Thursday, September 30, 2004
Planned Parenthood Says Pet 'Em While They're Young
"Our hearts are restless until they rest in You."—St. Augustine
"We are sexual from birth, and sexual expression is a basic human need throughout our lives."—Planned Parenthood
That second quote, with its creepy linguistic symmetry, begins Planned Parenthood's "White Paper" on "Adolescent Sexuality."
It goes on to say, "The initiation of sexual intercourse during adolescence is a recognized pattern of behavior in the U.S. (Singh & Darroch, 1999),"
—This is known as the "everybody's doing it," or "50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong," school of psychology—
"—and by no means a recent one—premarital intercourse among young people, including many adolescents, was common well before World War II (Laumann et al., 1994)."
Ah, birds did it, bees did it, Grandma when she was as tall as your knees did it. But, several more paragraphs into the report, some sort of switch goes off in PP's anonymous author and the organization's real agenda emerges (emphasis theirs):
"One of the most misguided and destructive messages that endangers adolescent health and life during this age of AIDS emanates from a vocal minority bent on suppressing or willfully ignoring the truth about sexual activity among adolescents in America. Under the guise of protecting our youth they declare, inaccurately, that premarital sex among adolescents is a relatively new and corrupt social phenomenon. They are not content to teach the benefits of delaying intercourse as one element of reasonable, responsible, and medically accurate sexuality education curricula. They say that society should tolerate no sexual activity among adolescents."
Oh my. This is terrible. Some people are criticizing teen sex under the misapprehension that it is a "new" phenomenon. Clearly, these people have never seen "A Summer Place."
Seriously, I agree with Planned Parenthood that if a behavior has been sanctioned by American society from the nation's birth through the present day, then, with rare exceptions, it shouldn't be changed. So thank you, Planned Parenthood, for finally articulating the argument for preserving traditional marriage.
Except that that's not what they're setting out to do here. No, this is the heart of their message (in their own cloying bold type again):
"We believe that those who seek to legislate or otherwise compel abstinence-only sexuality education, and who uniformly condemn, on so-called 'moral; grounds, all adolescent sexual activity—and, indeed, any non-marital, non-procreative sexual activity at any age—have ceded the moral ground by denying the realities of adolescent development, basic human needs and behavior, and healthy sexual expression."
Note that little aside about "indeed, any non-marital, non-procreative sexual activity at any age."
At any age? At age 4? With an adult?
Planned Parenthood's author doesn't say. It just leaves the suggestion dangling and blabbers on about opponents' "ahistorical, fear-ridden, repressive approach."
Well, I oppose Planned Parenthood, and my approach may indeed be ahistorical, fear-ridden, and repressive. But at least I'm not taking a quarter-billion a year in taxpayer money, telling people to go have "non-marital, non-procreative sexual activity at any age," and then walking the talk by failing to report cases of statutory rape.
I'm also not killing hundreds of thousands of children a year. But you knew that.
TRACKBACK: The Curt Jester describes, from personal experience, the effects of growing up in what Planned Parenthood would describe as an ideal household.
2:57 AM
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American Life League's Jim Sedlak has a good op-ed, fisking a self-congratulatory one by a Planned Parenthood director.
2:42 AM
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Joel Helbling has written a chilling description of a documentary that givesa look inside North Korea.
1:57 AM
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Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I Won't Take Man-Hatin'
On my way home from the late shift early this morning, I thought about the irony of my criticizing "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell's rant over "how horrible the men are in New York."
If anyone should be whining about the deficiencies of Gotham manhood, it's me. In the past month, one love interest suddenly froze me out with no explanation; another revealed that he broke up with his last girlfriend because he has no interest in marriage; and a third admitted he'd been misleading me for months in a way that could have caused one or both of us to break a commandment.
And these were all Christian men, mind you. I thought I was safe.
It's times like this that Bible verses like Psalm 118:8—"It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man"—jump out as if to sneer, "Nyaaaah!" I read my Bible every day and I still can't escape the fallibility of being human, of trying to put myself out there and take risks in hope of partaking in God's blessings.
But even with all the tsuris that Manhattan men bring, I can't bring myself to side with the Candace Bushnells of the world. Those cynical women bring their trouble upon themselves by seeking out superficial, egotistical, soulless men. All you have to do is watch Bushnell's images of ideal women on "Sex and the City" to know that like attracts like. Catty, materialistic, self-obsessed chicks get the men they deserve.
So am I getting what I deserve?
I don't think so. But these days (as opposed to the many years when I worked hard at being a self-obsessed chick), it's neither my fault, nor the fault of New York men.
It's true that New York men in general are much harder to deal with in dating situations than non-New Yorkers, because being around the city's notoriously aggressive women trains them to be passive. Likewise, the sheer number of available women in the city and the sex-obsessed singles culture prompts many men to resist committed relationships.
But despite all that, people do get married in this city. I've witnessed it. And some of those city men are great husbands—I've seen that too. So one can't, and shouldn't, generalize against New York men—unless one wants to further reduce one's chances by setting up a hard and cynical front.
