The Dawn Patrol

A Web Pagliacci

Brett Taylor could well be the saltiest Christian I know. His blog, Saint Kansas, is sprinkled with the sort of racy language one might normally see in The Onion—except that his satire is funnier. I particularly liked his take on the hype surrounding the 2004 Weblog Awards.

Although I'd corresponded with Brett over the past few months and knew he had hidden depths—beneath his disillusioned-hipster persona is a devoted husband, father, and breadwinner—I had no idea of what his life is like until I read his blog entry today (deletion mine):

Apologies to my legions of fans out there for the lack of updates. This week was dedicated to getting over the stomach flu, taking care of two children with said flu, and shuttling the missus to and from the emergency room. Dystonic shock? It's what's for breakfast....

The missus has lupus, and lupus s-cks. If you care to learn more, the very best resource I've found is the wonderful site But You Don't Look Sick. In short, lupus is AIDS without the celebrity cache. Pac Man runs around inside your body and chomps away at your insides, both good and bad. Once in a while Pac Man takes a bite out of your central nervous system and you can have MS-like symptoms. Or you hair falls out, or spontaneous bruises and lesions appear apparently at random. Lupus eats your soul but leaves a beautiful shell, so people wonder why you don't just get up and shake it off.

Anyhoo, for yet another year, the New Year's festivities will consist of agony (for her), hopelessness (for me), and half-hearted attempts at a comforting "No, you're not going to die" in a dark bedroom.

Last night, I asked readers to send me their prayer requests (which I'm keeping confidential). In that same spirit, since Brett's been open about his own family's pain, I'd like to ask you to please pray for his wife, him, and their kids. I believe in the power of prayer, and it does one's spirit good to make petitions on behalf of others who are going through a trying time. Thank you.

7:45 PM

Med as Hell

A British medical journal reports that Prozac can increase users' risk of suicide attempts and violence.

I remember that after Del Shannon committed suicide mere weeks after going on Prozac in 1989, his widow teamed with the Church of Scientology to push for Congressional hearings into the safety of the drug. At the time, I was on Prozac myself, and I believed Shannon's widow was being shamefully used by the Scientologists to further the cult's own agenda.

When I think about the Scientologists' accusations today, after being free from the drug for four years, I have to admit that even a stopped clock can be right twice a day.

There is a fundamental difference between drugs that were developed during the late 1980s and beyond, like Prozac and other selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors, and older drugs like lithium and tricyclic antidepressants. The toxicity level on the older drugs, and the side effects that they caused, were enough of a cause for concern that the drugs were generally reserved for people who saw a psychiatrist or therapist regularly.

With the advent of the less-toxic SSRIs, which had fewer side effects, primary-care physicians were encouraged to prescribe antidepressants to people who had no other psychological care. As a result, depressed people were often left without an important point of contact with a helpgiver.

Although I saw a psychiatrist during the time when I was on antidepressants, I noticed with the doctor a quasi-religious faith in the powers of the pills that he prescribed for me. No matter how often I told him that I was worried I was slipping back into suicidal depression, he would brush it off. He received quite a number of free samples of drugs from manufacturers—if I was too broke to get a refill, he usually had a one-week supply on hand. I had the distinct feeling that he was eager to keep me on his list of pharmaceutical success stories—so much so that he became increasingly impervious to danger signs.

People shouldn't be on psychoactive drugs unless they are in therapy that treats the problems for which they were on the drug in the first place. That therapy* has to address the patient's basic assumptions about himself or herself—regardless of whether the medication is making the person appear to be "normal." Because antidepressants, at best, is only a stopgap measure. It has to be backed by changes in the way the patient views himself. Otherwise, the patient risks falling back into depression, which is made even worse by his feeling that the one thing that was supposed to help him—antidepressants—didn't.

This is a problem of our age,not only with antidepressants, but with other medications as well. Planned Parenthood tells women that they can abort their children at home—without seeing a doctor. Anti-AIDS programs around the world are telling people that sex with condoms is "safe sex." The artificial, Band-Aid solution to a problem is held up as a safe solution—with no heed to the spiritual and physical destruction that it will cause. And why? Because modern culture devalues human life—reducing it to a body that has no soul.

*What eventually worked for me was cognitive therapy, because it helped me get to a point where I was healed enough that I could not only seek God, but also let Him in. It was an awareness of and faith in God's existence that ultimately healed me from suicidal depression, in October 1999.
5:33 PM |

Bobby's Girl

I'm scared to see the poorly reviewed Kevin Spacey film of Bobby Darin's life, but that didn't keep me from seeing over an hour of Darin's TV appearances—selected by Spacey, natch—at the Museum of Television & Radio last night.

It was my first time seeing footage of Darin, and it gave me a strange feeling. Not only was I utterly blown away by both his performance and his choice of material—he even did Al Jolson's "Toot-Toot-Tootsie", but I had the eerie impression that I knew him personally.

That personal feeling I got wasn't just due to Darin's ability to connect with his audience. It was because I was witnessing a man I already in a sense knew—from having interviewed his son.

I interviewed Dodd Darin for New York Press in 1995, when Rhino released the Bobby Darin boxed set, As Long as I'm Singing. Coming home from the Museum of TV & Radio, I was moved to put it online for the first time.

Regular Dawn Patrol readers will be amused—or maybe aghast—to see that, in my original article, I used a certain profanity (which I've here blanked out). Well, there's a lot about my rock and roll years that you may not know, and may not want to know. I'm thankful that I've changed in certain ways, like finding other ways to express how ineffably cool Darin is. But I'm also thankful that even in my darkest and skankiest hours, I perceived a hint of C.S. Lewis-style joy in the God-given talent of artists like him. And I do miss writing about Sixties pop—though I don't miss chasing down editors for assignments.

Here's how the story—which my editor called "The Too Many Sides of Bobby Darin"—begins:

"Not to denigrate other artists," Dodd Darin says of his father, "but other people of that early-Sixties era, they just faded, because they really were kind of homogenized. This artist, my dad, was different. He came from the gut. Because he didn't have a great voice, he didn't have Fabian or Presley's looks. But what he had was the desire and charisma and talent. When you saw him on the stage, he was ten feet tall. All that came through in the music."
Rhino's long-awaited Bobby Darin boxed set is called As Long As I'm Singing: The Bobby Darin Collection. If they'd asked me, it would be Bobby Darin: Too F---ing Cool For You.
You groan. Rhino hears you. If anything, they overprepared for the naysayers. If you subtracted all the defensiveness from the box's 60-page booklet, the remaining text would fit on the inside of the box itself. This, despite the fact that anyone willing to buy a collection of 96 Bobby Darin songs probably doesn't need to be convinced of the artist's worth.
Admittedly, in this modern age, it takes more than the average amount of cultural literacy to appreciate Bobby Darin. For starters, he had the misfortune to be named "Bobby" in an era when the name was synonymous with seemingly pre-fabricated, post-Elvis popsters; Rydell, Vee, ad infinitum. And, during those Elvis-in-the-Army years, when rock desperately needed a savior, Darin switched over to an adult cabaret act...

Continue reading "The Too Many Sides of Bobby Darin"

Incidentally, I am convinced that if you stare long enough at the above photo of Darin—a postcard from an appearance at the Flamingo Hotel, taken from bobbydarin.net—he blinks at you. Either that or I should stop blogging at 3 a.m...

3:33 AM |

Thursday, December 30, 2004

My New Year's Prayer for You

I'm going to stay in tomorrow night, so I'd like to continue a tradition that I started last year: to take some time out on New Year's Eve for intercessory prayer.

I'm already praying for my country and its troops, plus Israel, Iraq, and world peace in general, as well as for the tsunami victims and the relief workers who are helping them. What I'd really like to do in addition to that is to pray for God to bless you in the New Year.

If you'd like me to pray for you, drop me a line at dawn -at- dawneden.com (replacing the spam-foiling "-at-" with an atsign). You don't have to write your name or anything else in the e-mail if you don't want to; just put "Prayer request" in the header and I'll pray for the person who sent it.

If you'd like me to pray for anything specific for you or your friends and family, I'll pray for that too, according to God's will.

If you're reading this after New Year's Eve and want a prayer, my offer still stands. But I'd most like to receive requests by 10 p.m. New Year's Eve, as I'll have some time before going to bed, and it would be a blessing for me to be able to welcome the New Year with prayers for others whom I know want them.
11:33 PM

Give 'Em El, Dubya!

An e-mail pal who's going to the inauguration wrote to his friends asking if they could suggest a slogan he could put on buttons for himself and other W. supporters, to annoy the protesters at the event.

Remembering Elvis—and Phil Ochs—I suggested:

"59.1 Million Voters Can't Be Wrong"

10:57 PM |

The Spy Who Loved Me

Janjan of With Issue spies on her teenage daughter and her friends. Specifically, she reads their LiveJournal entries and comments (and quotes a four-letter word from one) What she sees in the friends' journals' is a window into permissive parenting:

Many of the kids whose journals I see catalog a miserable life spent trying to make sense out of their disfunctional families. Actually it is heartbreaking to see how many cases of arrested development are masquerading as responsible adults. I see the inner thoughts of kids whose upbringing has been bereft of guidelines, rules and God. Kids whose parents are so busy "self actualizing" their children are involved in things which should make your hair curl, right under the radar.

Why does this affect me? These idiots have made my job difficult and it ticks me off.

If I'd ever wondered what Andrea of Twisted Spinster would be like as a mother of a teenage girl, now I think I know.

10:40 PM |

Xavier of the trilingual blog Buscaraons forwards a story from Santificarnos that slipped my notice. It's a harrowing account of a legal attempt in Spain to force an abortion on a 27-year-old mentally handicapped woman because her parents don't want her to have the child.

1:59 PM |

Thank You!

The Penitent Blogger writes with gratitude regarding the response to yesterday's post "Aiding Victims," on her church's fund to help tsunami victims in Chennai, India:

Thank you for mentioning us on your site. Because of you and Midwest Conservative Journal, among one or two others, we were able to raise about $600.00 online yesterday. Local contributions bring the total
to $3,164.11 to date.

Penitent's rector, who is from Chennai, will travel to the region in January to oversee the distribution of the aid. To donate to the effort, visit the St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church Tsunami Relief Web site.

1:39 PM |

It's Just Desserts

Watching Jacques Demy's musical fairy tale "Donkey Skin" last night at Film Forum, I was reminded of a story about Esther Ralston, the actress who played Mrs. Darling in the silent-film version of "Peter Pan." She was only 22 when director Herbert Brenon chose her for the role, and she told him that she feared audiences wouldn't accept her as the mother of the three Darling children.

The director responded, if I recall correctly, that the film's story was a children's fantasy, and all little children believe their mother is young and beautiful.

