Archives for August 2006

When my brother and I were little my brother was given one of those toys that safety regulations have relegated to the Antiques Shows of history: a splendid set of carpenters’ tools – real tools, only in 1:2 scale – in a wood case. Among the tools included were a real hammer, chisel and a small wood saw. (In case you’re wondering, we thrived and our fingers and toes remained intact, thank you). We used to live in a house with a front porch, and a few steps bordered by a ledge where Mom planted some flowers, that faced the front lawn.

One day I was playing in the front yard while my brother, who at the time was not old enough to go to school yet, was in the porch sawing a small wood board with his new saw. All of a sudden I tripped, fell down, and busted my upper lip and scraped my face and arm on the ledge. My brother witnessed the whole thing. He got my mom, who immediately got me in the house and summoned iodine, band-aids, ice pack, and comfort. After I stopped crying my mother heard a banging noise coming from the porch. Alarmed (the tool set wasn’t exactly her idea), she ran to the porch and found my brother banging the ledge with his hammer.
She asked him, “Why are you doing that?”
and he replied, “Because it hurt my sister.”

I remembered that incident yesterday when I read The Anchoress’ post Affection for the protector lads and He-men:

in thinking about this 25 year old picture, and men in general, I realized we don’t think of men as “protectors” any more

Men like my brother are born protectors.

The Anchoress’ son Buster, who concurs with my post on men, has been watching TV and

Much of pop culture causes him to get aggrivated, these days, but nothing does so more than the way men are served up to the national psyche by Madison Avenue.

Anyone who’s read a story knows that adversary relationships further the plot, and that sex sells. That’s why we’re still paying good money to go to Shakespeare comedies like Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, whose plots go like:

antagonism -> sexual attraction -> surrender.Hardly surprising, then, that Madison Avenue and everyone flogging a script injects the first two every time they get a chance. Not being Shakespeare, they tend to omit the third, the result being that we, the public, are bombarded with little (ads) and big (movies, plays, soaps) stories portraying relations between men and women as inherently adversarial.

The ‘women are inherently better than men’ meme gets a lot of mileage because/from that. In either case, the message is that men are wrong in being what they can not help but be: being men.

The Anchoress remarks,

It’s a shame that our society seems interested only in the softer, more feminine sides of a man, or in making a man into a buffoon.

As I was saying the other day, men are not hirsute women with different plumbing. Additionally, men are not bufoons and will resent you and avoid you if that’s what you believe.

Men want to protect women.

Be glad they do.

The Anchoress, whose two sons are definitely protectors, says,

As capable as I am, I am happy to know that I am under their protection, and their father’s.

Amen to that.

My brother and I by the guilty ledge.

Update, Monday, August 28: Visit man-o-pause, “Providing Midlife Men a Place to Breathe”.

Update, Saturday September 9 In honor of three protectors

(technorati tags women, men, relationships)

As Barcepundit said, “Another piece of propaganda that would have worked perfectly if it weren’t that the traditional media no longer monopolizes access to information”: The Red Cross Ambulance Incident: How the Media Legitimized an Anti-Israel Hoax and Changed the Course of a War

Today’s articles from Maria
Arabs’ last chance
REVIVING OUR ‘THIRST FOR BLOOD’

Germans, Spared Until Now, Awaken to Reality of Terror Threat. Spared? What about Munich, 1972?

Time with your kids – the music of life

Dr. Sowell writes on The left and crime (part 1) part 2

More articles later.
Tony Blankley’s asking Are Bush’s critics right?

Intellectually curious George

The pedophile next door

Why the world hates America

A link to the INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES website.

Sigmund Carl and Alfred points the way to The new group therapy for the American male: Lawn Chair Drill Team

Fist Saint Christopher, now Pluto (hat tip Daniel

(with apologies to those who hate aliteration)

Hugo’s on schedule trying to buy Venezuela a seat in the UN Security Council (yet another reason to shut down the UN), and is now visiting China:

Chavez arrived in the Chinese capital on Wednesday with plans to sign agreements to boost China’s investment in oil-rich Venezuela with joint projects in petroleum, telecommunications, farming and railways.