Regardless of the reception I get from men in New York or anywhere else, I will continue to believe in the possibility of my meeting my future husband, because I believe that my husband will be a unique man. If this were a sixth-grade essay, I would add, "a truly unique man." Unique, as in, no one else like him in the world.
Would my life be easier if all the men who have no intention of being my husband, or who do not measure up for the task, would stop playing their stupid Big Apple love games and just part like the Red Sea to let my man through? Absolutely. But if they don't, it doesn't make them all "horrible," Ms. Bushnell. It just makes them human.
1:21 AM
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Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Lashings of Whipsnade
Technoptmist Duncan Frissell offers the reminder that "today is the 73rd anniversary of C.S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity." I liked the reminder of the role that a zoo with the marvelously Harry Potter-like name of Whipsnade played in the story.
Duncan also writes to recommend a few Canadian Anglican sites in addition to my favorite, Classical Anglican Net News. Some of these are not of interest to me, as I'm not an Anglo-Catholic, but I'd nonetheless like to support those working to preserve orthodoxy in a church that is currently undergoing great strife:
7:10 PM
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Is Pro-Choice Always Pro-Abortion?
National Review Online writer Shannen Coffin has a powerfully articulated response to the question in the site's letters column (scroll down to "Shannen Coffin responds").
Among his observations: "What is the 'choice' you are supporting? It is not the choice between whether to have a light beer or a more full-bodied beer, between vacationing in Maui or driving the family to Wally World in the Griswold family truckster."
Thanks to Brett of the very funny Saint Kansas for the heads-up.
2:39 PM
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More great stuff from The Penitent Blogger, on her recent move towards the right: "I now find the people who work at the health food store to be unhygienic annoyances, and I'm beginning to find Bill O'Reilly attractive. Frightening but true."
3:49 AM
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What a Piece of Work Is 'Pan'
I just finished rereading J.M. Barrie's play "Peter Pan," one of my all-time favorite works of literature. It came before the book, Peter and Wendy, which is also a wonderful read.
"Peter Pan" is terrifically rich—at once feather-light, and dense with layers of meaning. It's also criminally underrated—one of the most influential plays of the 20th century, yet reviled by contemporary critics as a crowd-pleasing children's work. A friend of mine who's writing a history of the century's plays told me, over my vocal protests, that he plans to ignore it entirely. I'm convinced that those who would dismiss "Peter Pan" have never read it.
Here, in ascending order, are my top five favorite bits of dialogue from the play, starting with an exchange between two Lost Boys:
5. CURLY: Let us carry her down into the house.
SLIGHTLY: Ay, that is what one does with ladies.
4. WENDY: Oh, Peter, how I wish I could take you up and squdge you! [He draws back] Yes, I know.
3. WENDY [knowing she ought not to probe but driven by something within]: What are your exact feelings for me, Peter?
PETER [in the class-room]: Those of a devoted son, Wendy.
WENDY [turning away]: I thought so.
PETER: You are so puzzling. Tiger Lily is just the same; there is something or other she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.
2. HOOK: Most of all I want their captain, Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm. I have waited long to shake his hand with this. [Luxuriating] Oh, I'll tear him!
SMEE [always ready for a chat]: Yet I have oft heard you say your hook was worth a score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.
HOOK: If I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this instead of that.
...And my Number One favorite "Peter Pan" quote, from a Lost Boy (which would be tragic, except that Wendy turns out to be unharmed)—
1. TOOTLES [gulping]: I did it. When ladies used to come to me in dreams I said 'Pretty mother,' but when she really came I shot her!
2:51 AM
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Monday, September 27, 2004
From Degenerate to Regenerate
In the beginning, God created a girl. Despite her tendency toward selfishness, stubborness and arrogance, God loved the girl and granted her the gifts of beauty, intelligence, compassion, and discernment. In order that she might learn and grow, He placed her in a particularly challenging environment—peopled with particularly challenging individuals. He gave her many signs to help her along her way, but He also allowed her the exercise of free will, through which she proceeded to ignore both her God-given talents and all lessons learned and dug deeper and deeper holes in which she helplessly flailed about. Graciously, He allowed her to survive to adulthood without doing any irreparable damage to either herself or others. She then began to dig herself out of the mire. And so begins "Genesis," an entry by a remarkable new cybercitizen with a beautifully laid-out page, The Penitent Blogger.
I don't know who she is, but you can tell from the rest of her journey that she's not me. Her "About" section states that she has been led from uneasy Roman Catholicism to even uneasier Episcopalianism (where she realized "she could neither confess to, nor receive Communion from, a priest who considered her manifold sins "relative"). She is now "is now happily ensconced in a small but devout continuing Anglican church"—which, for readers who think Episcopalianism and Anglicanism the same thing, refers to the orthodox Anglicanism practiced by groups such as Canada's Classical Anglicans.
But the most important thing is that, as the Penitent Blogger says, she's "grown from an emotionally wounded, resentful libertine into an unwavering believer in the redemption of mankind through God and Christ." With such a wide perspective and depth of feeling, as well as a clear and cutting writing style, I suspect the Penitent Blogger has more insightful and inspirational entries on tap.
