. I think the 1950s, even if it was a Golden Age in some ways, encouraged an over-reliance on "experts" and "convenience" that has only snowballed. Many traditional skills have been lost. I don't just mean obsolete skills (like, say, plowing with a mule) or nearing-obsoletion ones (shade tree mechanics have become relatively rare as cars have acquired more and more electronic parts that you really do need special tools to work on.) Utne Reader had an article a decade or so ago about the dying of food knowledge--many people with teen girls in the '60s and '70s didn't bother to teach their daughters how to cook or even how to select produce and meat, so that these girls had to learn for themselves or rely on convenience food as adults, then they generally had less knowledge to pass on the their teenagers, and so it goes. The Home Ec classes that in at least some cases tried to teach people to ignore the traditional peasant cooking of their Italian immigrant or poor Southern mother in favor of "scientific" cooking (a euphemism for upper middle-class WASP cooking?), then reliance on a basis of convenience foods, are now, it is my understanding, sometimes not taught at all, because why learn to cook when you can live on frozen dinners (or sew when you can go to a store or clean when you can hire an "undocumented worker"). Many people today not only don't know how to sew on a button, it's apparently never occurred to them that they could figure it out if they tried. Many people call a plumber or repairman for even simple jobs, without even asking themselves if they could fix it themselves; on TV much sitcom hilarity can be counted on if a character dares to think he can repair something himself. If you need some item around the house, the "right" thing to do is to go buy one, not figure out how to make the item or a substitute yourself; only an eccentric or a hick makes his own toilet paper dispenser. A mother whose small child received only homemade toys for Christmas would probably find her acquaintances muttering darkly about "abuse" because everyone knows children "need" new, storebought toys--i.e. toymaking is best left to the experts....Okay, I'm rambling now. And maybe this is being mitigated somewhat by the surge of interest in crafting, DIY television programs, and cooking programs, but I think the over-reliance on experts to feed, clothe, educate, and entertain us is still going strong. I think there's still a lot more people watching food programs than making food.

The person who has basic skills and, perhaps more important these days, the attitude that it is okay to figure things out yourself and do it your own way is less reliant on experts than people who don't have skills or this attitude. And that, as expert Martha Stewart might say, is a Good Thing. (Then again, she might not, because it might make you less likely to buy her magazine.) Rural (not to say backwoods) Southern women of my grandmothers' generation put pictures on their walls wherever they felt like it, but ones of my mother's generation learned they must place them artistically; the increased sophistication may have been a good thing overall, but I'll bet the earlier generation had more confidence in their picture placement choices--"I like it there, so it's good" vs. "Is this really the way the [women's magazine, Home Ec text, TV show] said it should be arranged? Maybe it should look more like that living room I saw in that movie." And that's not even getting into the fact that societies in which people lack basic skills--i.e. more highly specialized societies, i.e. societies in which experts hold sway--are more easily destroyed; ask a survivalist or possibly an historian.

It's also not touching on other things that came up in the article and subsequent discussion--even if only for me. Like how many people around the world don't use patterns for sewing: Indian tailors measure their clients and make salwar kameeze or other traditional garments based on those measurements and their own mental slopers; traditional kimono were sewn just from the person's measurements marked out on cloth; there are few patterns for home sewers in Africa or, it is my understanding, Asia; presumably there are no commercial patterns for pygmy loincloths, and so on. The history of patternmaking is actually pretty interesting; I've found interesting tidbits at the McCall's (or was it Butterick?) website, in a children's book called Design It, Sew It, and Wear It by Duane Bradley, and several adult sewing or clothing books. Thanks to the article & discussion, I have several additions to my mental "pick it up if you see it in a thrift store" booklist and I'm now rereading the Little House books. This little article may be reverberating in my mind for a while.

(Okay, so I didn't actually get in anything about the kitchen sink, but it's past midnight and I'm really sleepy--not to mention drained--so I'll have to get back to it some other time.)

Richard Cory in Japan

I read in the news the other day that there's been an increase in group suicides in Japan--mostly young people who meet online to discuss dying, apparently. This is a very sad thing. I understand that Japan has different cultural attitudes toward suicide than we do in the West (though we have our own strand of suicide-romanticization--Goethe, Plath fans, Goths, etc.), but it is sad nonetheless. Japan is a very prosperous country with a heritage to be proud of, yet nowadays the Japanese as a whole can't summon up enough hope in the future to replace themselves and some of the young people they do have can't summon up the nerve to keep living.