He also proposed an ambitious target plan under which Venezuela — the world’s No. 5 oil exporter — will almost quadruple its sales to China, which wants access to Latin American energy supplies to fuel its booming economy.

At the same time that a Chinese newspaper notes mistrust of the Chavez visit, Chile continues on the path to prosperity by signing free-trade pacts not only with the US, but also with China.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela Accompanied by a donkey, a popular Venezuela comedian on Wednesday signed up as a candidate to challenge Hugo Chavez in presidential elections, and addiitonally, there appears to be a serious candidate for the opposition.

The campaign season promises to be interesting: Venezuela News and Views posts on a chavista coming out of the fascist closet.

(technorati tags Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, China, Chile)

SPOILER ALERT
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest: Must see!
Johnny Depp is outrageously funny, and, while the movie is a little too long (whatever happened to the 1 1/2 hr action/comedy movie?) there are laughs and thrills aplenty. The cannibals’ island got so much stuff you almost expect King Kong’s dinosaurs to burst into the screen. The only minus is that this is the second part of a trilogy. The plus is that Keith Richards will be playing Jack Sparrow’s dad in the third part, and it makes you want to go back for more.

Funniest sequence: Jack Sparrow’s shishkebbab’s drop down the cliff. Wilie Coyote would be envious.

Funniest line: “*Alas*, my children! This is the day you shall always remember as the day that you almost… {{{SPLASH}}} …Captain Jack Sparrow.”

Warning: There are shiploads of really scary monsters so real-little kids might not want to stay in the theater. Two little kids (twins?) had panic attack and beat a path to the door while we were there.

—————————-
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Funny, but not because of Ricky Bobby who’s too tiresome and obnoxious. NASCAR racing looks like fun if it didn’t involve having to watch for hours to no end when you’re at the actual racetrack.

Sasha Barron Cohen, however, steals the show as Jean Claude Girard (pronouncing his name to sound a lot like Jean Claude CHIRAC), a “formoola EHN” French driver who rides his way to the top of the NASCAR tour in a Perrier car.

Biggest surprise: Gary Cole’s (Ricky Bobby’s dad) lost a lot of weight.

Funniest line: “You taste like America!”

Warning: Coarse language coming from smart-aleck obnoxious kids, and from grownups, too. Sexual situations, too.

—————————-Scoop: Up to you.

Woody Allen has been beating us with the same shtick for nearly five decades now, and, after a series of thuddingly dull movies where he miserably attempted to be Ingmar Bergman, he’s back to trying to be entertaining. The plot is not surprising, but at least follows a five characters-three acts format.

Minus: Lots of Woody on screen doing his usual.
Plus: When Hugh Jackman’s on screen, you don’t notice Woody. Or nothing much else.
Added pluses: Charles Dance, and Mr. Swearengen himself, Ian McShane, when Hugh’s not on screen.

Plus: Scarlett Johansson.
Minus: Scarlett Johansson wearing clothes that came from What Not To Wear rejects, and sounding like Judy Julie Kavner.

Minus: Lame plot.
Plus: Lots of really nice real estate, and London locations.

Warning: A chick flick in whoddunit clothing. Bring a woman friend and discuss Peter Lyman as a prospective mate.

(technorati tags movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Scoop)

At the blogs
Dan Riehl has the story on Hezbollah And Counterfeiting

Remember the political cosmetics? Well, Conservative women are consumers, too, and The Cotillion is on a roll.

Right Wing Sparkle‘s first vlog!

ACLU To Defend War Desserter, Lt. Ehren Watada
Judge Taylor Who Struck Down Wiretap Case Accused Of Conflict Of Interest

This probably means I better celebrate my birthday a day or two early.

The National Review, promoting free trade?
We live in the age of miracles indeed: The awful effects of American protectionism.
The End of Free Trade

Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart

Today’s articles from Maria
Point of no return?