7:02 PM
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Iron Horseplay
Oh, now, this is just too much.
Some brilliant soul has invented a "Train Spotting Simulator."
Please note that this is work-safe only if you don't mind your co-workers seeing you convulse in helpless laughter for no apparent reason.
Special thanks to Otto-da-Fe for taking his eyes off "The Prisoner" long enough to tell the world about this new cybertreasure.
4:15 PM
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Take Two and Call Me in the Mourning
The Associated Press reports on what is becoming a familiar story—a pharmacist following his conscience: LACONIA, NH -- When Suzanne Richards went to a drive-through Brooks pharmacy on a recent Saturday night, an assistant told her the pharmacist could not fill her prescription for the morning-after pill.
When Richards told the assistant she had gotten the prescription filled at there before, pharmacist Todd Sklencar came to the window and told her he was morally opposed to prescribing something that could end a life, Richards said.
Sklencar then told her to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy.
"He said something like, 'I believe this will end the fertilization of the egg and this conception was your choice," Richards told Foster's Sunday Citizen....
"He said I was irresponsible. Well, I think it's irresponsible to have kids you can't take care of and raise," said Richards, a 21-year-old single mother. There's no question that, if Sklencar really did tell Richards she was "irresponsible," he was rude. He could have exercised his conscience without passing judgment upon her.
But since Richards repeats the charge—and adds words in her own defense—it's valid to ask, is she irresponsible?
She's "a 21-year-old single mother" who's fornicating with a man who's not her husband. How does that benefit her kid? How does that benefit her? And then, on top of that, she wants to murder the life that's growing inside her—and is so unashamed of her desire to do so that she reports her thwarted efforts to the press.
Clearly, this woman has a number of emotional and spiritual problems. Ideally those problems should be met by a loving family, loving friends, and the fellowship of a loving congregation—as well as social services to help her cope with single motherhood.
But when Suzanne Richards entered Todd Sklencar's pharmacy and asked for a pill to kill the new life within her, Sklencar couldn't give her the love that she needed. His limited professional power, and his lack of personal friendship with her, meant that there was only one thing he could do to stop her from falling into an even deeper spiritual chasm.
All Richards's life, she had been told, "Yes." She was told "yes" when she wanted to have sex outside of marriage. She was told "yes" when she wanted to keep having sex, even though she had a child who deserved a stable home life. (And if you think an unwed mother can keep the roller-coaster emotions of a sexual relationship out of her home life, think again.)
Sklencar's only power was to tell Richards, "No."
It was tough love. But it was all he could do, and his doing so was a gift—one that Richards promptly threw back in his face, with teary public accusations.
Listen to her again. "He said I was irresponsible. Well, I think it's irresponsible to have kids you can't take care of and raise."
I would give Richards the benefit of the doubt and say that, unlike another famous Richards—the one who had a doctor pierce the hearts of two of her triplets in the womb—she is probably not fully aware that abortion destroys a real human life. The abortion lobby probably has her believing that an unborn child is something vague—just a clump of cells or a less-than-sentient being—until the point of delivery.
That's why the idea never crosses her mind that it is more responsible to "have kids you can't take care of and raise"—to put them up for adoption—than to kill them.
Richards deserves our prayers. And so too do Sklencar and all the pharmacists who would risk losing their job rather than cause the destruction of a life.
1:52 AM
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Femina Theologica
The Vatican just released some very wise words on feminism, a commentary on the bishops' letter on the "Collaboration of Man and Woman in the Church and in the World." It acknowledges the importance of the feminist movement in causing "recognition of the dignity of woman and her equality with man," and at the same time shows how "gender" ideology threatens the family.
There is something extremely valuable in the lucid way the Vatican names and distills the social problems of our time, and finds the connections between them. All Christians should pay attention. Non-Catholic organizations may articulate concerns about the same family and life issues, but the Vatican does so with language that cuts right to the heart of them.
1:02 AM
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Saturday, September 25, 2004
Michael Bates has composed a thoughtful post, "Community Worship in Your Own Home," in response to my mother's writing about her love of Jewish worship and traditions. He describes the strong appeal of the ancient nature of Jewish prayer and the long-held traditions of Anglican worship (as expressed in the Book of Common Prayer) compared to what he aptly calls the "roll your own" nature of Evangelical worship.
3:17 PM
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'Sex and the City' Hates You
Was there ever any doubt that "Sex and the City" was an anti-woman, anti-man, anti-sentient-human-being show?
Today's New York Post has author Candace Bushnell, creator of the show, weigh in on the news that cast member Cynthia Nixon—who last year dumped the father of her two young children—is in a lesbian relationship.
"Good for you, Cynthia," said Bushnell.
"She's doing what a lot of women probably wish they could do," the author went on. "I've heard a lot of women complain how horrible the men are in New York, and how wonderful their female friends are.
"They wish they could be lesbians because it would solve so many problems."