I'm very familiar with the phenomenon of Westerners who go on about how the East is more spiritual than the West, Easterners are more holistic and less materialistic, etc. I don't tend to buy this, because I think people are people wherever you go--i.e. human nature is the same, no matter the shape of the eyes, color of the skin, or texture of the hair. You wouldn't get Hong Kong or modern, commercial Japan if people of the East were automatically less susceptible to greed than the West, would you? Anyway, I think these suicides in Japan and its very low birth rate come in part from a spiritual problem. (It's probably a psychological problem too; humans just don't seem to do as well in prosperity as they do in adversity. Not to mention a multilayered social problem.)

When people decide to live only for themselves, it never satisfies. There is a spiritual emptiness. It's good for the economy (short-term), because the less you have in your life that matters the more distractions you need to buy, but it is not good for people. When vast numbers of people in a society decide that there is nothing bigger than themselves worth living for, nothing more important than themselves and the gratification of their own immediate whims and desires, it is very bad for that society's long-term future. Why go on living and working and producing if nothing matters? A man isn't going to die for a country he thinks is worthless and corrupt. A woman isn't going to be willing to lose her figure and her free time for children, if she thinks the next generation isn't as important as her own good time. Why go to the trouble of building families and communities when it's easier to shop and watch TV and have a string of affairs? And when you realize the continual gratification of your appetites never ends because it never really satisfies, why even go on living? If there's nothing bigger than you and all the distractions you're supposed to want because they're so fun and so luxurious don't satisfy, why not give in to weariness and end it all?

I'm not picking on Japan. This "nothing bigger than me" attitude that I think may be contributing to the group suicides is pervasive in Europe and the Anglosphere too. Unless there's a radical change, I expect to see more of this sort of thing in the West. Based on various things I've read over the past fifteen years or so, it seems we're already seeing at least a small rise in suicides.

And I think that is a very bad thing.

I have sympathy for the kind of unhappiness these people may have had in their lives and I understand clinical depression and suicidal thoughts, because I've been there, but I think I lost whatever tendency I may have had to romanticise suicide a good many years ago. (I definitely decided it wasn't an option for me.) And if I did have any residual feeling along those lines, I lost it several years ago, when I first came across these lines by Chesterton:

"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil,
the refusal to take an interest in existence....There is not a tiny creature in
the cosmos at whom [the suicide's] death is not a sneer."

I hope I never look at henbit or a sparrow and sneer. Or my fellow human beings.

One Woman Can Make the World Better

To commemorate the UN-designated International Women's Day, today's NRO has a list of women who make or made the world better. On a somewhat related note, Uncle Pookie and I started working our way through all of Babylon 5 a few weeks ago (he saw most of it before & I saw perhaps the majority of the middle episodes, from mid-season two to mid-season four; FWIW I highly recommend B5 for its excellent writing), and one of the things creator Stracynski says multiple times on the DVDs is that he wanted to refute the all-too-common idea that one person can't make a difference. These two things make me think of a woman I knew who made her little corner of the world different.

Mrs. A trained as an English teacher, and after graduation she and her schoolteacher husband (who'd left a more lucrative job selling insurance because he wanted to do something meaningful with his life--how's that for "crunchy" ?) moved to a small town. Mrs. A soon began to realize that she really enjoyed making bulletin boards for her classes. She decided to go back to college to qualify to teach art. I believe she started out teaching art at the elementary school, but later this soft-spoken woman convinced the school to start an art department at the high school. Actually she WAS the art department. Mississippi is a poor state and everyone knows art classes are the first to go when there's a tight budget, but that small, mostly working class town school had a full-time art teacher and students could choose art as an elective every year if they wanted. Mrs. A taught basic drawing and painting and a little 3-D art in the form of papier-mache sculptures or painted wooden shapes, and she brought in her own art books and magazines to teach a bit of art history to her students.