Even ruthless conquerors of the past, from Genghis Khan to Adolf Hitler, wanted some tangible gains for themselves or their nations — land, wealth, dominion. What Middle East fanatics want is the destruction and humiliation of the west.

Read it all.

It isn’t fanaticism, it’s evil

Hizbullah: Zionist regime will be destroyed

A War of Images

War protest growing. IDF reserve soldiers, bereaved families want political, military leaders to resign in wake of war

Lebanon warns missile attacks on Israel will be seen as collaboration with enemy

Bush: ‘Urgent’ need for Lebanon security force

Letters to the Editor: REFUSING TO PROFILE MEANS ‘DEATH BY PC’

Many Lebanese fear next conflict will be with Hezbollah

Heavenly dog: Jazz funeral for pets lost to Katrina

A boy genius who played his numbers just right
Maths geniuses sum up the odd

Ozone hole stable, say scientists
Leading scientists in the United States say the hole in the ozone layer of the Earth’s atmosphere above the Antarctic appears to have stopped widening. I’m glad to hear that my former co-worker Juan’s overuse of hairspray didn’t have a lasting effect.

China pours £70bn into rescuing its water supply

NEW WRINKLE IN SUNSCREEN

Don’t Believe That Lying Telephone

Via Jay, There Is No Right To Aid Terrorists

Sunday I was saying that, if it’s Scotch, it’s whisky. I sent the Public Editor of the NYT an email saying exactly that.

Here’s their reply,

To: “Fausta”
Subject: 8/21 OPE Response Re: Venezuelas Cup Runs Over, and the Scotch Whiskey Flows
From: “Public/NYT/NYTIMES”Alert
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:44:54 -0400

Dear Fausta Wertz,

Thanks for writing. I thought you might like to see the paper’s stylebook entry on “whiskey”:

whiskey(s). The general term covers bourbon, rye, Scotch and other liquors distilled from a mash of grain. For consistency, use this spelling even for liquors (typically Scotch) labeled whisky. Also see alcoholic beverages.

Sincerely,
Joe Plambeck
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

Note: The public editor’s opinions are his own and do not represent those of The New York Times.

Wait until the Scots hear that one.

(technorati tags whisky, Scotch)

Back when I was pregnant years ago I watched a movie on TV, Miracle in Rome, based on a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which had the theme that children are the salvation of their parents. I haven’t watched it again, but the movie left a deep impression, particularly because of the timing.

Children are the salvation of their parents. Frequently we don’t realize this, but it is true.

That is why every day millions of parents around the world work three jobs to send their kids to good schools, mortgage their houses to meet college tuition fees, donate blood and kidneys and blood marrow so their children can survive, stay awake at night taking care of sick kids, and do the millions of tasks that parents willingly do. Any good parent gives their life for their child: as Father Paul Nellis explains,

people like those we all know, people living good lives by doing the little things day after day that good people do: Loving your spouse, trying to be a good parent, doing your duty. We are surrounded by such people but tend to take them for granted. Often, they’re no further away from us than the next room.

And yet we find parents who have completely abrogated their responsibilities: Yesterday Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred mentioned this post The Academy Awards, Pan-Sexuality, Narcissism, & Loneliness, which refers to The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School. Few things leave me speechless, but that article did.

A “cuddle puddle” represents a total failure of all the adults that those children interact with on a regular basis. Each and every adult who cares for those kids has failed as a person.

Why?

A “cuddle puddle”, which NY Mag describes as the “social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metroflexible”, i.e., “cool”, kids, is this:

Alair is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends gather every day during their free tenth period for the “cuddle puddle,” as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys. She dives into the undulating heap of backpacks and blue jeans and emerges between her two best friends, Jane and Elle, whose names have been changed at their request. They are all 16, juniors at Stuyvesant. Alair slips into Jane’s lap, and Elle reclines next to them, watching, cat-eyed. All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys – sometimes the same boys. But it’s not that they’re gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always.