I remember when I was so lonely when I wanted to be a lesbian. I remember it because it was back when I was so depressed that I wanted to die. There's a deep nihilism in the idea that one's problems would be solved if only one could go against nature and against God's plan.
It's easy for Candace Bushnell, who is married, to pontificate about single women as though she were still their guru. But for women who read her books and watch "Sex and the City," what does this really tell you?
It tells you that she has never had any insight into men, because she hates them. Nobody could say things like "women complain about how horrible the men are in New York" without having a deep-seated hatred of men. You don't hear people who are not bigots say things like, "People tell me how horrible the black people are in New York."
And if Bushnell hates men, she's got to hate women too, because she's the one who's made millions of dollars telling women that they have no identity outside of chasing men. Suddenly the whole "Sex and the City" premise is shown for what it is: one big, cynical joke, calculated to squeeze money out of lonely, unhappy women.
UPDATE: If you need a lift after reading the above, Michael Bates calls attention to a wonderful essay by "Urban Kvetch" Esther Kustanowitz proposing a litany of repentance for singles on this Yom Kippur. Very funny and highly recommended.
1:34 PM
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Friday, September 24, 2004
'Yom' Mama
A friend writes in response to my previous post, "Your Brother's Kippur" (below), which included a letter from my mother about the spiritual bond between Jews and Christians: "Your mom's phrase, 'He is our brother in the blood,' reminds me of the old joke...At a ceremony in church, some nuns were making their final permanent vows before the Bishop. As was traditional, the nuns were dressed in wedding gowns—as 'brides of Christ.' Then someone noticed two rabbis in the church. Asked why they were there, the rabbis replied, 'Relatives of the groom.'"
4:44 PM
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Thursday, September 23, 2004
Joseph Loconte has a very good op-ed in today's National Review Online on how, in order for Europe to fight anti-Semitism, it must end its antagonism towards its Christian heritage.
"Why is it that anti-Semitism has mostly been defeated in the United States?" Loconte asks. "As French observer Alexis de Tocqueville saw it, religious freedom and political freedom marched side by side in the nation's democratic development. The result was a civic culture that was diverse, tolerant, and deeply religious—a mixture that rarely appeared in Europe."
9:15 PM
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UPDATED—Tell Me Moore
Been getting more hits than usual for a day when I've fallen under the radar of Mark Shea and The Curt Jester, but I suspect most of the new readers are people Googling for Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising Tour, which I mentioned a few days ago. It seems a shame to let this opportunity to speak to Michael Moore fans go to waste, but I've nothing more to say about him at the moment. So, dear reader, if you have any insights about him to share—something more substantial than that he's a "Big Fat Stupid White Man"—write me and I'll put up my favorite observations. I'd especially appreciate insights that would tell Moore fans something about the man and his lies that they might not already know.
UPDATE: Joel Helbling sends this bit about the film "Michael Moore Hates America," from an article by Andrew Leigh on National Review Online:
"...easily the most powerful sequence [in 'Michael Moore Hates America'] is a visit with Peter Damon, a soldier who lost both arms in the Iraq war. In a transparent attempt to elicit pity, Moore in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' included footage (taken from an NBC News report about a new painkiller) of Damon in the hospital while he was recuperating from his grievous wounds.
"In 'Michael Moore Hates America,' we see a recovered Damon at home with his family, enjoying life, proud of his service. Damon has no patience for those who feel sorry for him. The only anger he feels is at Moore for exploiting him.
"Asked by Wilson what he would like to say to Moore, Damon addresses the camera: 'I don't want any part of your propaganda. I don't agree with what you're doing.'"
8:51 PM
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UPDATED—Andrew Sullivan's Latest "Outing"
I get a guilty feeling reading Andrew Sullivan's blog these days, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's the voyeuristic feeling one gets when seeing a megalomaniacal writer—one who once lived up to his hype—utterly implode.
My glee is tempered, however, by the fact that there are many who still have to deal with Sullivan's bilious outbursts, be they Jonah Goldberg, who refutes him well on National Review Online's The Corner, or the countless conservative politicians, writers, and activists whom Sullivan persists in outing. Actually, outing isn't really the term—I don't know if Sullivan's actually gotten the first scoop on any of the supposed homosexuals he mentions. But Sullivan regularly repeats allegations of homosexuality against people whom he considers traitors to the gay cause.
Two Sullivan entries today, "Deal Quits" and "Defensive Crouch", contain a catalogue of allegations against "gay" traitors (not counting Paul Crouch's accuser). In addition to referencing Deal Hudson and Crouch, Sullivan claims that "the two leading spokesmen for the 'ex-gay' movement have also been exposed as subsequently seeking gay sex." He also names Ed Schrock, the married conservative Virginia Congressman who stepped down recently amid rumors that he was gay.
Sullivan's implication is that these men were openly opposed to gay causes, but were in fact hypocrites, so therefore all who oppose mainstream acceptance of homosexual behavior are discredited. To anyone who took Logic 101, this makes no sense. If people who support a cause are hypocrites, that has no bearing on the cause itself.