That's the charm of "Donkey Skin," a French film which I saw with English subtitles. Although the film, based on a Charles Perrault fairy tale, is often hard going, with corny humor and tawdry early-'70s sets that put the "Carol Burnett Show" designers to shame, it has moments of joyous, childlike innocence and—best of all—a child's logic.

The film won me over during the dream sequence, when the prince (Jacques Perrin—a gorgeous Frenchman in the kind of overgrown Beatle cut that you see on today's club kids) and the princess (Catherine Deneuve with about three feet of flaxen hair extensions) are doing the requisite early-'70s running-in-slow-motion-through-a-field-and-singing-to-each-other bit.

As they sing the soaring Michel Legrand-penned anthem, the subtitles come up and—what's this?

"We will do forbidden things.

"We will go to the snack bar!"

I could not believe my eyes. Could it be...?

YES! The next thing you know, there's a DESSERT TABLE in the middle of the field. It's long, with a white tablecloth and everything—just like I remember from the Oneg Shabbats* of my childhood. Looking at it, although I couldn't tell, I was absolutely certain that the goodies on it included those dark-chocolate-covered cakes with the pink, green, and white layers that I remember so well.

The joyously happy couple proceeds to eat from "le snack bar"—not in a gluttonous or erotic way (this isn't a "Grande Bouffé" for the Asterix set), but like a pair of kids exulting in being able to do something "forbidden."

Watching it, I felt this sense of exhilaration. Suddenly it was almost 20 years ago and I was back in college, eating the Matterhorn at Swensen's with a cute Monkees fan.

And I thought, when was the last time that I went on a date with a man who really enjoyed having a shared food experience with me?

So I have resolved, this will be my litmus test from now on. It takes time to learn if a man shares my faith, my values, or my interests. But it's easy to find out from the start how enthusiastic a love interest will be if I say:

"Let's do forbidden things.
"Let's go to the snack bar."

*Oneg Shabbat = post-synagogue-service coffee hour
3:17 AM |

Sorry if you stopped by during the wee hours and found this page inaccessible or messed up—I accidentally wiped the right-hand side of the template and had to rebuild it. I think it's OK now. Bloggers, save a copy of your template!

1:53 AM |

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

"Stuck Outside of Baghdad With the Fallujah Blues Again"

An Air Force Times reporter meets Capt. Steven Givler—a name that should be familiar to regular Dawn Patrol readers—and loses those Fallujah blues:

So, as we sat waiting for a helicopter ride from Camp Victory, near Baghdad, to Camp Fallujah, I sat in the cold contemplating the depressing facts. Appropriately, one of the helicopters set to take us here had a maintenance problem, so a flight scheduled to leave around midnight was still sitting on the ramp, and we were still shivering in the winter chill at 3:30 a.m.

Then a funny thing happened. I stumbled into a conversation with someone who not only provided a valuable reminder that the military is made up of all sorts of folks, but told a story that made it truly difficult to be depressed about anything.

It's a great story, and while the reporter doesn't give all the details, I'm sure Givler gave him an account of how he and his wife adopted their daughter Zoe, which he wrote about on The Dawn Patrol.

The reporter concludes:

Military men and women — men in particular, perhaps — fit into a pretty narrow band of public perception. English-degree-holding, watercolor-painting intel officers don’t really fit anywhere in that band. It was a valuable reminder that there are all sorts of fascinating people here.

4:15 PM |

One of my landlady's sons is putting in a new gas heater as I write, and his son, who is probably around 11, is bored.

"Excuse me," the boy said to me, "do you have any books?"

I LOVE hearing a kid ask that.

He is now sitting, apparently content, with one of my original, yellowed 1950s Peanuts books. I told him not to worry if he accidentally tears a page—it's an old book.

3:41 PM |

Ho Ho Horrors

Kevin Walsh sends this link to "Scared of Santa," the results of a Florida newspaper's contest for family photos of kids frightened by St. Nick. He writes: "I don't blame 'em. Some of these Santas look scarier than Billy Bob on his worst day."

3:08 PM |

CNN's Anti-American Morning

Mark Kellner writes in "CNN STILL Hates America—and Americans" that one of the network's correspondents is using the tsunami disaster to accuse Americans of lacking compassion.

I recommend reading the whole post, from the CNN transcript through Mark's conclusion. The issue is not that "compassion fatigue" is a good thing, but that the factors that contribute to it are real. Those factors include the fact that America itself is still recovering from disasters, and that foreign countries—particularly Muslim ones—are notoriously ungrateful for our aid. To deny aid on them is wrong, but to accuse Americans of lacking compassion simply for stating that those factors exist is wronger still. They represent issues that must be addressed—if not now, then in the future.

Mark observes that it's America's unparalleled generosity that makes CNN's criticism so utterly petty and punitive:

The U.S. government donated $2.4 billion in disaster relief last year, some 40-percent of such relief given worldwide. Already, the U.S. has pledged $35 million to victims of the tsunamis, versus a whopping $136,000 from that bastion of freedom and compassion, La Belle France.

And, this doesn't include private, non-governmental charities including ADRA International as well as The Salvation Army. Each of these charities deserve your support, and that's why these are "live" links to each group's Web site.

At the same time, I think it's foolish not to realize there can be a level of "compassion fatigue" that attends to repeated relief efforts originating in America when recipients later deride those who try to help. It may not be the most admirable of attiudes, but it's understandable to those of us who have lived more than a few years on this planet, and who believe in some concept of reciprocity. No, we're not expecting repayment for our charity, but a little clear-headed commentary would be nice.

2:00 PM |

Aiding the Victims

The Penitent Blogger writes about her church's campaign to aid tsunami victims in Chennai, India. The church's rector is from that region and is "in contact with his mentor in India, who informs him that the Chennai region has been devastated, and as of yesterday at least 500 children have had their houses washed away and are left with absolutely nothing."

This sounds like a campaign where the money donated will go directly to people who need it. To donate, visit the St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church Tsunami Relief Web site.

Note:* If you're mindful of the fact that the tax year is almost over, and you wish to make sure that your donation is tax-deductible, you may wish to donate to the church via regular mail (their address is on their Web site) rather than via their site's link to PayPal, as its PayPal account is in the name of a parishioner. If, however, you're not concerned about having proof of the donation to the church for taxes, then the PayPal account is the quickest way to help.

*UPDATE: It is possible to get a tax-deductible receipt for a PayPal donation as well—see Penitent Blogger's comment (posted under my name).
1:39 PM |

Here's a short-and-sweet article to forward to friends who don't have a clue about why all this values stuff is important to parents.

3:20 AM |

Buss Stop

In 2005, I resolve not to mouth-kiss any man who is not in or on the precipice of a committed relationship with me.

Hand-holding is OK.

Sex is right out.

I also resolve to be more conscious of my eyelash-flitting and hair-tossing at love interests, and—once aware—will resist doing them unless I am seriously interested in the object of the flitting and tossing.

And I continue my resolution to resist fantasizing about men—at least, not men who are still alive. I have given up all efforts to resist fantasizing about 1940s and early-1950s Orson Welles, and mid-1960s Phil Ochs; however, I am happy to report that I have not gotten beyond first base with them in a long time.

2:52 AM |

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Get Your Clicks
Links of Note

My friend and exceptionally good server-host Joshua Tanzer has a witty "Boss Watch" in the left-hand margin of his site. You can read about it in his entry "Don't Meet the New Boss," which begins,

Today marks four months since we got a new boss at Business Week Online, Kathy Rebello. Top management decided it was time for a change, someone new who could chart a future course into the bright digital future. I honestly have no opinion about her as a person because thus far she has been unable to chart a course even as far as my desk. In four months, she hasn't spoken a single word to me. I don't like to form snap judgements based on insufficient information, but I believe I now know enough at least to say that, whatever her other abilities, she hasn't got the slightest curiosity about the little people who work for her. After several years of demoralizing Internet-bust cutbacks, we're down to maybe 20 people on the whole web site, which means that in an hour a week she could have had lunch with almost everybody on the staff in ones and twos by now.

In the sidebar, which lists the number of days that his boss has not even spoken to him—currently 231 and counting—he observes,

I'm trying to show a lot of understanding, because, supposing she had to meet every single one of the approximately 20 people in the department, and she met us at a rate of one every 11.6 days, and I was the absolute lowest priority in the whole department (which is very possible), then she would just be getting around to me ... um ... tomorrow. That's a hopeful thought.

* * *
Bonnie, a homeschooling mother of three, makes some insightful observations about C.S. Lewis's humility in her blog Off the Top. She also highlights several passages about human and divine justice from Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms.
11:18 PM |

NARAL's Minor Threat

On the NARAL Pro-Choice America blog, Jessica Valenti, mentioning an effort in Congress to make it illegal to transport a minor across state lines to have an abortion, writes:

Sigh. When will the f[-----] up logic ever stop? How is a minor not old enough to make the decision to have an abortion, but old enough to have a baby? Please.

For the same reason a minor is old enough to grow breasts, but not old enough to walk into a hospital and demand the doctors lop the things off. (NARAL's buddies at Planned Parenthood Teenwire are doing their part to encourage teens to get that medical procedure as well.)

Saner pro-choicers like Joe Kelley acknowledge the lunacy of states' making abortion the only medical procedure for which a minor does not require a parent's permission. Kelley quotes Cam Edwards, who writes:

So let me get this straight: I have to get a phone call from my son's school before they can give him an aspirin, but I'm not allowed to get a phone call from my daughter's doctor before they perform an abortion?

7:36 PM |

If you would like to give to aid the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, World Vision is on the scene and deserves your donations. For more updates on the disaster and relief efforts, Kevin McCullough has continuing coverage.

6:21 PM |

Band of Angels

Congratulations to Jeff Geerling for all the great press he's been getting for the PROLIFE wristband he and his sister created, which is sold for $1 to benefit pro-life nonprofits. The last I heard, the first batch of 10,000 wristbands had just about sold out, and a second batch was on the way.

Interestingly, no sooner did the Geerling siblings come up with the PROLIFE wristband, than Moloch came up with one of his own. It's violent—I mean, violet—made by the Ben & Jerry's-funded group Working for Change, and benefits the usual suspects—Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU.

Ironically, for the wristbands' slogan, Working for Change chose "NEVER SURRENDER"—the words most famously spoken by Winston Churchill in his 1940 speech before the House of Commons. In that speech, Churchill held out the solid hope that America would use its force to rescue Europe from the clutches of the Nazis, a group which forced abortions on "undesirable" ethnic groups. The Nazis' eugenic actions were watched closely, chronicled, and encouraged by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who in 1939 embarked upon her own plan for cutting down an "undesirable" ethnic population.

At any rate, coming from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, et al, I would take the "NEVER SURRENDER" slogan with a grain of salt. After all, when it came to toppling Saddam, they were all on the side of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

TRACKBACK: Jeff Miller of The Curt Jester delves into the online headquarters of Never Surrender. I love his encapsulation of the Ben & Jerry's philosophy: "I Scream, You Scream, Silent Scream."