She tried to keep improving her offerings over the years. She saw to it that the department got new supplies, including while I was there an air-brush gun and a table saw. To raise funds for the department she oversaw the creation of "historic sites of our town" calendars featuring pen-and-ink drawings by the art students--a project that must have taken up a lot of her leisure time; this proved very popular and was repeated for several years. She arranged displays of student work at various places around town. She arranged field trips to an art museum. Equally important, she tried new techniques herself and would teach them to her students.

In addition to her HS art classes she oversaw the running of the school newspaper. That high school--which, remember, was not a well-off one--had the only weekly school newspaper in the state, and I believe received some state awards. She also began teaching evening art classes for adults.

Mrs. A was interested in improving not just the school, but the town. The most visible way she did that was to convince a number of people in the town to allow her and volunteer students to paint murals or faux windows and doorways on their blank walls. This not only improved the look of a number of walls, it gave the town a better, more unique feel. I believe she was also involved in other community spirit activities (such as an old-fashioned election day town party), as well as being a member of a Methodist church, making many improvements to her old house, maintaining what seemed to be a close marriage, and raising three pleasant, well-behaved children.

These things may not sound important to most people, and it is true that she didn't do anything worthy of UN recognition. But think about it. She exposed hundreds of kids, some of whom would have had no other exposure, to art. She tried to get the town interested in art, or at least the HS art department. At least one of her students went on to become an art teacher herself. Through her adult students, she helped (and continues to help, last I heard) people, some of whom (like my father) had no opportunity for any kind of art training in their youth, acquire skills and a fulfilling hobby--or at least broaden their horizons a little bit. She also made her town look better. None of this happened because she was an innately talented artist. To be honest, her level of talent is pretty modest. But she kept working at it and trying, so that she made the most of what had been given her. Plus she shared her skills and enthusiasm with others, and in the end she really did make her town better. How many of us can say as much?

A Post About Religion and Cartoons That Doesn't Even Mention Denmark

This past Wednesday was the beginning of Lent--the Ash Wednesday without which Fat Tuesday would not exist. (It's surprising the number of people who know about the Tuesday, but nothing about the Wednesday; Mardi Gras, as a character remarked in Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume, has become just one more party, not a somewhat poignant feast before fasting.) There's a lot that can be said on the subject of Ash Wednesday, fasting, repentance, sin, etc., but here's my slight contribution: I think a good, if not the best, Ash Wednesday comic strip is one from Pearls Before Swine.


(Rat and Goat are sitting together)
Rat: I think I'd be much more likely to be religious if it wasn't for all that 'love your neighbor' stuff.
Goat: And why is that?
Rat: Because I hate my neighbors...They have barking dogs and car alarms and sometimes they even try to talk to me.
(Goat stares at Rat for a long time)
Goat: Your soul's so dark it smudges mine.
Rat: Hey... maybe I could love your neighbors...I never have to see them.


Okay, I probably am only associating this with Ash Wednesday because of that "smudge" (I went to an early AW mass year before last and had people telling me I had a smudge on my head the rest of the day; one nice lady was going for a kleenex before I explained!), but the fallen human nature and spiritual laziness it points to are Ash Wednesday themes. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we have all fallen short. The strip also points to the year-round difficulty of loving our neighbors, who--bless their hearts--have also fallen short. I think the best hope of humanity lies in praying for our enemies and trying to love our neighbors (and that it would still lie there even if the God-stuff weren't true), but nobody ever said it was going to be easy. And I won't say how much I resemble Rat.

Lent leads up to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. A question I've been asked is, "Why did Jesus have to die?" I guess the answer is that he didn't have to, that that is just the way God chose to do it. Which just leads to another why, and I can't really answer it. I know a bit about sacrificial lambs atoning for sin and the Suffering Servant and Messiah prophecies, but this is a deep question that has troubled wiser people than I. I don't mean to trivialize any of this when I suggest that a Bloom County cartoon may suggest a possible partial answer.


(Opus, the orphan penguin who yearns for a mother, has been calling Dial-a-Mom to listen to loving advice, and on this call he interrupts to yell into the phone)
Opus: Mom, get out of my life you narrow-minded, meddling busy-body!!
Dial-a-Mom: Okay, but always know that I would gladly rip both my legs off and feed them to crocodiles to save your life.
Opus: (looking at readers) God, how I need to hear that now and then.