If the examples Sullivan cites prove anything—particularly that of the ex-gays who allegedly sought gay sex—it's that homosexuality is a painful CHOICE with which people struggle.
As anyone who's wrestled with demons knows, sometimes in attempting to quell your own desires, you may end up going all the way to the other side—cursing your former behavior. If that then enables you to remain on the wagon and be happy, there's no problem, save that others may find you annoying. But if you lapse, you're a hypocrite in the eyes of the Andrew Sullivans of the world.
It's possible some of the men Sullivan cites may have committed actual crimes, like attempting to coerce or hush others. If they did, that's clearly wrong. But that's not why he's raking their names through the mud. Really, if the accusations he makes are true, their only crime was self-righteousness. And if that's the case, then, judging from Sullivan's own code of conduct, he shouldn't be damning them. He should be giving them a medal.
UPDATE: The Classical Anglican Network News Webmaster writes to point out Sullivan's belief that when Christian leaders who uphold biblical views of homosexuality aren't hypocrites, they're corrupt. See the e-mail the Webmaster sent Sullivan after Sullivan accused wealthy Anglicans of buying the African church's support—the "chicken dinner" theory, as it's called. Sullivan never replied.
2:25 AM
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Wednesday, September 22, 2004
The Iniquity of My Heels
Whether "Sex and the City" had a positive influence or a negative one, Charles G. Hill writes, it can't be denied that "the former HBO series did have some impact on popular culture, to the extent that it's had some small but measurable effect on women's shoes, pushing them a notch or two in the direction of sheer frivolity."
I was reminded of that impact on my way home from work early this morning, wearing my Easy Spirit Level 2 walking shoes. (Level 2 is for "advanced walkers with medium-intensity activities.") Reading Psalm 49, I found the kind of deliciously mysterious question typical to David's verse: "Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?"
"The iniquity of my heels." I know what that means. It's a personal message for me. We'll get to that.
But dang if it isn't a perfect metaphor for those "Sex and the City" gals too.
The show's "Carrie," played by Sarah Jessica Parker, was famous for wearing ultra-expensive designer shoes with heels the diameter and length of ballpoint pens. The shoes crammed her toes into a tiny point—something which Parker apparently could finesse naturally, but it proved so difficult for her imitators that podiatrists began to offer toe-sawing surgery.
But as any high-heel aficionado could tell you, the shoes' cachet goes well beyond their designer brand. High heels alter a woman's posture, making her appear more vulnerable in every way—from the obvious way that they make her teeter, bounce, and take shorter steps, to the subtler ways they cause parts of her to draw in and others to stick out.
As a result, for the woman who would be Carrie, the "iniquity of her heels" really does catch up with her. The shoes present the wearer as a helpless, submissive would-be sex partner—hence the unprintable street nickname given to the spikiest pumps. They end up directing the wearer's behavior, with the wearer clearly positioning herself as an object—and thereby treating others as objects in relation to her. As soon as you've presented yourself as a means to an end, it's impossible to not view others through that same superficial lens.
So where does that leave me in my clunky, old-lady Easy Spirits? Actually, on the other side of the same razor-thin Manolo spike.
The jaded bed-hoppers' escapades on "Sex and the City" may be fictional, but the show's popularity is largely because single women can identify with the characters' shared pathology. It's part of the human condition—the sense of separateness from one another and from God—but it's amplified in the characters' dark and insidious fear of rejection.
I had this driven home to me recently when I woke up in the middle of the night from a disturbing dream—and realized that I'd had that same dream, many times over months or years, only it had escaped my waking memory.
It was a dream of embracing a man in my bed, very tightly. We weren't having sex, just tied in an embrace. I could see his ivory, almost translucent skin and his back—he was formed like a majestic Renaissance sculpture. His chin would be over my left shoulder, so I could never see his face. The feeling of my hand on his back and shoulder was wonderful, and completely real.
But then my senses would come to me and I would realize that I hadn't gone to bed with anyone. I'd know I was in a dream state, and I'd start to fear that perhaps I was actually being molested by an intruder. So I would begin to awaken myself, opening my eyes...
...and the male figure would start to melt away...
Immediately, I would feel this terrible sensation of loss, and I'd try to stop myself from waking. But it would be too late—I'd be alone in bed, the sensation of togetherness gone.
The only thing that would stay with me was that last, awful sensation of feeling the flesh under my hand evaporate—and the helplessness of not being able to stop it. I wanted so badly to hold onto this seemingly divine creature, and I couldn't.
Of course, I now realize it was a demon. Hey, if you were really made of sulphurous black scales, you'd want to look like you had perfect ivory skin too, right? But that's not the point.
The point is that I realized that the iniquity of my heels is a fear of rejection—embodied in that pathetic grasping at air.
One wonderful thing about being in a growing relationship is that turning point where you realize the other person is not going away. Or at least, that they don't intend to, and you don't intend to, and therefore you can lower the alert level of your fear of rejection from code red to orange, or even yellow.