2:09 AM |

During Fr. Bryce Sibley's recent New York City visit, I had the great pleasure of attending a holiday party with him as well as the vivacious, flame-haired Karen Hanley and her husband Gerard (holding Karen's fur). This is how I keep the first half of my title of Petite Powerhouse—by standing next to Very Tall People. For the first time, I can understand why blogger Dave Munger calls me "elfin." Anyway, I'm glad to have this reminder of a lovely evening. (P.S. The women at the party were duly impressed that I managed to get extra mileage out of a bridesmaid's dress.)

UPDATE: Because Fr. Bryce has sent his readers this way, I've uploaded a larger version of the photo—click on the image to see it.
2:00 AM

Via Beatrice.com comes this link that will be a great relief to anyone who's tried to access a news article online, only to be stymied by the registration requirement: BugMeNot.com is a clearinghouse for registration usernames and passwords. You go to BugMeNot and enter the URL of the story you want to read; the site gives you the username and password that someone has contributed for that site. It saves those of us who don't want to get on Web sites' spam lists from having to give our e-mail addresses to them.

Needless to say, there are a number of ethical questions involved with such a service. Since online newspapers already have advertising that I read when I am on their sites, I don't feel that I am depriving them of income when I don't register. And the "free" registration really costs me in terms of time spent deleting spam and trying to get off of spam lists.

TRACKBACK: Dean's Journal swears by BugMeNot...well, not exactly...

1:25 AM |

Monday, December 27, 2004

On New Year's morning, I am joining my friend Janet to volunteer for Caring Community, packing and delivering lunches to elderly shut-ins. It's possible that the charity may need more volunteers. If you would like to help as well (from about 10:00 a.m. to noon), e-mail me—dawn -at- dawneden.com—and I'll forward your e-mail to the charity. This invitation is open only to personal friends or friends of friends of mine, as I have to vouch for whomever I refer.

9:54 PM |

Bioethics journalist has an excellent piece in TechCentralStation on "Quiet Breakthroughs in Africa's War on AIDS," demonstrating that the secret of Uganda's success in lowering HIV infection rates "has not been mass distribution of condoms, but aggressive marketing of abstinence."

7:27 PM |

Most Unfortunate Associated Press Headline of the Day

"Inmate Gives Big Hairy Gift to Children"

As my boss noted, "Is that what he's in for?"

5:50 PM |

Grand Delusion

An article in today's Kentucky Post on Kentuckians' favorite Christmas gifts features this tidbit about Planned Parenthood Cincinnati Region CEO Sue Momeyer:

Her best Christmas gift is seeing the excitement on the faces and the joy of the season in the eyes of her three grandchildren. "Just the fun of having grandchildren and seeing how much they appreciate funny little things -- it doesn't have to be fancy or expensive," she said.

She probably never thinks about the thousands of women whose grandchildren's bodies are up in incinerator smoke this Christmas—thanks directly to her.
4:22 PM |

That's the Sway It Is

Al Jolson rocks my world.

I mean it.

I'm still getting over seeing "The Jazz Singer" for the first time last week. The most startling revelation was watching him do "Toot-Toot-Tootsie." His pelvis never stops moving.

Back and forth. Around and around. The whole song. Meanwhile, he's got the lateral moves down—his feet are sweeping the floor with a slick gracefulness that James Brown would envy—and his voice has a Louis Armstrong trumpet edge as he wails, "If you don't get a letter, then you know I'm in jail!"

It made me realize that there was nothing fundamentally new in the young Elvis Presley's act. All those hip-sways and pelvic thrusts that made Ed Sullivan shoot him from the waist up, those soulful vocal inflections—it had all been done before.

You could say Presley was more dangerous to the nation's youth in that, being better-looking than Jolson and comparatively limited as a singer, he centered his act on his erotic appeal. In that sense, he helped spearhead the loosening of sexual mores. And likewise, you could say that Presley brought an electric style of live performance to a generation that had never had its own Jolson.

But if you watch Jolson's "Toot-Toot-Tootsie" (a clip of it's buried in an unlinkable section of his fan site—click on "His Works," then "Films," then "The Jazz Singer"), it's clear that the most supposedly radical aspect of Presley's act was actually older than he was.

As for the blackface that Jolson wore in other parts of "The Jazz Singer," I find that far less offensive than today's version—Eminem's and other white rappers' aping the black "gangsta" look in every way but the color of their skin. Jolson, by contrast, wore the dark skin, but beneath it was the persona of a good-hearted, law-abiding man. I'll take his "Mammy" over Eminem's "mutha" any day.

3:20 AM |

I just did something I haven't done in a year or so: put disc 2 of the Rhino Grass Roots Anthology into my CD player, programmed "Lovin' Things," "Heaven Knows," and "Temptation Eyes," and hit "repeat."

We will see how long I can last before I get tired of the tunes. I'm betting a half hour. But it could be days.

3:06 AM

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Heaven Can Wait

The Boston Herald reports the beautiful yet chilling story of Bill DiPasquale, who recently came out of a coma. He had been in that state since December 2, when he tried to drink himself to death after getting fired from his waiter job.

Word came to DiPasquale's friend and fellow waiter, Ralph Nash, that DiPasquale's boss, Charlie Sarkis, had told a friend of the patient, "You tell him to wake up, get out of bed, and get his ass back to work."

So Nash, sitting at DiPasquale's bedside, leaned close to his ear and said, "Charlie says to get out of bed and get your ass back to work."

Five minutes later, DiPasquale awoke whispering, "I've got to get to work."

The story could end there. DiPasquale is making a miraculous recovery, telling the Herald, "I think God said it's not my time yet. I feel like I've been given two strikes by God. He's telling me, 'Now, if you want to be struck out, have another drink.' It will not happen...The show must go on."

But there's one more element of the story, which sticks out of the Herald's account like a scythe.

Just before Nash came to whisper the words of the DiPasquale's boss into his ear, DiPasquale's family—heeding the words of the doctors, who said "it may be too late"—had allowed the hospital to cut off his life support.

The story doesn't say whether the family asked the hospital to continue to feed Pasquale, but I suspect—because no continued feeding is mentioned—that the answer is no.

God gave Bill DiPasquale a new lease on life. We can only hope that He gives Pasquale's family members, and the doctors who treated him, a new understanding of how precious life is—and what a terrible sin it is to take it away.

For more coverage of life issues, including the Terri Schiavo case, visit MediaCulpa.

9:40 PM |

Lavender Christmas

Wanting to go to a midnight Mass in Manhattan, I found myself at the mercy of the Web when it came to locating a church to attend after getting off work late Friday night.

Our Saviour didn't list a midnight Mass on its site (it turns out they had one), so I found another church in midtown, an "Episcopal in the Catholic tradition" place which will remain nameless (mostly to prevent less diplomatic readers from teasing me with an incredulous "you went there?").

My mother and stepfather (whose testimony is linked at left) made a special trip into the city so we'd be together on Christmas Eve, my stepfather carrying his Johnny Cash electronic Bible. It looks like a large calculator, but it contains the entire Bible, plus selected verses read by the country-music legend. Press a button and you hear the familiar rough-edged voice saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash, and I'd like to read you some passages from the Bible..."

The church was gorgeous, and as we walked in, the choir was singing beautifully. I looked at the program for the evening and was glad to see that it evidenced a traditional liturgy, with copious amounts of Latin, and classic hymns. I was so pleased to be in such a lovely place that until my mother pointed out the congregants' gender makeup to me, I didn't even notice that she and my stepfather were the only heterosexual couple in the place.

But the Christmas spirit reigned as I reminded myself that homosexuals need Jesus too. I also knew it could have been worse—I could have chosen a non-liturgical church that caters to yuppies.

As the service began, I noticed something in the liturgy that I'd only seen before in Reform and Conservative Jewish synagogues: mistranslations. In synagogues, the prayer books often neglect to translate words from the ancient Hebrew liturgy that refer to God as masculine, or that refer to doctrines that are viewed by less observant Jews as "Christian"—like salvation and eternal life.

In this church's program, while God was referred to as the Father and King, the translations were spotty. I spied many "Rex"'s and "Patris"'s in the Latin that were omitted entirely in the translation. The spirit of the translation seemed to be, "Yes, God is our Father and King, but please don't remind us too often."

The priests' chanting was beautiful—all those falsettos—and the homosexual angle really didn't get to me—until the sermon. The priest, wrists aflutter, gave the message that Jesus died to enable us to overcome our shame. When we feel ashamed, we should think of Jesus as a naked baby or naked on the cross—"he didn't wear a loincloth, you know"—and realize that He understands.

The message was heartfelt, enough so that, while being utterly appalled, I felt pity for the priest. He was clearly trying to deal with the fact that he himself, on some level, felt ashamed.

On a brighter note, during the reading from Titus, as the congregation silently paid attention to the holy words, I was startled by a voice from a couple of seats down:

"Hello, my name is Johnny Cash—"

Someone had pressed the wrong button.
2:44 PM |

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Just My Type

I wrote "the wood" (the main front-page headline—so called because its humongous letters used to be made with wooden type) for the first time today. It's for a story on New York City policemen pitching in to bring Christmas cheer to a homeless widow and her nine kids: "JINGLE BELL COPS". My first idea was "BLUE CHRISTMAS"—a co-worker suggested putting an NYPD badge inside the "U"—but the editors thought that was too sad.

It's a great relief to have finally come up with a wood. I've been working at the paper for nearly three years (when I started part-time) and whenever I tell people I write headlines for it, they always say, "Oh, you write the front page?" And I always say, "No, just the headlines inside—the editors write the front-page ones," and it sounded so insignificant. Now I can just answer with a "yes."

It's just like when I wrote liner notes for CDs. I'd been writing them for years—over 80 of them (here's a partial list)—yet whenever I would tell people I was a liner-note writer, they'd say, "For Rhino? And I'd have to say, "No, for Sony, BMG, PolyGram, Capitol, EMI—" but it didn't matter to them...until I finally got in at the best-known reissue label.
10:54 PM |

Hag Sameach—a k a Merry Christmas

"Hag Sameach" (pronounced with the guttural "ch") is Hebrew for "Happy Holiday," and while that greeting may be generic, it expresses the feeling of many American Jews that today is a holiday—and not just a chance to get off of work.

Kevin McCullough observes in his WorldNetDaily column that one group has been noticeably silent in the debate over religious symbols this Christmas season—observant Jews. On the contrary, such Jews are more likely than most Americans to realize the importance of allowing faith a place in public life.

I've noticed it myself here in New York City—several Jewish friends and co-workers wished me Merry Christmas today, and I don't think it's just because they knew that I'm Christian and are being polite. It's because they appreciate the fact that today has a beautiful spiritual meaning for me and others—and they too are touched by the setting aside of a day to hope and pray for peace on earth and good will towards men.