Maybe that's part of the reason Jesus had to die? We are all orphans who yearn for our True Parent and who sometimes need to hear that that Parent loves us so much He'd endure even a bloody death to save us. The Crucifixion shows not just that He would but that He already has.

Conservatives and Promiscuity

This weekend there was some discussion on NRO's CrunchyCon blog of whether conservatives are willing to oppose sexual promiscuity. I believe that, while it is undeniable that what little discouragement of promiscuity there is comes from conservatives, the people who say conservatives don't do much in this regard are right. Nobody does much in this regard anymore. Go back a few decades and everyone thought society was served by people controlling their sexual passions; nowadays only social conservatives ever say such a thing, for the most part they don't say it often, and when they do everyone knows they're talking into the wind. I'm generalizing, yes, but then this is generally true.

I think the reluctance of conservatives to oppose sexual promiscuity goes back to the reader email Jeremy Beers posted 2/24. It said that there were three main methods of promoting Good, namely

"1) Personal suasion, religious teaching, conversion, appeals
to beauty and justice;
2) Social pressure, the threat of ostracism,
moralistic disapproval;
3) Governmental diktat."

and that Americans have little tolerance for the second one. There's some truth in that. How many of us, when a coworker announces her unmarried twenty-year old child is about to become a parent, are willing to ask, "When is the wedding?" How many of us, when we've just watched a movie with friends and are discussing it, are willing to say anything against the movie having depicted it as completely natural that its unmarried hero and heroine were having it off a few hours after they met? How many of us are willing to so much as frown slightly when someone we know announces he or she is about to start cohabiting?

Anybody? I doubt it. We don't want to seem intolerant or judgemental or, worst of all, prudish. Besides, we're hip, we're not old-fashioned, easily-shocked people; if we say anything against promiscuity people will think we're not only judgemental and un-hip, but too uptight to be any good in the sack. Can't have that.

I disagree slightly with the author of that email I quoted in that I don't think this sort of thing is a product of the American frontier mentality (although there may be a little of that contrariness in it.) I think it's a product of more recently developed attitudes. Americans used to be more willing to say that promiscuity and having children out of wedlock was wrong. For example, when I was a child in the '70s the pejorative term "shacking up" was used to refer to cohabiting outside of marriage; the way adults used the term left no doubt that they considered the practice at worst highly immoral or at the very best a trifle declasse. Even on frothy '70s television, it wasn't considered outrageous that Mr. Roper would refuse to rent an apartment to a (straight) man and two girls; can you imagine that situation on a sitcom today? Mr. Roper would be hauled into court on a discrimination charge faster than you can say "intolerance", and Jack Tripper and the girls, if not actually involved with each other, would be giving us quite a lot of details of their very active sex lives--or else complaining humorously and in detail about how the only sex life they have is with themself.

Nowadays nobody even bothers to be discreet about their promiscuity, much less be chaste. I live in the Bible Belt where we're supposedly more conservative socially, and yet it's nothing any more to hear young coworkers talking about their "booty calls" or hear your cashier casually telling the cashier next to her about how she was having a shower with her boyfriend in their apartment before work, yada yada yada. One of the few things you can bet on not hearing is terms like "shacking up" or "illegitimate"--nobody wants to be so negative as to use terms like that.

And I'm as guilty of it as anybody. Just writing this makes me afraid I sound like a prude and makes me want to add that, "I'm not offended by any of this myself, oh no, it's just that I don't think rampant promiscuity is good for society." I think we could use more people willing to cluck their tongues disapprovingly when promiscuous behavior is mentioned, but I'm not eager to be the one of the first to revive that practice and I'm willing to bet not many conservatives are. It's one thing to say "promiscuity is socially destructive" in an online opinion piece or a church group discussion, but how many are willing to say it to a neighbor or coworker?

***

I wrote the above Sunday night, but have been hesitant to post it. Like many, I don't want to be mistaken for a prude or a puritanical killjoy. Possibly like some others who've only come to realize that promiscuity is a disintegrative force in society relatively late in life and whose pasts were more checkered or even hedonistic than we now know to be good for people, I have a niggling fear of laying myself open to charges of hypocrisy. Like most, I don't want to be viewed as nosy. Like many, I don't want to be seen as advocating social disapproval.