Never mind whether they are gay or bisexual. The entire thing is wrong in every way. What about VD? statutory rape laws? Will the “puddle” stop with the first lawsuit?
What’s the difference between that and an orgy? that you go to class afterwards? or doesn’t anyone care? ShrinkWrapped asks,

The article includes all the usual points: These are a small group of kids, many from broken homes, with exaggerated notions of teen angst, pushing the limits; they are closer to the “cool” kids than the nerds; their parents don’t understand them or feel they can control them; worse, some parents condone their behavior because they are ex-Hippies themselves, free spirits who would not want to impose their old fashioned notions of morality on their kids. One marvels at this. Isn’t transmitting notions of moral behavior one of the essential jobs of parents?

Yes, it most certainly is. The ex-Hippies and free spirits, who can not impose “old fashioned notions” on their children are all-accepting; all-accepting of practices that can kill the soul. They, in their all-acceptance of anything but moral behavior, have negated the values of a free society. But they are not alone.

There’s the acceptance in the Western World, in the name of multiculturalism and who knows what else, of societies that indulge into what for most of us is inherently revolting, aberrant degeneracy: the weaponization of children. Children suicide bombers, children witnessing public acts of unspeakable barbarity, children used as shields during gun battles, and the corpses of handicapped children (link in French) used as (warning: graphic images) death porn in a propaganda war.

Only a monster could conceivably do that; only people with a broken moral compass would support those like her. I, like Dr. Sanity, ask,

Why did we sit by and do nothing as this evil that lies like a malignant shadow across the face of the world slowly spread?

As Siggy said, the value system of a free society is much different than the value system of a society that is not free.

Gagdad Bob explains,

At bottom, what the [6th] commandment is emphasizing is that life is sacred – it is of infinite value; therefore, do everything you can to honor and protect it. Clearly, not all cultures do so. Some, as in so much of the Muslim world, worship death, not life. And this inversion is reflected throughout these sick cultures, in that they are “fruitless.” That is, they produce nothing but misery, both to themselves and to others. They produce nothing for the body, i.e., no medicines, no new ways to produce food; they produce nothing for the mind, i.e., no science, no translations of books, no freedom of inquiry; and they produce nothing for the spirit, i.e., only the spiritual shackles of their medieval death cult.

Most soul murders are undoubtedly committed by those who are already so spiritually damaged as to be functionally dead. These undead souls such as a Nasrallah, an Arafat, or an Amahdinejad, speak to us from “the other side,” from the shadow world that is created when the soul has been so damaged that it essentially exits the body, leaving only a human animal in its place. But other demonic energies rush in to fill the void, so that the individual becomes a sort of “antihuman.” At their core, they are filled with unbearable envy toward the living, and the only way they can assuage this envy is to kill and kill plentifully. Life is a reminder of their own walking death, hence, “death to Israel,” that primordial symbol of life: l’chaim.

The undead also cannot help converting their children to their way of non-being. In ways both subtle and profound, they will interact with their children in a pathological manner, causing the children to internalize the same virus that afflicts their parents. Regardless, the virus always goes by the name of “love,” which simply further confuses the child. In the end, they will not be able to distinguish the difference between love and hate or truth and lies, any more than they can distinguish between life and death.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred (emphasis added):

When we are in a family unit or a community that negates our ‘humaness’ and capacity to grow and reach ever higher, we negate the value of family unit and community, because we negate the value and potential of the individual. If a community cannot value it’s own children, it should come as no surprise that that community will not value the life of others.

One cannot experience the inner peace of real faith in God if one is consumed by hatred of others. Those who claim God is merciful and all powerful, and at the same time, call out for and participate in mayhem and destruction in His name, have been cheated. They know nothing of God, even as understood in their own faith. They are caught in a vortex of denial they have created for themselves and they have painted themselves into a corner, from which most are unlikely to emerge. They cannot conceded the truth that is readily apparent to everyone- in attempting to define and distinguish themselves, they rejected the values of life and embraced the values of death.