Kevin writes:

The problem with the anti-Christmas thugs is that while they claim to represent an "inclusive picture" of what America needs to be – they are in fact creating a Godless America that Americans themselves do not want.

When my former high school banned religious music at holiday concerts, it didn't just ban Christian music. It banned Jewish music and any music that might be associated with a religious holiday—even instrumentals. In the name of "understanding," the secularists would ban children from gaining an understanding of the most fundamental aspect of their schoolmates—their faith.
9:56 PM |

UPDATED—'Cradle' Catholic

Something in the Pope's Christmas message made me do a double take:

"The Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease and no longer walks, asked the infant Jesus to encourage attempts to promote dialogue and reconciliation and to sustain peace efforts."

If that statement is accurate, could someone familiar with Roman Catholic theology please tell me why the Pope would make a request of the infant Jesus, rather than just Jesus? Not knowing what he meant, it seems strange to me to make a request of someone at a stage of their life that they've already passed.

UPDATE: Two answers have come in, both very helpful. John Brown SJ writes:

It is common for Catholics to have a devotion to a particular image or name that highlights an aspect of the person they are making a prayer request to. Christ on the cross in times of agony, Our Lady of Guadalupe as Patroness of the Americas, the Sacred Heart or an icon of Christ holding up two fingers teaching wisdom are some examples you might be more familiar with.

I am assuming that because it is the start of the Christmas season, JPII is associating his call for peace with all there is that was so vulnerable about the infant Jesus and all the responsibility that Mary and Joseph had to keep the Christ child safe. Picturing the all-dazzling, transfigured and glorified Christ coming down from on high might not promote the same interior sentiment that the peaceful infant Jesus in the crib would.

I think the concept is less theological and more devotional and/or stylistic.

Jeff Geerling refers me to what I'd call a Child Jesus fan page which states:

Devotion to the Child Jesus is devotion to the reality of the Incarnation. A few of our separated brethren may object that "Jesus isn't a helpless little baby anymore", so we shouldn't depict Him as such or have a devotion to His Infancy. But the fact is that our God did become truly human and entered this world as a baby. This is how He chose to begin His saving mission on earth. St. Paul marvels at how Christ "emptied Himself" in the Incarnation, and we who love Him marvel as well. That is why we celebrate His Holy Infancy alongside His Death and Resurrection; the former made the latter possible!

5:34 PM |

Many thanks to JD King for the beautiful new Dawn Patrol caricature (the old one, by David Chelsea, still has a place of honor—just further down the page). Thanks too, very much, to Jeff Geerling and Saint Kansas's Brett Taylor for their technical help with getting the new image up and properly sized.
4:42 PM |

A GI's Christmas in Qatar

U.S. Air Force Capt. Steven Givler was recently moved from Iraq to a base in Qatar. He sends the following Christmas photo, photo caption, and message (if you're like me, you'll need tissues for the latter). Please include him and all our troops and their families in your prayers:

"The tree is made of clothes hangers, straightened out and taped together into a trunk, then bent down as branches. We have a surplus of hangers here. There are no laundry facilities for us to wash our own things, so we have to send them out (I know, it sounds more like a luxury than a complaint) and everything comes back on hangers so they're everywhere."

Last night I walked the nearly two miles from the compound where I work to our squadron. I could have signed out a truck and driven there, but it was a beautiful night and the walk provided an opportunity for some solitude. The waxing moon outshined all but the brightest stars, and cast its light across a far-flung layer of thin, high cloud. My walk carried me past a large spherical antenna shelter. The moonlight gleamed on the top and faded down the curving sides. In the darkness, the shelter seemed to be a planet, reflecting the light of its small silver sun.

I had a cigar in my pocket, and paused a moment to light it. Then, marked by its glowing orange tip and a wreath of silver smoke, I left the road, cutting across a broad, dark patch of desert. Had I not walked this route before in daylight, I wouldn't have done it last night in the dark. Concertina wire, which is the tinsel of deployed bases, is invisible in the dark, and once wandered into, is difficult to get out of without leaving something precious behind.

Absent razor wire though, the desert is a beautiful place at night. Having no particular schedule to keep, I sat for a bit on a rock, accompanied only by the darkness, the silence, and a tiny desert fox that flirted with the limits of my peripheral vision. On a night like this, not far from here and not particularly long ago, shepherds keeping watch over their flocks were amazed by the sight of a heavenly host. Angels shouted, trumpets sounded, and the word went out. The world is changed forever.

On the distant end of a momentarily forgotten runway, a pair of fighters lit their afterburners. They shattered the silence and leaped into the sky, trailing 20-foot cones of pink flame. No angels for me this night (none that I can see) but I am no less aware of Christmas for the lack of them. This night, this place, my circumstances - as foreign and as far removed as they are >from the Christmases I have known, they are somehow appropriate. Christmas exits outside the presents, the trees, and even the company of my family.

Maybe that explains what happened on this day during the First World War. The German troops, facing the British across a blasted landscape, caroled them with Stille Nacht. The British answered with a carol of their own. The Germans sang another, and as Christmas Eve wore on, the night was filled with songs, back and forth across no-man's land, celebrating something that transcended even war. On Christmas day, a small number of Germans climbed from their trenches. With one exception, they held their hands in the air. In the center of no-man's land, the man with his hands in front of him dropped his burden. It was a soccer ball.

The day was filled with games. Schnapps and whiskey were exchanged. Men who had faced each other across the most brutal battlefield known to man laughed and ran and drank together like brothers. Even for those men, whose world was bounded by machine guns, barbed wire and slaughter, Christmas was transcendent.

We won't be playing soccer with terrorists over here. We won't share any sense of brotherhood with them. Our religions and their conduct of war preclude that. Still, Christmas is here. This evening the open space outside the chow hall was covered with tables and chairs, and burgers and hotdogs smoked over charcoal grills. We ate under the same sky I noted last night, while the general and the chief handed out stockings filled with gifts.

After supper two of my colleagues and I retired to the smoking area - a dusty corner protected by 12 foot high concrete barriers - for a Christmas Eve cigar. (I know, that's two cigars in as many days, but it's Christmas.) We were surprised to find that the camo netting overhead, through which the silver moonlight filtered, was strung with Christmas lights. Someone had spread Astroturf over the gravel and set out chairs, and from a radio came Christmas carols. I might have failed to notice these improvements were we at home, or noticing them, failed to be affected. Here though, they mean a lot to me.

When we finished smoking and talking to the airmen gathered there, we wished them all a Merry Christmas and returned to the facility where we work. On entering, we were arrested by the sound of a flute. On the operations floor, below the many screens showing maps and aircraft, and video footage from our unmanned surveillance aircraft, a group of carolers was finishing Oh Come Oh Come Emanuel.

Normally I can't decide what I want for Christmas, but this year I know exactly. To read again to my children. To say their prayers and put them to bed. To spend a quiet evening with my wife and, when the evening is over, to peer into our little ones' darkened rooms and listen to the softness of their breathing. I will have those things. It will take a little while, but don't feel bad about that. As with many things, the waiting will make the realization that much better.

I've long been a little cynical about decorations and carols and wishing people Merry Christmas. Not long ago I told a friend that I wasn't sure why we made such a big production out of the day. Easter I understand, because Jesus' resurrection seems to me so much more miraculous than His birth. But I've come to revise that philosophy. The angels who appeared to the shepherds clearly thought Jesus' birth warranted celebration on a grand scale. I find, now, that I am inclined to agree. That alone might be worth the trip.

Merry Christmas,

Steven

1:25 PM |

Stocking Feat

A dear friend of mine wrote to me early this morning:

"Hope you get everything you want for Christmas -- although your stocking's probably not big enough to hold him. (I think Santa would run afoul of human trafficking laws if he tried to make that sort of delivery.)"

I can't blame my friend for thinking that's what I want for Christmas—I certainly spill enough blog ink and use enough breath talking about wanting to be married. But, other than wishing that I had a husband in the here and now to go to services with and watch the Yule Log on TV, that's actually not what's uppermost in my prayers for myself this Christmas.

What I want is something I think most people want—peace of mind. I'd like to be better able to accept what God has for me without so often wanting something different, and I'd like to be more loving and appreciative of the people in my life, rather than being critical or taking them for granted.

God has, over the years, given me a great deal more peace of mind than I had in the past. But I still long for a greater understanding and experience of His peace, the kind that is "not as the world giveth."

The other main thing I want is to be better reconciled to God's will for me—to have a better understanding of it, and to walk in the way He wants me to walk. I believe, and experience has shown, that this is the only way I can truly be happy.
3:40 AM

Just discovered View of the Republic, a blog run by one "Jay Gatsby," who says he's a 17-year-old student from Trenton, N.J. (and I have no cause to doubt him).

Jay's clearly of the Protest Warrior generation; it's encouraging to read how someone his age who's examining and thinking through conservative ideas. "I used to be a liberal (yeah, gasp, I know) but turned conservative after becoming more interested in politics around 9th grade," he writes. "I just know what makes sense, and it's not the left."

Check out his "Journalistic Treason" entry, about how Associated Press photographers rejoice at being able to capture thugs' executions of those working to free Iraq from terror. (Not that I think other agencies' photographers are necessarily any better.)
1:23 AM |

Friday, December 24, 2004

Thanks to Dean's Journal, I have recently had the pleasure of discovering BlameBush!—rather late in the game, I'm afraid, but that's what happens when one spends one's days reading a few favorite blogs. The entry that Dean noted, "Crazy Freak Fetus Resembles Human Baby" (which, unlike many of the site's other entries, is profanity-free), is a perfectly done satire on all those wacky Planned Parenthood sites that I comb for Dawn Patrol material.
9:09 PM |

Al Be Home for Christmas

I saw the original version of "The Jazz Singer" for the first time last night and, besides being instantly transformed into an Al Jolson fanatic (which is kind of scary), I was struck by its thematic similarity to the religious or quasi-religious "quest" films of a later age, like the "Lord of the Rings" and "Matrix" trilogies.

What all those films have in common, as well as G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday plus C.S. Lewis's Narnia books and That Hideous Strength, is the sense not only of conflict between a faith community and a worldly or materialistic community, but also a sense that the faith community appears hopelessly backward. It's small, its leaders are aging, it lacks power, and its members are often reduced to bickering. Yet, for all its flaws, it possesses the Truth—and it's for the sake of that Truth that the story's hero endures great suffering and sacrifice.

I won't divulge "The Jazz Singer"'s plot if you haven't seen it (though, I warn you, the kind folks at United Artist saw fit to give away the ending on the video's box), but I was struck by how it contrasted the image of the aging Jews from the Lower East Side ghetto with the glittery and glamorous Broadway performers. There's no reason for Jolson's character to sympathize with them—as everyone keeps reminding him, he's no longer a mere cantor's son, but a jazz singer. Yet they have something that he doesn't—and he fears that in gaining the world he'll lose his soul.