But I am advocating social disapproval. I don't see how conservatives can get around the fact that if we want to decrease the incidence of family-destabilising behaviors, we have to disapprove of those behaviors. Not just in the things we say in internet discussion groups but in the things we say in real life, to our family, friends, and acquaintances. "I love you, but I can't approve of what you're doing." "You're my friend and you're welcome in my house, but I can't allow you to do X in front of my children." "I like him, but I wish he wouldn't behave like that." Things like that can be really uncomfortable to say, but if we never say them, what is the message we send?

I hope it goes without saying that our words then have to be supported by our actions.

Surely This Kind of "Parade" Is Worth More Points Than a Marching Band?

An AP news story from Saturday says 17 counter-demonstrators were arrested before and during a neo-Nazi march through a predominantly black neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. A few points:

* If the marchers really want to encourage white people to unite, as their signs suggest, shouldn't they be marching through predominantly white neighborhoods?

* I don't know about this particular group, but many neo-Nazi and white supremacist types portray themselves as patriotic Americans. If they're such loyal Americans, why do they align themselves with the National Socialists--enemies we fought and defeated, but who claimed many American lives while we were doing it.

* In a time when America faces real enemies around the world, why are these people wasting their time on this crap? If they must hate, why can't they focus it on the people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life?

* According to the article, 14 of the 17 counter-demonstrators arrested were members of out-of-town groups and the marchers were part of a Minneapolis-based group. What were these outsiders doing in Orlando? If Orlando really wants this sort of thing in its city, can't it DIY it?

* The article said police said the arrested faced charges "including disorderly conduct, battery on a law enforcement officer and wearing a mask". I don't know if it's my proximity to America's Mardi Gras Central or if it's my con experiences and enjoyment of live theater, but one of those charges makes no sense to me.

* To paraphrase the Blues Brothers, "I hate Minnesota Nazis." (And Florida ones, and German ones, and Arab ones... :-) Actually I just hate the ideology; the individuals involved are still God's children, of course, and their souls should be prayed for.)

Some of the best news I've heard lately...

A Washington Times article by Scott Galupo asks a question that I've asked myself many times over the past couple of years: where are the movies of heroism related to the War on Terror? This would be good news just because I'm glad someone besides myself is asking the question, but it also relates that Bruce Willis doesn't like the media treatment of the war and is in talks about a movie that will presumably have a more heroic storyline. I can't say I've followed Willis' career with much interest since the early Moonlighting, but I wish him well of this project.

The article does quote Craig Mazin giving a good reason why we haven't seen much in the way of Iraq or Afghanistan movies:

"Hollywood is reasonably cautious when it comes to depicting
any war in progress," Mr. Mazin says. "Doing a movie after a war's conclusion
means that you can frame a narrative safely within the confines of historical
fact and public perception."

I understand and accept this as one reason. There are at least two other good reasons, namely artists' understandable reluctance to compromise their artistic integrity with material that might, without care, stray toward mere propaganda, and (something I hadn't thought of) the military not making it easy for people who are interested in stories of heroism and/or information that might help them depict such stories on screen to find out what they need to know.

I think we all know the main reasons we haven't seen such movies, though. Fashionable lefty attitudes and pacifism (or at least the faux pacifism that condemns all wars that certain countries engage in.) Anti-military feelings. Anti-Americanism and general Western civilizational self-flagellation. And, I think, the attitude of some--too many--contemporary writers and other artists that they are above doing anything that is intended to inspire or comfort ordinary people.

I am not asking for out and out propaganda, especially not anything that demonizes our enemies as less than human. I just want to see some movies with heroes. I'd like one or two of them to be set in Iraq and some to be more general, terrorist-fighting movies. But they don't have to be. Just some movies that portray American military personnel (or soldiers from allied countries) behaving in an heroic way; it could take place in any conflict, even an entirely ficional one, and the characters don't all have to be heroes--just one hero per film with a few reasonably good people in the mix would be great. They don't all have to be--and shouldn't all be--about military people. Moreover they don't really have to be about Americans or anything closely related to contemporary conflicts; I would love to see some heroic, inspiring films set in our past--stories that all of the Anglosphere and Europe could warm to.