Now, they have no where to go. They are indeed, dead souls.

Dead souls who have sacrificed the only thing that could save them: their own children.

Update: Please vote for this article at Real Clear Politics
and don’t forget to visit The Cotillion, where it’s also cross-posted.

(technorati tags children, Parenting, Politics, Society)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a shrink, and (as I’m sure that regular visitors to this blog have noticed) I’m not a deep thinker. The following post is only my personal observations over an issue that’s come up recently. Take it with a grain of salt.

In yesterday’s post I said

I’ve felt for a long time that women have easier lives than men. Being a man in today’s world strikes me as a most difficult position

A friend wrote asking for clarification of both points.

The main reason I believe that women have easier lives than men is that I’ve had an easier life as a woman than my brother has had as a man. I can not, and will not, go into details, so you’ll just have to take my word on this. However, I have a hypothesis on why men’s lives are more difficult nowadays

There are three main trends why being a man in today’s world strikes me as a most difficult position:

1. The Church of Oprah
2. Sex and the City
3. Teen girl media

The Church of Oprah
One of the central tenets of the Church of Oprah is that women are inherently better than men. A corollary of that is that women are more nurturing than men.

This point of view has been erroneously based on the fact that men are not women.

While the women’s movement might want to believe that men are hirsute women with different plumbing, they are mistaken. No matter how they cut it, one fact remains

Men are not women, and women are not men.

That doesn’t mean they have nothing in common, either. A former Oprah protege has made piles of money – has actually created an industry – out of the premise “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” (if you want to look it up, knock yourself out, I’m not linking to it). Nonsense. Women and men are made of the same clay. Just because men are not women doesn’t mean they come from another planet.

Jeff Foxworthy has said “Men are simple creatures. They want a beer, and they want to see something naked” which, if you ask the average Joe, is true. Let’s divide Jeff’s statement in two parts and see what this means, in Oprahspeak:
a. “they want a beer“: men don’t like to talk about their feelings. In fact, the more you insist that a man discuss his feelings at length, the more he will resent you. Since the Church of Oprah is based on confessional feelings, this invariably leads to problems among its adherents. Rather than fill six verbal pages of conversation about his feelings, a man will rather sit down, have a beer and enjoy a moment of emotional peace and quiet. That’s what Jeff means by “they want a beer”.

b. “they want to see something naked“: they do because it’s in their wiring. As Ron White put it, “once you’ve seen a naked woman, you want to see them all.”
Men and women have been having sex with each other without love for as long as there’ve been men and women. However, while I have known two severely emotionally damaged women who truly loved men and not desire them, I’ve never even heard of a man who did not desire the woman he loved. A man may not love a woman he desires, but a man can not not desire a woman he loves. That’s just the way it works.
(see also this gentleman’s comment)

Let’s look at ‘women are inherently better than men’. If you believe that, you are WRONG. Virtue and character are inherent on each person, and gonads do not determine either; never have, never will.

Similarly, women are not more nurturing than men. Men don’t want to talk about being supportive and loving but they are.

For every manipulative and abusive man, there is an equally manipulative and abusive woman. The form of the manipulation and abuse may vary between the genders, but neither gender has the exclusive on that. Having attended an all-girls’ school for eleven years, I’ll dare say that women can be much more worse (pardon the grammar) at both manipulation and emotional abuse, and many indeed are.

Additionally, many many women believe that men can’t feel as deeply as women, since men generally don’t verbalize hurt, grief, and despair (and I’d even say that the more deeply they feel those, the less they can verbalize them). Again, that is incorrect. Gonads do not determine the quality of a soul. Compounding the impression that many women have about men’s feelings is the fact that many men can only express the depth of their despair through violent means (and I’m most certainly not justifying the violence, which is wrong no matter what), which in turn becomes more fodder for the daily installment of the Church of Oprah.

So we have a whole industry (network and cable TV, magazine, books, seminars) propagating the idea that women are inherently better than men. That’s factor #1.