I think that's one of the reasons why "The Jazz Singer" was such a hugely successful film—besides its ushering in the era of "talkies" and featuring the wildly popular Jolson. The Jews in the film don't represent Judaism as opposed to Christianity, but faith in God as opposed to secularism. They are a reminder that such faith communities, however imperfect, have something—and that one, small thing is more important than the whole world. It's a good thing to remember on Christmas.

* * *

I wish you and yours a blessed Christmas.
1:48 AM |

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Many thanks to Brett at Saint Kansas (a slightly racy site, but recommended) and Jeff Geerling for responding to my request for help converting the new Dawn Patrol caricature by JD King, which should be ready very soon.
4:13 PM |

Lehrer You Go Again

Today Dustbury linked to a Flash video of a Tom Lehrer song which was apparently authorized by Lehrer, who reportedly asked that its proceeds go to "progressive causes" like the ACLU. The Flash animator also includes several liberal links on the site, like an Air America plug and the requisite Google-bomb link of our president's name to "miserable failure."

While I realize Lehrer's liberal cred is unmistakable—this is, after all, a man who gleefully made fun of family-oriented institutions like the Boy Scouts, and slammed U.S. interventionist tactics—I'm sorry to see him identified with today's blinders-on liberals. Many of Lehrer's classic songs show a distaste for political correctness and reform-for-reform's-sake that would earn him the revulsion of the Air America crowd—if they could understand that his barbs were directed at people just like them.

A prime example is "National Brotherhood Week," which rivals Phil Ochs's "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" in its damning satire of liberals' hypocrisy and their push to get goverment involved in making people nicer to each other—something we see today in the attempts to push hate-crime laws that would make it illegal to read from the Bible. Lehrer introduced the song saying, "One week of every year is designated National Brotherhood Week. This is just one of many such weeks honoring various worthy causes. One of my favorites is National Make-Fun-Of-The-Handicapped Week, which Frank Fontaine and Jerry Lewis are in charge of as you know. During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood—this year, for example, on the first day of the week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is."

Lehrer also wasn't afraid to attack liberal ideologies if he felt they were wrong or just plain silly—like his hilarious exposiition on the "New Math," which accurately pointed out that the point of it was to understand what you're doing,rather than to get the right answer. And I can't think of any liberal comic today who, in doing a satire on the Roman Catholic Church, would choose to satirize not its tradition—but its altering tradition. (That tune also had the side effect of teaching hundreds of thousands of non-Catholic kids the word "transubstantiate.")
3:19 PM |

'Thwack's the Way It Is

A newsman on WCBS-AM just announced a story about a scandal at the New Jersey acting governor's whimsically named mansion.

It was gloriously clear from the way the announcer pronounced the abode's name that he just loved the opportunity to say "Drumthwacket."
3:06 PM |

We all know Santa Claus can climb a chimney. Now, thanks to John Bambenek, we know Santy can scale a firewall.
4:23 AM |

I've been trying to think of something to write today that shares something more meaningful than just a comment on the news, and I'm coming up blank. Perhaps it's because I keep thinking about how I'd better get some sleep before PSE&G comes to (hopefully) fix my apartment's "Honeymooners"-era gas heater this morning (I've been getting by on space heaters). But as it happens, Karen of Lent & Beyond has sent a link to a beautiful and deep post by a young woman who says what I'd like to say. And The Happy Homemaker sends another one. So enjoy those and hang on 'til I get rested and heated...

Also, coming very soon—what promises to be a wonderful new Dawn Patrol caricature, by the great JD King.

3:52 AM |

The Wait of Glory

Sarah responds to Ian, who commented on my post about He's Just Not That Into You ("I Love a Cheerful Giver"):

My husband and I (30 when we got married) both waited for marriage to have sex. We were not in the same church when we met.

Why? I was committed to my future husband even when I did not know who he was yet. My husband was committed to me even when he did not know who I was yet. A marriage can be broken every day up to the time you say "I Do" -- my sister married a fellow who was already engaged when she met him.

Oh, there's another couple. My sister and her husband waited for marriage as well. (And my husband and her husband are not related)

What I find sad is that Ian says he is a Christian yet finds the world's acceptance of premarital sex more compelling than the Bible's insistence on purity -- which includes no sex outside of marriage (for both singles and married folk)

I probably found it easier than some to avoid sex outside of marriage because I simply did not hang around with and encourage guys who had the attitude that it was okay. My husband was my first serious boyfriend for this reason (because my attitude was I would not date who I would not marry). Perhaps this is part of the problem. with Ian's attitude, he won't attract the kind of woman who is committed to her future marriage so much she isn't interested in momentary pleasures today. So therefore, he seems to think they don't exist.

2:12 AM |

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Just saw the Hitchcock film "Strangers on a Train" for the first time, at the Film Forum's noir festival, and had my first-ever cinematic impression of the old Penn Station. Now I know what people are talking about when they say what a crime it was to tear that building down. I got angry just thinking about it as I saw the stunning interior, with its towering columns. You can learn more about the old Penn Station and a few surprising remnants of it that dot New York City today, on the Forgotten NY page "The End of Penn Station."
10:29 PM |

It's a Wrongful Life

Kevin Walsh wrote me the following words about yesterday's story of the "wrongful-life" suit. While I respectfully disagree with him about the death penalty (I believe while it may often be wrong in practice, it's right in theory), his larger point is right on:

There's an acclaimed movie out now about a paraplegic played by Javier Bardem struggling to be allowed to die (with dignity, I imagine.)

However...

I wonder if Hollywood would ever do a film set in some future age about a time when euthanasia for the old and ill were the rule, and a paraplegic or even a 70+ guy, faced with the fatal injection, struggled to keep himself ALIVE?

Hey, could "Logan's Run" be made today?

One of my main tropes is that death is increasingly getting to be too much the solution, from terrorism, to abortion, to euthanasia, to the death penalty. I see it as all part of a theme.

4:40 PM |

If you need a smile this afternoon, Xenofile has a very funny piece about the ultra-creepy Screen Gems closing-theme music—known to pop-culture buffs as the S From Hell. [Note: That's not necessarily a work-safe link: The word "cr-p" appears alongside the post, and there's stronger language elsewhere on the blog.] As a bonus, Xenofile links to my own post about an even creepier theme—the bizarre music that opened the talking-heads show "The Open Mind."
1:26 PM |

'Not to a Little Baby'

On page 325 of the Regnery edition of Whittaker Chambers' Witness, the author—a longtime Communist who eventually renounced the party and brought down one of its major spies—tells how his life was changed when he faced the prospect of aborting his child. It is a deeply moving story and I would like to share it with you today.

Chambers himself, at the time that he got married, had no desire for children. His family had seen a great deal of depression and other mental illness—his brother committed suicide—and he feared perpetuating such misery. Moreover, he believed, as did an extreme Communist faction, that it would be wrong from a party standpoint for him to have children, as they could only "hamper or distract" his work.

Even though abortion was illegal in the New York City of the 1930s where Chambers did his illicit work, it "was a commonplace of party life." He writes:

There were Communist doctors who rendered that service for a small fee. Communists who were more choosy knew liberal doctors who would render the same service for a larger fee. Abortion, which now fills me with physical horror, I then regarded, like all Communists, as a mere physical manipulation.

One day, early in 1933, my wife told me that she believed she had conceived. No man can hear from his wife, especially for the first time, that she is carrying his child, without a physical jolt of joy and pride. I felt it. But so sunk were we in that life that it was only a passing joy, and was succeeded by a merely momentary sadness that we would not have the child. We discussed the matter, and my wife said that she must go at once for a physical check and to arrange for the abortion.

When my wife came back[...]she was quiet and noncommittal. The doctor had said that there was a child. My wife went about preparing supper. "What else did she say?" I asked. "She said that I am in good physical shape to have a baby." My wife went on silently working. Very slowly, the truth dawned on me. "Do you mean," I asked, "that you want to have the child?"

My wife came over to me, took my hands, and burst into tears. "Dear heart," she said in a pleading voice, "we couldn't do that awful thing to a little baby, not to a little baby, dear heart." A wild joy swept me. Reason, the agony of my family, the Communist Party and its theories, the wars and revolutions of the 20th century, crumbled at the touch of the child. Both of us simply wanted a child. If the points on the long course of my break with Communism could be retraced, that is probably one of them—not at the level of the conscious mind, but at the level of unconscious life.

3:26 AM |

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

My friend Lesley tipped me off to this lovely piece by Joni Eareckson Tada on overcoming holiday loneliness. Yeah, it's mushy, but some messages bear repeating.
9:40 PM |

How to Remember the Heroes Who Died Today

Air Force Capt. Steven Givler just sent his friends and family the following e-mail from Qatar, having just recently left Iraq:

I just heard we've lost some good people in Mosul. They were killed when the chow hall, a large, quasi tent-building, came under fire by rockets and mortars. Terrorists timed the attack to coincide with mealtime, so the place was full.

I mentioned that chow hall when I wrote about my trip to Mosul. I said I had the best manicotti I've ever eaten there. That seems like such a trivial observation now. What I should have mentioned were the smiling Turks who served the meal, the young soldiers who sat beside me while I ate. I wonder if they are still alive.

For many families, Christmas from now on will be a reminder of the loved ones who died in that attack. My heart goes out to them. I pray that God will comfort them, and that their loved ones are with Him now.

And that we will destroy the ones who did this.

I know, because I've heard this sort of argument at home, that people will be saying, "we have to get out of Iraq. Our boys are dying over there." And to that I say the only thing worse than our dying over here would be your dying over there. At home.

Remember when you hear about my brothers and sisters dying here that we are taking the battle to the enemy. He has obligingly concentrated his forces from many different nations into this small area, where we are steadily, unstoppably, killing them in their own back yard. Better that, than digging our brothers and sisters out from the ruins of another skyscraper.

Mourn the lives we lost today, but celebrate the fact that they died for what is right. They sacrificed themselves for others' freedom.

And don't let their loss detract from this special time. Instead, see it as proof positive that Americans, because of our heritage, have an instinctive understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, and it leads us to sacrifice so that others can be free.

1:30 PM |

'Wrongful-Life' Suit Dismissed

Remember that scene in "The Incredibles" where the suicidal man sues the superhero who prevented him from leaping to his death?

The depiction was all too familiar in an age that is seeing an increasing number of "wrongful-life" lawsuits.

Thankfully, one such suit was just rejected by the South Carolina Supreme Court, as the Associated Press reports:

The South Carolina Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit that claimed a woman was denied the option to abort her disabled son because she was not told about the condition.

Jennie Willis of Marion County contends she would have legally aborted had she known when she was pregnant that most of his brain was missing, said her lawyer, O. Fayrell Furr Jr. of Myrtle Beach.