You can't tell me that people wouldn't want to see these movies. People have always wanted heroes in their stories; it was true of people sitting around campfires thousands of years ago and it is true of people now. It's why Hector going out to face Achilles still thrills us, why John Wayne movies still have a viewership, why any story with a mother sacrificing for her child or any news item with a man risking his own life to save a stranger touches us. It's why Maximilian Kolbe's story is more affecting than that of some saints--his last sacrifice made him a hero, as well as a saint. It's why the song wasn't called, "I'm Holding Out for an Anti-Hero".

You can't tell me that contemporary people will no longer accept stories with heroes who are in the military. One of the reasons Babylon 5 was so popular (just a decade ago) was that we got to see people being heroic--people, human and alien, making personal sacrifices for the greater good--and some of those people were military.

You can't tell me you can't make a good film that's also patriotic and inspiring. Laurence Olivier's Henry V could well be called propaganda, but it is still worth watching today. Heck, just reading Henry V makes me want to cry out, "God for Harry, England, and St. George!" and I'm not English.

You also can't tell me that it's impossible to make a good film about a war that's still going on. Mrs. Miniver puts the lie to that.

Check-in

The past two or three weeks I've increasingly felt that history is speeding up--you know, having one of those times it occasionally does when events seem to move more quickly than usual, even to cluster. The bombing of the Shiite mosque in Iraq today--not to mention the reprisals--didn't alleviate the feeling any; it made me feel quite sick, in fact, and I'm not even Muslim. The annoying part--other than the fear and sorrow we can feel over the loss of life that turbulent times often bring--is not knowing which of the many things seeming to go wrong are important, knowing that only history will tell that tale or tell if the feeling is even right or not. Hindsight is relatively easy; being in history is confusing. Prayer for those who have more active roles in history-making can sometimes seem a flimsy defense against chaos.

Maybe I just pay too much attention to the news?

One good distraction just started though. NRO started a book blog yesterday to discuss Rod Dreher's newly released book, Crunchy Cons. I forgot to pre-order the book, so I don't have a copy, but the blog is interesting. A little "How should we live?" discussion beats "What the hell is going on out there?" worrying.

More of That "Freedom of Choice" We Hear So Much About

Wal-Mart has chosen not to carry the "morning after pill" in its pharmacies, except in Illinois where it is required to do so by law. Now three women, reportedly backed by abortion rights groups (big surprise), have sued Wal-Mart for not carrying the morning after pill in its Massachusetts stores. They sued on the grounds that state law requires pharmacies to stock all "commonly prescribed medicines", which I believe is the same reason Wal-mart is required to carry it in Illinois--though it remains unclear to me how commonly morning after pills are prescribed and whether megadoses of hormones given to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg really constitutes "medicine". Nevertheless, the Massachusetts pharmacy board has ruled that Wal-Mart must carry the drug. If forcing a business to sell a product it does not want to sell constitutes a blow for freedom, then we may count this as a victory for freedom of choice and assume the Massachusetts pharmacy board is pro-freedom--you might even say pro-choice.

One of the plaintiffs applauded the ruling, because now her patients won't have to "shop around." Yes, heaven forbid that.

NARAL Pro-choice America (formerly the National Abortion Rights Action League), either anticipating this victory or celebrating after it, announced that it would be bombarding Wal-Mart with letters urging it to carry the drug. Well, good for them; all Americans have the right to try to influence a business' decisions by telling it what we, as consumers, want to buy. But it goes further than that. NARAL Pro-choice America's argument, in their petition, is that Wal-Mart has no right not to carry the drug. Wal-Mart's choice not to stock it interferes with a woman's decision to take the drug--or the doctor's decision to prescribe it or--well, it interferes with someone's decision about something. And that interference doesn't promote freedom. Fortunately, if Wal-Mart doesn't change its mind and choose to carry the drug in all states, the lawyer for the Massachusetts women says he is ready to sue in other states. Viva freedom!

I must say I find this all very instructive. I never before knew that if I couldn't find a product I wanted at one store, I could sue to make them carry it. Silly me thought I had to go down the road to a store that did carry that product. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to buy a loop turner for sewing and the Wal-Mart fabric department doesn't carry them, so I foolishly went to Hobby Lobby and bought one. Now I know I can just sue the store to make it carry everything I want so I don't have to shop around.