Sex and the City
Factor #2 is what I call the Sex and the City syndrome: the assumption that the only reason for men’s existence is to pleasure women. The 4 women in S&TC certainly spend most of their air time using men (I did a related post a while ago) for that purpose and that purpose only. And in real life, too, there are many such women, probably a lot more now than there were a generation or two ago.

The end result is that many women nowadays won’t want to find intimacy. No matter how great a guy is, if he comes across a woman who will not want intimacy – no matter how great the sex – that relationship can not progress beyond that. A man who wants commitment and yearns for a reciprocal relationship will be setting himself up for hurt and disappointment if he thinks he can survive in a relationship with a woman who will not surrender herself to his love, or, equally as damaging, if he can not recognize that she is incapable. That’s factor #2.

Teen girl media
Factor #3 I just noticed recently, and is related to factor #2.

The salon where I get my manicure used to carry the usual women’s magazines, such as Vogue and Good Housekeeping, but in the past few months they’ve had a large number of teen girls’ magazines, among them Seventeen, and magazines supposedly marketed to young adult women, such as Glamour, Jane and Cosmopolitan. Since I’m well past their demographic and there are no teen girls in my home, I hadn’t read any of those for literally decades.

I was in for a huge surprise.

Seventeen gives a lot of sex advice, not just on birth control, but on how. Glamour, Jane, and Cosmo might be marketed to women in their early twenties but I assure you that when I was 12 years old (way before Jane was concieved) I was reading my neighbor’s older sisters’ Cosmos at their house. In a recent issue of Jane, for instance, there was clear and explicit advise on how to perform oral sex, and how and where to have sex in public. The subject of the articles is not much different from what Gerard Van der Leun was editing back when he worked for Penthouse.

If you believe I exaggerate, read what (according to the NYT article The Taming of the Slur) Atoosa Rubenstein, editor of Seventeen magazine, has to say:

“Today, ‘slut,’ even ‘ho’ – girls use it in a fun way, a positive way,” said Atoosa Rubenstein, the editor in chief of Seventeen magazine, adding that a phrase such as “you little slut” has become a way for girlfriends to bust each other’s chops.

As Betsy Newmark asked,

Does this strike anyone else as really a sick sign of where we are in our society?

The net result, as The Anchoress points out, is that many young men are finding

that intimacy has been defined downward, especially for our young girls, to mean little more than a “hook-up.” This is something Buster talks to me about. Children, but especially girls, are being sexualized at ever-earlier ages. The sexual messages begin very young in television commercials and on the clothes-store racks, and most of Buster’s generation grew up watching Friends and Sex in the City and thinking that this was what life was: a series of sexual encounters with no emotional attachments, no repercussions, no pain, no loss of oneself.

Sexualized early, many girls are either overly jaded or mistrustful and remote. Buster says a troubling number of girls his age are sexually hyper-active, but unhappy and lonely – they cannot make good, healthy connections with respectable young men, because they don’t “get” the guys who open car doors for them and who look for a relationship to be about more than a “hook-up” or perfunctory oral sex. (A romance recently busted up because Buster wanted a real relationship, and the girl, a nice-enough kid, simply did not know what that meant!)

In conclusion, if these three factors don’t make men’s lives more complicated than they already are, I don’t know what would.

I’m opening comments on this post, for the first time in several months.

Postscript: A note to V.:
If you are reading this, here’s what I have to say:
Anyone that calls you at work to break up with you not only doesn’t deserve you, but is a bad person. Character is everything and that person has proved to be bad.
The pain that you postpone by getting back together will only be a down payment on the pain you’ll be feeling years down the line. As your dad said, you’re setting yourself up for an encore.

Update Maxed-Out Mama:

by banishing the word “virtue” from our publicly acceptable vocabulary we women have rendered ourselves incapable of recognizing virtue in a man

Read every word.

Related post: My brother and The Anchoress

(technorati tags women, men, Oprah, Sex, relationships, Sex and the City, Ron White, Jeff Foxworthy)