The lawsuit was filed by Willis on behalf of her now 8-year-old son, Thomas....

[T]he state's high court unanimously ruled Monday it recognizes the "extremely severe nature" of the boy's impairment, but it could not accept the "wrongful life" claim.

"Even a jury collectively imbued with the wisdom of Solomon would be unable to weigh the fact of being born with a defective condition against the fact of not being born at all," Associate Justice E.C. Burnett of Spartanburg wrote for the court. "It is simply beyond the human experience."

South Carolina joins 27 other states, including Georgia and North Carolina, that either reject or limit the "wrongful life" claim, the court said. California, Washington and New Jersey are the only states that allow such claims; the remaining states haven't taken a position.

Willis contended in court papers that Dr. Donald S. Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist, failed to tell her about her son's condition in 1995 before the 24-week deadline under state law to have a legal abortion.

Wu in court papers said at the 22-week stage he informed Willis after her third ultrasound examination of a potential problem and ordered another test by a fetal specialist in Charleston.

But she refused to go, even after another examination a week later showed her son "lacked any significant brain," he said in court papers.

"The question I posed to the court was, `Where do you draw the line?'" said Stephen Brown, Wu's Charleston lawyer. "Is it (for example) a Down Syndrome case or a child who takes 20 diabetic shots a day?"...

"There are better ways, there are positive alternatives to dealing with people with disabilities than to get rid of them," said Holly Gatling, executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life. This child was born less than perfect, but I would say who of us is not?"...

Brian Lewis, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of South Carolina, said Monday that expectant mothers should always be told, if possible, whether their children might be born with disabilities so they can decide whether to keep the child, seek adoption or have an abortion.

"It's up to that woman (to determine) where she is in her life, what her needs are, what she can or cannot handle," he said.

There they go again. Planned Parenthood claims it's "up to [the] woman" to determine if she can "handle" a disabled child—and if not, kill it.

Read this mother's account of the baby she refused to abort. How cruel that Planned Parenthood and others would say the child should have been killed before birth to spare its mother grief. (As if an abortion actually could spare a mother grief—plenty of post-abortive women would give the lie to that.) Thank God that, as with this South Carolina case, there are still judges who refuse "to weigh the fact of being born with a defective condition against the fact of not being born at all."
3:13 AM |

Notes From the Underground

Riding from work on the V train at 11 p.m. last night, my beloved copy of Witness preventing me from making eye contact with the few others in the subway car, I did a double take when I heard the conductor announce the next stop: "The main branch of the New York Public Library."

It was 42nd Street all right, but why would he announce the NYPL at 11 p.m.—when the building's closed for the night?

The delicious thought occurred to me that the mysterious, unseen voice was that rare and wonderful creature—the New York City subway conductor who actually loves his job.

My suspicion was borne out when the train reached the next stop and the conductor listed a host of points of interest—I just remember, "...and Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Knicks, actually named after the Knickerbocker brewery. For more useless facts, see your conductor."

That was my stop, so I dashed out, found the conductor, shook his hand, and thanked him for the useless facts. I also recommended he read Forgotten NY.
2:07 AM |

I think I've mentioned (and will mention again) that I'm reading Whittaker Chambers's Witness for the first time—here's a very cool site about the Alger Hiss trial that details, among other things, Chambers's bravery and his place in American history.
12:43 AM |

Monday, December 20, 2004

If you've already read "I Love a Cheerful Giver" (below), check out the comments I've added to it—and my response to one of them.
6:15 PM |

Sunday, December 19, 2004

The Vatican news agency, Zenit, has just published an interview with Father Peter Gumpel on "What the Church Has Said About Children Who Die Without Baptism." I find this interesting because the Church essentially admits a hopeful agnosticism on the issue, according to Fr. Gumpel:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992, dedicates No. 1261 to children who die without Baptism, and one reads that one can hope that they will attain the beatific vision.

It is an element of the greatest importance, which opens the way to a broader point of view, and it is a pronouncement of the ordinary magisterium of the Church. We cannot say with certainty that they will be saved.

We can hope, and the fact that we can hope, as the Catechism says, is an interpretative key. No one hopes or can hope legitimately for something one is certain is impossible.

My own faith tells me that God is just, and so it is impossible that an aborted child or a baby who dies could go anywhere but Heaven. Yet, I respect the Church for admitting, in the absence of revelation, that it does not know—and for siding with hope.
11:54 PM |

Dennis Schenkel makes observations on the Kinsey study "Mechanisms Influencing Sexual Risk Taking" that didn't occur to me when I wrote about it:

"You can be sure that as soon as the results of the Kinsey study are made public, the smart people in the Madison Avenue advertising firms will be all over it figuring out how to get women to make stupid decisions. If a woman can be tricked into making a stupid decision to have sex with a stranger, then surely there must be a way to get her to spend her money on products or services that she doesn't need, don't do what they claim to do, or are dangerous and stupid. And if they can get the taxpayers to fund the research to find out how to do it, so much the better."

9:10 PM |

Latkes in the White House

Dennis Prager reports on the White House Hanukkah dinner (link requires registration):

It is an incredible blessing to be an American Jew (or "Jewish American" — both terms are accurate). We are doubly blessed. An Israeli interviewer once asked if I were first a Jew or an American, "I have two fathers," I said. "George Washington and the patriarch Abraham." So to be one of about 200 Jews invited to celebrate Hanukkah at the White House with the president of the United States was about as profound a personal moment as I have experienced. My two loves -- America and Judaism -- in one place, reinforcing each other.

I suspect that this feeling was shared by just about every Jew present, including bearded Orthodox rabbis heretofore not prone to affirming any non-Jewish national identity. As a yeshiva graduate, I never thought I would live to see identifying Jews, let alone Orthodox rabbis, so happy to be in a room with a menorah and a Christmas tree. Yet that signified a sea change taking place in American Jewish life — the realization that Christianity is no longer the enemy or the great Other but, for the first time in 2,000 years, a great ally.

This realization has yet to dawn on many Jews. The memory of almost two millenniums of European, i.e., Christian, anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust is seared deeply in Jewish hearts and minds, and it is very hard for most Jews to truly believe that the cross is a friend, not an invitation to a pogrom.

But American Christianity has never been like European Christianity in its attitude toward Jews and Judaism. Jews have been equals and honored as such from even before the creation of the United States. Many of the founders studied Hebrew; Thomas Jefferson wanted the Seal of the United States to depict the Jews' exodus from Egypt; Yale University's insignia is in Hebrew; a verse from the Torah (Leviticus) is inscribed on the Liberty Bell; a rabbi attended George Washington's inauguration — the list of pro-Jewish expressions in U.S. history is endless. But perhaps most telling is the fact that although there have been any number of Christian countries and there are many secular ones today, it is the U.S. that calls itself Judeo-Christian.

I think Dennis is forgetting some history when he claims that Jews have always been treated with equality in America. Some friends and relatives of mine who were excluded from law school due to once-widespread quotas on Jewish applicants, or who were denied jobs because of their Jewish faith (like my mother) would disagree. Likewise, I think most Christians who call this a country of faith at all call it a Christian country (as I did recently in this space—though I now wish I'd added the Judeo).

But Prager's larger point can't be denied. Today, America's Christians are an important and essential ally of its Jews, with common foes—not just fundamentalist Islam, but, if you'll pardon the term, fundamentalist secularism. The efforts of secularists to remove anything faith-inspired from America's laws—claiming that if a law even corresponds with a Biblical tenet or prohibition, it is an attempt to legislate faith—are a threat that can be met only by a united front.

Thanks to JRob for the tip.

UPDATE: Power Line (via Alarming News) marks the 350th anniversary of America's Jewish community.
1:14 PM |

Saturday, December 18, 2004

As always, lots of good weekend-reading links at Classical Anglican Net News—from news reports to a thoughtful piece on Advent on the prayer blog Lent & Beyond.
7:15 PM |

The Choir This Time

This Tuesday at 5 p.m., Bogota, N.J., mayor and gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan is sponsoring an "illegal" Christmas-caroling session outside my former high school—the same one I wrote about in my op-ed. God bless him. I wish I could be there.
6:25 PM |

If you haven't had enough Planned Parenthood political intrigue this weekend, check out this story of how PP is using the incestuous relationship between its Houston chapter and the city's mayor to try to squeeze more funds out of Houston's taxpayers. More information is available from "Texas' Dawn Eden." (Hey, the more, the merrier. Let a thousand Dawn Edens bloom.)
5:58 PM |

Least Newsworthy Associated Press Story of 2004

Actually, this might just be the least-newsworthy published article of the year, period—not because of the tragic subject matter, but because some editor thought that the headline-celebrity still mattered:

"Kato Kaelin Mourns Loss of Nephew in Iraq"

1:33 PM |

Sic Transit Gloria

Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt picked the wrong day to reaffirm the organization's commitment to partial-birth and late-term abortions.

The press release Feldt issued yesterday is worth quoting in its entirety:

An Open Letter to the Democratic National Committee from Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Gloria Feldt Regarding Comments Made by Former Congressman Tim Roemer

December 17, 2004

I was dismayed to hear former Congressman and DNC chair candidate Tim Roemer speak with John King on CNN last night about his plans for the Democratic Party. Rejecting his party's platform and core belief that women should have access to the reproductive health care they need, he said, "I personally don't think that we should have late-term abortions or partial birth abortions. I think that's a moral blind spot."

The phrase is familiar. Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia once scolded me and several other pro-choice leaders with the very same words after we testified that reproductive health decisions should be made by women, their families, and their physicians, not by the government. Unfortunately, this instance of bipartisan consensus leaves women in the dark.

The real moral blind spot is the one that keeps lawmakers from seeing how restricting access to needed reproductive health care puts women's lives in danger.

The Democratic Party and its leadership should champion pro-choice values, and uphold the platform's stated commitment to women's rights and health. But this is about more than one party's platform. Reproductive rights are human rights. Regardless of their party affiliation, all our legislators should respect our human right to make our own childbearing decisions without government interference, our right to privacy in our medical and sexual lives, and our right to access to health care that makes the other rights meaningful.

Sincerely,

Gloria Feldt

President

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

How extraordinarily shameless.

With this statement, Planned Parenthood is effectively giving up pretending that partial-birth abortions and late-term abortions don't brutally destroy viable babies. There's no longer any claim from them that such procedures are not cruel, inhumane, and utterly abhorrent. Their only defense is Feldt's squawking, like a broken record, "Reproductive rights are human rights."

That immediately spurs the answer, "What are reproductive rights, but the right to reproduce?" All women have reproductive rights—except those in China, whose government works in complicity with Planned Parenthood to force them to have abortions.

As for "human rights"—whose human rights? Roe vs. Wade states that a baby the age of the one that was ripped from its mother's womb yesterday has no human rights—so long as it's still in its mother's body. Is that morally right?