The longer one's out of a relationship, the easier it becomes to forget that one's ability to enter a relationship is dependent upon one's ability to get over that fear. It sounds like a paradox, and to some extent it is—being attracted to someone includes in its nature the desire not to be separated from that person. Yet, it's possible to cultivate a fear of rejection to the point where it becomes effectively another person in the relationship. And like the "person" in my dream, the more you hold onto it, the lonelier you become.
I don't know what the answer is, quite honestly. Recent experience has taught me that the wiser I pretend to be on this page and in my own conceit, the more the iniquity of my heels encompasses me. But another verse of that same psalm says "God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave." I take that and other promises to mean that He begins His redemptive work on me while I'm on this side of the grave.
God also says to pray always and not to lose heart. But I think He's just trying to keep me on my toes.
3:51 AM
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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Picks to Click
Two stories which, while about different topics, share one thing in common: the mental contortions that people will go through in order to avoid seeing what is wrong and what is right:
- A rival gay group admits it was behind South African police's threat to arrest transvestites participating in a lesbian & gay pride parade.
David Baxter, "spokesperson" (!) for the "conservative" (!) Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said, "We are totally against such parades because they are unlawful and harm the image of lesbians and gays. They incorrectly imply that being gay and lesbian means jumping into the clothing of the opposite sex."
In other words, "gender" is a continuum. The image of homosexuals as wishing to take on the opposite sex's attributes implies that there is such a thing as the "opposite sex," and that therefore people are born into one sex or the other. That can't be, if homosexuals are to propagate the notion put forth by gay-rights groups and Planned Parenthood, that one's "gender" is not obvious at birth.
- Scott Richter, the magazine editor who sells "I Love Abortion" bibs on his publication's Web site says that his sense of humor has limits bounded by taste.
"The Holocaust and slavery are subjects that would be off limits for this type of humor," Richter admitted to LifeNews.com. "But that is just my personal opinion and I'm sure some people would disagree with me on that, too."
In other words, Richter is "personally opposed" to making a buck off tasteless satire of the Holocaust and slavery. But if someone else wants to do it, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. This is remarkably similar to the John Kerry contortion on the abortion issue, which was aptly deconstructed by Dennis of Vita Mea.
3:28 PM
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Playboy's Jeans for Teens
Joel Helbling sends this news from his sister "k_sra," who made a disturbing discovery when she took a younger female friend shopping: Playboy makes jeans for teenage girls that have "a huge bunny on the a--."
K_sra writes in her blog entry with the frustration of one who sees where the culture is going: "I'm angry. I'm not ready for Playboy to be the next Tommy Girl. I'm not ready for them to be the new clean-cut all-American look."
If she wants to direct her anger into action, I'd recommend looking up the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families. They got results last year when they rallied parents against the borderline kiddie-porn Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue.
3:43 AM
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With Big Fat Stupid White Male Friends Like This...
...Kerry's in trouble.
"It's debilitating to have a candidate who does not seem quite clear on where he stands on these issues. Maybe we need to have a slogan that says 'Bush and Kerry both suck. ... That's why I'm voting for John Kerry.'"
—Michael Moore in Camden, N.J., last night, kicking off his "Slacker Uprising Tour."
2:10 AM
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Monday, September 20, 2004
Getting 'Blunt' With Carrie
Reading about last night's Emmys show and its big winner "Sex and the City," I thought, "Wow—two things for which I have absolutely no use."
I'm referring to television and sex. I have great use for the city.
All right, maybe I'm exaggerating just a little. However, it's true that between TV and sex, I've lived without one for 19 years and the other for...what sometimes feels like that long.
But when I look at the photo of Sarah Jessica Parker that graces HBO's "Sex and the City" Web site [which has since been changed], I'm reminded why I really don't miss casual sex—and why I made a conscious decision to be chaste until I'm in a marriage-directed relationship.
The photo, taken voyeur-style through a window, shows Parker's "Carrie" on unmade bed with unmade hair, wearing boyish underwear and socks, as the dull, between-buildings Manhattan morning light shines in. She has her familiar blunted, Archie Rice, dead-behind-the-eyes expression. You can almost hear the strains of Bob Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings" emanating from an offstage stereo.
Parker has the perfect body for the role, because there's nothing about it to suggest fecundity. Her lanky, prize-filly frame appears made for going through the motions of sex—while her boniness, like the "wire-monkey mother" of the cruel animal experimentation of yore, insures she'll absorb no warmth from the encounters.
But that's not what's scary about the photo.
What's scary is that, since I don't watch the show, I don't know in whose apartment Carrie's awakened. Is it hers? Is it that of her latest sex partner?
It brings back the feeling of waking up under a stranger's percale duvet, feeling underdressed, and wondering just what the hell I've done.
The truth is, for all "Sex and the City"'s glorification of casual sex, Parker's characterization of Carrie is painfully accurate. To enjoy casual sex without guilt or regret, you really do have to be dead behind the eyes. You really do have to envision your body as a mechanism for the reception and delivery of sexual pleasure, even—no, especially—if that means using your partner and being used as a means to an end.