For instance, I have checked several Wal-Mart stores and two Sam's Clubs in south Mississippi and Louisiana multiple times over the past few years and, as best I can tell, Wal-Mart does not carry Catholic bibles in its stores--no, not even in south Louisiana, which has a high proportion of Catholics. Clearly they are trying to limit my freedom of choice to buy those products. Because Wal-Mart did not carry them, I was forced to shop around for my purchases, and if I want to buy more copies I will be forced to shop around again, rather than enjoying the convenience of buying my Bible at the same time I buy my eggs and toothpaste at the local Supercenter. Or I would have been forced to do so. Now I know I can simply sue them and force them to carry all the products I want.

And now I think about it, why should anyone have to shop around for anything? Everything should be available at Wal-Mart. If my neighbor wants to buy the latest copy of Hustler or Spanking Feminists, why should he have to shop around to find an adult bookstore? Shouldn't he have the right to pick it up as he goes through the Wal-Mart checkout line with his milk and doughnuts next Sunday morning?

I assume NOW will also want to see freedom of choice extended and will be carrying ads for these products in their newsletter. (Yes, they advertise products; I used to get the newsletter.) And feminist bookstores will start carrying Phyllis Schlafly's oevre, lest their customers be forced to shop around for her books. It's all about freedom.

Random Thoughts

***
Am I the only one who looks at the new gaucho pants and thinks of Spock and Kirk's pants from the first Star Trek?

***

People--okay, women--often complain about the unending nature of housework, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about the unending nature of shopping. No sooner do you do a big grocery shopping expedition, than you discover you're low on soy sauce and have to start the list for the next grocery trip; no sooner do you replace the flourescent bulb in the kitchen than you break your butter dish lid and have to buy a new one. It's just as bad as the dishes you do today only to have to do again tomorrow, yet we have more tolerance for it.

***

One of life's largely unsung pleasures is the pleasure of challenging other people's assumptions. The only thing I miss about vegetarianism was the kick I got out of being able to point out to people who knew I was a vegetarian that I approved of hunting.

***

If you find yourself having a conversation about the relative merits of duct tape and electrical tape to hold your breasts up when wearing outfits that are too revealing for a bra, it may be time to reconsider your clothing choices.

***

If animals are really, as the bumpersticker has it, "little people in fur coats", shouldn't PETA throw red paint on them?

***

Why, when the food associated with southern Louisiana is so good and when New Orleans Mardi Gras is (or was?) such a big thing, is the dessert associated with Mardi Gras in Louisisana so bad? Admittedly I've never had King Cake in New Orleans itself, but I've had some that are supposed to be good and as pastries go they were pretty mediocre; most of the ones I've tasted didn't quite make it to mediocre.

***

Young Adult novels are just the right length for making into movies. With ordinary, for grown-ups novels, a lot has to be cut out, both because there may be a lot of subtle, interior stuff that is hard even for good actors to depict and because of length. But a YA novel or a children's novel--some people call them "chapter books", I believe--can be put on the screen with little or nothing cut out. There should be more films made from good YA novels.

***

As any haiku fan can tell you, a very few words can say a lot. One of the posters from the recent Muslim demonstrations says volumes: "FREEDOM GO TO HELL". Mind you, another calling for the beheading of all who "insult" Islam was also succinct, but it just couldn't beat the pithiness of that four word summation of Islamofascist thought--"FREEDOM GO TO HELL".

Pharmacies Should Carry Mental Purgatives

It's amazing the amount of mental junk that we carry around. For example, for years part of my brain has been working on the question of why the Figurines commercial had the woman singing, "I love how I look in my gabardines, so I keep myself fit with Figurines." Well, it rhymes of course, but those were '70s style gauchos, and I never heard them called gabardines and who would call them that--no one says, "I love how I look in my twills/crinkle cottons/houndstooths"--so why have it? Would the audience even know what "gabardines" was supposed to refer to if she weren't kicking up her legs as she sang? Or am I just a non-sophisticate who never knew that all the cool people used to call their gauchos gabardines?

I think the part of my mind that keeps worrying over this ancient commercial is the part that should have been trying to get me into MIT. Or at least keep track whether I need to buy more postage stamps or not.

I also wonder if this is something that has only started happening since the advent of mass media, or if ancient Romans used to find themselves unable to enjoy the latest gladiator spectacle because their mind was insisting on going over the odd word choice in that play they saw twenty-five years ago.