Think of that baby girl beginning her ninth month of development, who police found miraculously alive and apparently healthy. Think about the sighs of relief from men, women, and children across the world when the news went out that the baby was alive.

Now think of that same baby girl if she had been aborted at eight months, rather than stolen alive from her mother's womb. Does the girl suddenly go from being a baby to being an subhuman "thing" because she was killed in her mother's womb rather than removed from it? She's still the same baby. Yet, outside her mother's womb, she's a person, with human rights—and inside it, in Planned Parenthood's eyes, she's a mere extension of her mother, subject to mom's "reproductive rights."

The last word goes to Kevin O'Brien, who writes that he is appalled by the media's calling the live baby a "fetus":

Can't people see? Isn't this proof enough that this little varmint is a person, not a "blob of protoplasm?"

The monster that killed his mother -- now THAT's a blob of protoplasm. One of the many evil, degraded beings that will see the sun rise tomorrow only because I am not King! But you are not born a soulless blob of protoplasm. You become one, if you go down whatever dark path that creep took.

And that path has a darkness that may be Feldt.

COMMENTS: Richard J. Stuart writes: "Ms. Feldt speaks eloquently in favor of libertarian values and keeping the governement out of peoples lives. Wonder if she has that same attitude on income taxes? No doubt she's also issued a press release praising President Bush for his efforts in freeing women from oppression by Iraq's former government. I'll expect a flying pig to deliver the text of her remarks."
1:53 AM |

Friday, December 17, 2004

Through JD King, I've learned that post offices are selling phone cards that get sent to our troops. Radio host Glenn Beck is also spearheading a phonecards-for-GIs drive through the New York USO—you can buy a phonecard through their Web site or call (877)522-7000.
8:15 PM |

The major greeting-card companies wish you a reverent, Happy Hanukkah; a reverent, Happy Kwanzaa; and a rude, scatological, farty, body-fluid-laden Christmas.
5:34 PM |

Syndicated columnist Bill Press argues that the United States is not a Christian nation, and Shock and Blog's Jinx McHue is having none of it. Read Jinx's fisking of Press's column, and then read Press's smug "response."

When I was growing up Jewish, I was offended when Falwell and others would call America a Christian nation. I am still offended when people use that or any other excuse to belittle people of other religions. But I now realize that America is a Christian nation, in that it was founded by believing Christians who based the country's principles and laws on God's word and God's laws. Bill Press is countering that not because he believes that Jews or Jehovah's Witnesses or Hindus, or even atheists are being oppressed. He is countering it because he is so against faith that he refuses to believe that men of faith could create a country such as ours. He is wrong.
3:57 PM |

'Rapist' Gets a Break at Planned Parenthood

The Aspen Times reports that a 24-year-old man was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. The victim's mother had contacted police because she suspected the pair were "having an affair," and the girl admitted the sexual contact to police.

Part of the police report states that, according to the newspaper, "The girl also said she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver with [the accused] because she believed she was pregnant, according to the affidavit. The girl said she found out at the clinic she was not pregnant. She also said [the accused] would not have been the father, though he accompanied her to Denver."

Notice who is the source of the police report's information. The girl. Planned Parenthood never reported her visit to the police—otherwise they would have used the information when they charged the accused.

The age of consent in Colorado is 15.

This girl went to a Planned Parenthood clinic with a man 10 years older than she was, and they just checked her, said, "You're not pregnant," and let her go home with him.

John Bambenek's estimate of the number of child sex-abuse cases unreported by Planned Parenthood is looking more accurate every day.
1:42 AM |

Springtime for Sanger

Now that President Bush is no longer a candidate for office, Planned Parenthood is free to openly compare his administration to Nazi Germany. How ironic coming from an organization whose population-control tactics would make Josef Mengele blush. Like Margaret Sanger's Negro Project—which Planned Parenthood's Web site would tell you was "a unique experiment in race-building." That it was—for the white race.
1:18 AM |

Have had a whirlwind couple of days, and things haven't slowed down yet. Dennis came to visit, and it was lovely meeting him for the first time and taking him around my little town. We had dinner at my mom's and stepdad's place, and they got him to sing—wow! He sings like an angel. (You can hear him in a blog entry of his, by clicking on the photos.)

Wednesday night, Dennis and I went to a party in Manhattan where I met Angus of Mansfield Fox for the first time, who has a great, upbeat spirit and made me laugh right away. I also had the pleasure of meeting Fr. Bryce Sibley, who is exactly like his blog. He spent much of the party going out of his way to discuss serious issues with people whose views were radically different from his—like a gay-marriage proponent and a Christian Scientist. That's his idea of a good time—and it was my good time to watch them. I think all his sparring partners ended up making peace with him—at least, the Christian Scientist did. He also met one professed atheist, who happened to be from his hometown—it turned out they had mutual friends.

Then last night I saw "Tales of Hoffmann" at the Met, which was just fantastic.
1:00 AM |

Thursday, December 16, 2004

J.R. Taylor begins his nightlife column in the current New York Press with the story of his recent appearance on "Air America," where they'd invited him to discuss his piece on Matthew Shepard's killing. Then they rushed him off so they could have Shepard's mother on—and not have a debate between the two.

Taylor writes:

Let me tell you about a mother you'll never hear speaking on Air America. Her name was Cindy Thompson Dixon, and her son was one of Matthew Shepard's murderers.

Cindy Thompson Dixon was killed the year after Shepard's death in a strikingly similar fashion. She was also raped. She wasn't a lesbian, though, so the same judge who gave her son a life sentence arranged it so that Dixon's murderer was out of jail in four years. That's why hate crime legislation is a joke—but you won't hear that on Air America, either.

For more background on the Shepard and Dixon killings, read JoAnn Wypijewski's recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.
9:43 AM |

You Would Cry Too

The pro-death former New Jersey governor and EPA head Christine Todd Whitman is hitting the talk-show circuit to publicize her upcoming book, the title of which cracks me up: It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America.

For a former Bush official, she sure sounds a lot like Gore. No, not Al—Lesley.
1:33 AM |

The recuperating Charles G. Hill passes on this link to an inspired bit of Scrappleface wit, which is almost too close to the real pro-abortion POV to be funny: "NARAL Outraged at Peterson Death Sentence."

1:00 AM |

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Sex and the Sophie

"How To Want More Sex More Of The Time."

That's the line greeting women at tens of thousands of grocery-store checkouts as I write this, blaring from the cover of Elle*. Not "How to Have More Sex," or "How to Have Better Sex." It's "How to Want More Sex." As though all humanity's problems could be solved if only we wanted to be more carnal—to intercourse one another upon meeting, say, instead of doing the traditional handshake.

How blue-state can you get?

The article by Laurie Abraham is actually a Kinsey-film cash-in, as she visits the Kinsey Institute and takes part in its study "Mechanisms Influencing Sexual Risk Taking."

This is the very same study that Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) attempted to defund—and which won a nearly half-million-dollar government grant despite his and others' objections.

Would you like to witness your tax dollars at work?

As we come in, the researchers have attached wires to Abraham so they can monitor her sexual response as she watches videos. She's just been shown a series of photos of handsome men. Fasten your seat belts for what comes next:

From cute boys the video moves to…the scene in "Sophie's Choice" where a Nazi soldier orders Meryl Streep to choose which of her two children to keep! If she refuses, presumably both will be sent to the gas chamber. Janssen is specifically examining how emotions—anxiety, depression, happiness—impact sexual arousal (which could help predict when someone is more likely to, say, lose her head and have unprotected sex with a stranger).

Oh. My. God.

WE ARE THROWING HALF A MILLION DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER MONEY TO MONITOR A WOMAN'S SEXUAL AROUSAL AS SHE WATCHES "SOPHIE'S CHOICE"?!

What's next—tossing a few hundred thou so we can find out what part of "Schindler's List" excites 10-year-old girls?

Right now, I DO want more sex more of the time. LOTS of sex. And a husband to have it with. Just so I can spawn oodles of children who will grow up with strong family values, cast votes, and DEFUND THESE PERVERTED SEX STUDIES.

For more on the Kinsey Institute, see Dr. Judith Reisman's site.

Thanks to Michael Potemra for noting that the Elle headline would be good Dawn Patrol fodder.

*Sorry, no link, though the article is Elle's site. I used up my obscene-links quota yesterday with the Joey Ramone entry.
1:28 AM |

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

I just heard Joey Ramone's version of "What a Wonderful World" for the first time when I accidentally hit the button for Q104.3. (It was an accident, honest.) What a great version. It's the best thing by him or any of the Ramones that I've ever heard. And now I learn from an obscenity-laden but otherwise perspicacious article online (read it only if you can tolerate the language) that it was the last thing Joey ever recorded. Amazing.

The author of the aforementioned review, John Saleeby, writes:

The man is dying a good thirty or forty years ahead of his time and what is he singing to us about? "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow . . . They'll learn much more than I'll never know . . . And I think to myself 'What a wonderful world' . . . Yes, I think to myself 'What a wonderful world'." I betcha Louis Armstrong didn't feel like singing anything like that when HE was going under. Hell, put on anything by most rock singers in the prime of their lives and they sound like the test results just came in and their kidneys are turning into flesh eating worms that are going to gnaw their way through their torso and out the top of their head. What else could that poor Bob Seger possibly be so upset about? I have no idea what them Night Moves he's come down with are, but I sure hope I get cancer like Joey Ramone before I get em. They sound like Hell. Maybe that's what Eddie Vedder's got.

2:02 PM |

Mark Kellner observes that, despite Scott Peterson's being convicted of two counts of murder some people just don't get it.
1:44 PM |

Between Seventeen and Death

You may not have heard of Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubinstein, but she's an icon to millions of young girls. In 1996, at the age of 24, she founded CosmoGIRL, becoming the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of a major teen magazine. Last year, she became the editor of Seventeen, and it is in that capacity that she writes an advice column which appears in the Detroit Free Press.

The headline for a recent Rubinstein column was "Girl must work out ill-timed pregnancy."

Can you guess where we're going here? Can you guess what this self-appointed adviser to teenage girls means by "working out" a pregnancy?

It gets worse:

Dear Atoosa: I'm seeing a guy who's four years older than I am. Well, he just left for Iraq for two years. He wants me to wait for him, and I was planning on it, but I just recently found out that I'm pregnant, and I don't know how to tell him. I know that he's not ready for kids yet, and neither am I. Help! -- Jen, 16, Deer Park, Wash.

First of all, with Jen being only 16, Rubinstein shouldn't be printing this letter at all. The age of consent in Washington is 16, but it's possible the teen might have been impregnated at 15—which would have made it statutory rape. In case the girl was indeed underage, Rubinstein should have reported the rape to the authorities—she may even be required to do so by law. Something must be done to prevent the 20-year-old perpetrator from having sex with other underage girls.