Much was made of the expensive clothing and accessories worn by "Sex and the City"'s cast, particularly Carrie—items that no real-life person in her position could afford. Again, there's a strange sort of realism mixed in with the fantasy. If my life was a steaming pile of feces—excuse me, it's late—if my life were a steaming pile of feces, if I were emotionally stunted and incapable of maintaining a close relationship with a man, if I could only get what I wanted by being cagey, catty, and superficial, what would be left but to blow my income on looking fabulous?
To paraphrase Paul, if our hope is only in this life, then we are of all men the most miserable.
So here's to the women—I know I'm not the only one—and the men too, who will wake up alone in their own bed this morning, because their plan for marriage does not include sleeping around a la "Sex and the City." And to those who are still prone to waking up under a stranger's duvet, I say, join us. You have nothing to lose but your flat affect.
1:39 AM
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Sunday, September 19, 2004
Feeling better, going to work today—though, energywise, still in run-down "linker" rather than "thinker" blogging mode...
'Taking a Firm Grade is Pledganous'
Photo of a still-extant "Pat Paulsen for President" sticker—complete with the "Seal of the Almost President of the United States"—taken in Flushing by Forgotten-NY's Kevin Walsh.
Don Imus, after attempting to get a straight answer out of John Kerry, told a reporter, "I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox. This is my candidate and...I don't know what he's talking about."
Two things:
First, as Kevin McCullough has noted, that's serious criticism coming from Imus. The radio host is not, after all, known for his hardball questioning.
Second, you know he was frustrated if he was banging his head against his jukebox. Even in this age of CDs, you still don't do that. The machine could skip.
It all makes one long for the days when candidates said what they meant and meant what they said. I'm thinking of those glory days of 1968, when we had Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and Pat Paulsen.
The late independent candidate Paulsen is represented on the Web with an excellent site bringing together video, audio, and transcripts of his most stirring speeches, most of which originally aired on CBS-TV's "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour."
Today's candidates could take a lesson from the clear, concise, and hard-hitting language Paulsen employed in speeches such as an editorial on auto safety, which originally aired February 26, 1967 (before he announced his candidacy): Are the summer soldiers in the war against auto safety turning their backs on that fierce and terrible winter campaign which comes in any war of this fighting drain?
Should we regroup our forces and advance or should we move to the bilge part back? The crux is a stimulating ridge on the lee side yet tabled on the other.
First there are only two ways to go. One way is neither right nor wrong and the other way isn't.
We know that taking a firm grade is pledganous and facts will bare us out....
TRACKBACK: Dustbury's Charles G. Hill quotes Paulsen in an entry titled "I approved this post before I rejected it."
Mom comments: "You know, the saying goes that nothing has the power of an idea whose time has come. Pat Paulsen was a liberal in that time. I liked his sex education and congressional ethics editorials, even though they are no longer applicable in the world of John Kerry. Conservatism is an idea whose time has come for today. Love will win out, but not the way we thought in the '60s."
1:17 AM
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Saturday, September 18, 2004
Herr Kerrymeister
If you thought there was nothing left to be said about John Kerry's "personal opposition" to abortion, think again. The issue's been simmering in Dennis Schenkel's mind a while, and it's finally exploded into a searing depiction of the mental contortions necessary to hold such a position—contortions which Schenkel finds are remarkably similar to those of a hypothetical "good German" during Hitler's rule...."let's call him Johannes Kerrymeister":
"Herr Kerrymeister is personally opposed to the wholesale slaughter of innocent Jews and others whom society deems to be non-persons. He knows in his heart, as a matter of faith and a matter of personal conscience, that Jew-killing is a sin, and he has sworn never to kill and innocent Jew. However, just because the Church teaches that killing Jews is morally wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean, he reasons, that the Church teaches that governments must make laws that criminalize matters of personal conscience. That would be an unlawful intrusion of government into religious matters, and an unlawful intrusion of religion into matters of state."
Strong stuff, and it needs to be said. Read the whole entry.
6:13 PM
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An Associated Press story tells what happened to the Beslan girl whose cross-clutching hand appeared around the world and on this blog. It's a miraculous story. Via Catholic and Enjoying It! and Precinct333.
1:34 PM
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Home sick today...
New Jersey Weatherman Poetry
As heard this morning on WINS:
For about an hour and a half
it rained like the hammers of hell
over Hackensack.
1:17 PM
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Friday, September 17, 2004
Still under the weather, so came home early from my job and am turning in early in hope of being back at full steam at work tomorrow. I seem to recall that in my sinus-clogged haze, assigned to write a headline on Gen. Staudt's denial that he tried to "sugarcoat" Bush's record, I came out with something like, "DUBYA GOT NO 'SUGAR'." Goodness knows if it made the cut.
I've managed to locate a tiny bit of sugar for you tonight: a wonderful article about "Addams Family" composer Vic Mizzy. You really have to hand it to him: Not only did he write the song's music, but he also wrote the lyrics and sang all the vocals. (What the article doesn't tell you is that he also wrote another theme that's nearly as iconic: "Green Acres.")
Now to bed and the hope that I'll soon experience the meaning of one of Mizzy's tunes. No, not the one about being "altogether ooky." This one.
UPDATE: My friend Jim Friedland, a librettist who is a great soundtrack aficionado, writes, "Did you know Vic Mizzy wrote the lyrics and music for the wonderful 'Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle in the middle of the block' PSA? It's his little girl singing!" More information is available via a Daily News article about that jingle (which I know via my parents—it really is a New York institution).
AND HERE'S THE SONG: Courtesy of Michael Bates, who found it on NPR's
Web site: They Might Be Giants with a guest singer, performing Vic Mizzy's pedestrian classic.
11:12 PM
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The (Birthday) Party of the First Part
I am blessed to have such talented readers making my job easier, providing such inspired material after my call to fulfill Planned Parenthood's exhortation to "send pro-choice greeting cards for holidays."
The latest comes from new blogger Ed Jordan of MediaCulpa.com. He offers a partial-birthday card:
5:54 PM
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More Happy Endings
Readers keep sending in delightful new ideas to fulfill Planned Parenthood's call for "pro-choice greeting cards." The latest, just added to the end of the entry "When You Care Enough to End the Very Best," include one that's worthy of Ogden Nash.
3:55 PM
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UPDATED—Return of the Jeddah
The latest edition of Saudi Arabia's Arab News touts a pair of Saudi female fashion designers who are participating in a Beirut fashion show.
Did you know that Saudi Arabia—where Islamic law rules and women have to wear a head and body covering called the abaya—is a hotbed of female fashion designers? Neither did I.
Zaki Ben-Aboud tells the paper that she's going for an “Arabian horse with an Arabic desert look.”
I can't see a horse motif in the photo that the paper provides, but what's there reminds me of nothing so much as 1980s MTV star Martha Davis of the Motels.
You be the judge. Martha's on the left.
 
UPDATE—The "I Wish I'd Thought of That" Dept.: The Curt Jester has a couple of great lines on this story. I'll only quote one of them, so you'll have to read his entry for the other: "Zaki Ben-Aboud tells the paper that she's going for an 'Arabian horse with an Arabic desert look.'
"'You look just like a horse.' 'Why thank you, that was just the effect I was going for.' The question is which end of the horse was she designing for?"
2:26 AM
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Thursday, September 16, 2004
For another view of the Mother Jones benefit night of left-wing "comedy" that I wrote about, check out J.R. Taylor's spot-on review of the event in New York Press [racy-language alert].
10:49 PM
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I'd like to thank everyone who answered the theological questions I put out last month—for Catholics, on "how can salvation be limited to Catholics only, when Scripture appears to go against that belief," and for non-Catholics, on how they felt about a Protestant's converting to Catholicism. To save space in The Dawn Patrol's August archive, I've left the original entry up but transferred the comments to a separate page. In reposting them, I removed all the editorial interjections of mine that I could find, save for one that was in answer to a commenter's question; I wanted to let the comments stand on their own.
At the time I first posted the comments, I promised a response. Now that I've had time to think about it, I'm sorry that I can't really say anything more than I said at the first. I still read the Scripture that I cited the same way I read it before—that faith in Jesus is what's necessary for salvation, and that such faith does not have to be mediated through a church. I do believe that church should play a central part in the believer's spiritual life—there's certainly plenty of Scripture to back that up—but the one and only true mediator is Jesus Christ.
The comments from Catholics were informative and often very open-hearted in that many of them stressed that the Roman Catholic Church does not limit salvation to Catholics. The point of disagreement for me is the concept that all salvation is through the church.
It's not often that Catholics and Protestants have the opportunity to discuss salvation issues in an open forum. Again, my thanks and appreciated to everyone who participated.
2:24 AM
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A mammoth, exceptionally well done feature in the Houston Press on the Protest Warriors features a cast of characters that should be familiar to readers of this blog, including Communists for Kerry and humorless "What's Communism got to do with it?" lefty Lizz Winstead.
1:46 AM
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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Everyone Knows I'm 'Wind'-y
 I'm feeling down right now because a cold is keeping me from going out on this, my "Saturday," plus I have to rewrite an entire magazine article that I accidentally deleted. In addition, my adored "Mighty Wind" T-shirt that I pulled out of the closet today fades each time I wash it, so it will never again look as good as it does now....Well, that last one deserves to be the least of my troubles, so I decided to do something about it. The shirt is hereby captured for posterity (click on photo for larger image).
6:29 PM
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Get a Broom
Just heard Martha Stewart on the radio, moaning about going to prison: "I am very sad knowing that I'm going to miss the holiday season—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Chrismas, New Year's..."
Halloween is part of the holiday season?
I guess it is for Martha.
Pardon me while I check my Kmart pillows for traces of deadly nightshade.
5:24 PM
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Tuesday, September 14, 2004
UPDATED—
When You Care Enough to End the Very Best
In honor of today's being the birthday of Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood's SaveRoe.com is urging women to hold "Fight Forward House Parties" to convert friends, family, and neighbors to the abortion cause. They offer a long list of "Fighting Forward Tips," including this one that caught my eye:
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