But Rubinstein replies:

Dear Jen: Wow. That's quite a lot that you have to deal with right now. There are many different directions you can go in your scenario, and in every case, they are totally life-altering and need to be based on your value system -- not mine.

Give her credit for not wasting time—she leaps immediately into the world of moral relativism.

So while I'm happy to help, it's not really my place to tell you what to do, so I will encourage you to go to your family first and foremost, because they will be closest to you in value system.

So just to be clear, before you even tell your boyfriend, it's important to have discussed this with a few family members or friends who will have your back no matter how the conversation with him goes.

Translation: "Don't let your boyfriend talk you out of killing his child. He shouldn't have a part in the decision anyway."

Once you have your support system in place (and obviously this is something you need to get done immediately because your situation is time-sensitive), then you need to figure out what you want to do about the pregnancy.

"Time-sensitive." Doesn't that just curdle your blood? You know what she means. I know what she means. But she's just frightened enough of red-state America to avoid the "a"-word.

Because ultimately, while it's certainly a couple's conversation, it's your body and your future that will be the most impacted, and chances are, with him being so far away, he will be wondering what your perspective is, and you need to have that answer ready.

(No doubt he doesn't get a ton of phone time when he calls, so I'm sure a long, drawn-out conversation unfortunately isn't in the cards for you two.)

Translation: "RUSH! GO TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. GO DIRECTLY TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200. AND DO NOT LET YOUR BOYFRIEND STOP YOU."

It won't be an easy decision for you. But you need to make it fairly quickly and then make that phone call to your boyfriend. I know it will be hard -- but just start with the facts and say that you two need to make a decision. After the conversation, rely on your friends and family to give you emotional support.

Again, she's telling the girl, "you" need to make that decision. Unilaterally. That's the Planned Parenthood party line.

It's no surprise that Rubinstein concludes:

You can contact your family doctor or call Planned Parenthood at 800-230-7526 for more information regarding your decision so you can take the right steps -- whether that means getting prenatal care or otherwise.

Or "otherwise." Again, the euphemism is sickening. And she even puts the abortionists' phone number in the newspaper.

So this is what Seventeen—a magazine that parents could once trust to give sensible advice to their daughters—has become.

The Detroit Free Press's e-mail address for letters to the editor is letters@freepress.com. Atoosa Rubinstein's e-mail is dearseventeen@hearst.com.

COMMENTS: Joel B. Martin, who knows the region where the teen letter-writer lives, writes:

Although Washington showed up blue on the election map, Deer Park is in a decidedly red-state area. In Spokane, the nearest city, there is only one facility that offers "abortions services." Naturally, it's Planned Parenthood. The nearest other facility is in Yakima, about 200 miles away. There are, however, at least three crisis-pregnancy centers in Spokane, and most likely another in Deer Park.

[Also], Eastern Washington is very, very strongly religious in its demographic makeup. This is farm and logging country, and kind of divided between the black-helicopter militia crowd and the more mainstream Bible Belt culture, with a generous helping of Mormon thrown into the mix. In short, this is not a very abortion-friendly area, which means that Jen's family is most likely to be pro-life in the advice they give her.

So take a little bit of heart. Planned Barrenhood may yet get their hooks into this girl, but it will be a much more uphill fight for them than it would be in New York.

2:28 AM |

Hey, Baby, What's 'Ursine'?

There is a male blogger who, I am convinced—as I read his account of his social life—looks up his potential dates' Truth Laid Bear rankings before deciding whether he will go out with them.
2:19 AM |

I'm With the Band

I'm reposting this entry because the bands are now officially available, distributed by the St. Louis Archdiocesan Pro-Life Committee:

Roman Catholic seminarian Jeff Geerling and his sister Maria have come up with a bright way to display support for the cause of life: thePROLIFE wristband. Details from Jeff's site:

The color blue was chosen for these wristbands for a variety of reasons:
Blue stands for sprituality, grace and truth

Blue is the color used by Catholics to represent Mary's humanity—her dependence on God*

Blue is the color of the seas and of the pure sky, signifying the innocence of all the babies who are aborted daily and the hope they will attain eternal rest in Heaven

Blue is the color for healing*; it is important for us to work towards healing the hearts of those women who have had abortions
Features of the PROLIFE Wristband
Made of the same durable silicone rubber as the LIVESTRONG wristbands

Won't easily wear or break

Completely waterproof

Stretchable, so it can fit most any wrist

Boldly proclaims you are standing up for the basic right to life for all people!

Not bad for $1. Ordering information is at the bottom of the PROLIFE wristband home page. It's a beautiful idea and I hope it takes off.
1:26 AM |

Monday, December 13, 2004

Kudos to National Review Online's Jay Nordlinger for drawing attention to the New York Public Library's Che Watch in his column today. I covered the library's effort to make money off a murderer last week in "Killing Time."
4:24 PM |

The Curiously Strong Sentiment

Just got a bulk-e-mail from the keyboard player of Richard & The Young Lions, announcing that he's married the model and actress best known as Sindy Sinnamon, the Altoids Girl.

I wonder if their vow was, "'Til breath do us part..."
1:52 AM |

Caren has a sentimental look at her radio days. I think many people can relate.
1:48 AM |

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Deacon Dana at The Meandering Mind of a Seminarian displays the ACLU Homeland Holiday Advisory System. I like it that the Scrooge level is green—just like in Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$."
8:47 PM |

Had a fab time deejaying last night at POP GEAR!—especially meeting Donna of Donnaville, who came with her sister Lisa and friends Audra and Glenn. Afterwards we all went to Veselka for coffee and lots of conversation. I really enjoyed meeting all of them—it was especially great to see the chemistry between the sisters and Audra, who've known each other for years—and it was the most fun I've had in a long while.

Donna is very sweet to accuse herself of "gushing too much", because I think I was gushing too much. She was exactly as I'd imagined her—poised, graceful, sharp, warm, and funny. I've met several people with whom I've corresponded via e-mail or read their blogs, and often they display a personality on their blog that's far more outgoing than anything they can manage in real life. It's such a pleasure to discover that all the best elements of a person's virtual self, which I already like, are obvious in their real self as well.

The Donnaville diva is nearly a head taller than me—her first words to me, referencing my nickname, were, "You really are a petite powerhouse!"—and looked fantabulosa in her black V-neck blouse and psychedelic mini. Having met her, I can better understand her inspired essay "My Heroine Addiction, where she describes how her favorite pop-culture femmes influenced her—she definitely has that young Paula Prentiss thing going.
7:46 PM |

Brett of Saint Kansas has the last word on the 2004 Weblog Awards. The blog category that he mentions is a real category—he didn't make it up. And there's no category for religious blogs.
1:52 PM |

Guerrilla-Whore Fare

The great cartoonist JD King e-mailed me and other pals of his with a brilliant idea:

Maybe the Left can take a pic of the bearded Saddam and use it as their new icon? It could replace Che on T-shirts and posters!

I mean, Che was groovy, but Saddam would be a whole new trend in radical chic!

But he has to have the beard. That gives him the beatnik thing!

I wouldn't be surprised if just such a Saddam-as-Che shirt (red, of course) started turning up on sites like Those Shirts or Saint Kansas, or Babalublog soon, hint, hint. Just remember to send one to JD, guys.
1:33 PM |

Chappy Chanukah

In honor of the Festival of Lights, here's a Flash animation, "Chanukah Hey Ya," to the tune of a song that I'm told is popular with the kiddies.

Although the animation is riddled with typos, the song itself, by Suburban Homeboy, is really well done. My sister, who's in her final year of rabbinical school, was impressed with a lyric to the effect that, "They tell me we're the chosen people—but if that's true, why are we the exception?" She noted that it's an unusually profound sentiment for a pop song. And of course she liked it that the question's answered with, "I don't know—ask the rabbi!"

TRACKBACK: Fr. Joseph of Orthodixie gives "Chanukah Hey Ya" a virtual imprimatur.
4:24 AM |

The Great Escape

I just discovered a brand-new blog, Escape Velocity. It only has one entry so far (plus a blogroll), and I hope the blogger will forgive me if I reproduce the post in its entirety—it's just intriguing enough that I think it'll make you want to keep an eye on that page:

aD2004 avnt-12-10–2150pst-

Age: 22
Sex: male
Position: currently orbiting planet Fundament in the Baptist system
Possible Destinations: planets Anglic, Orthod, Cathol, all in the Nicene system
Acceleration: 0.225 dogma/square week
Approaching escape velocity

Warning: penchant for overblown metaphors detected

4:15 AM |

Thanks

I just want to thank everyone who's voted for me in that big blogger-award thingie. I've been reluctant to plug myself because "vote for me" plugs don't make for exciting reading, and besides, you already came through for me where it really counted—when I asked for money to help pay my former server's sky-high fees. But I did finally check my vote count just now and found that about 170 votes have been tallied for me, which is just unbelievable. Whether or not I win—and right now, I'm a long shot—I really feel like a winner. Thank you so much.
4:05 AM |

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Scott of Slantpoint is visiting Israel for the first time and has a touching and insightful story about what it means to be in the only democracy in the Middle East.
6:06 PM |

Looks like I may have a very special guest tonight at POP GEAR! Please get there early so you can hear me deejay from 10 to 11 p.m.
4:34 PM |

See You in the Funny Papers

The past week of the comic strip "PreTeena" reads as though its author, Allison Barrows, were commenting on my New York Post op-ed, "The Grinch Who Stole 'Messiah.'" Click on the "PreTeena" link and read up from the bottom.

Thanks to Dennis Schenkel for the tip.
4:25 PM |

When We Was Fab

There are bad reminders of my rock-and-roll past, and there are good reminders.

A bad reminder is someone saying, "Didn't I see you at a Robyn Hitchcock record signing in 1986 at Tower Records, where, in the absence of a table, you helpfully shouted that he could use your back? I believe your exact words were, 'I'll be a table!'"

A good reminder is a book, The Beatles: Ten Years That Shook the World that reprints an article I wrote for the British magazine Mojo about the Fab Four's last concert. It's on page 212.

2:09 AM |

Iraqi Pinup

Air Force Captain Steven Givler sends this shot of a poster in the window of a garbage truck in Ramadi, showing a chador-able woman. "I found it interesting how much intensity and suggestion was expressed in that photo—which showed only the woman's eyes," he writes.

COMMENTS: Marty McKeever writes: "Interesting...it reminds me of the ironically feminist fact that in Islamic societies such as this, 'ALL women are beautiful.' Which makes for thoughtful reflection on our land of Botox, Viagra, and 'Desperate Housewives'...
1:59 AM |

Friday, December 10, 2004

This Side of Kevin

WMCA talk-radio host Kevin McCullough has two absolute must-reads today: his WorldNetDaily column "Attacking God," which gets to the heart of the recent flood of attempts to secularize the Christmas season, and a transcript of his interview yesterday with J. Edward Hill, the incoming president of the AMA. McCullough was courteous to Hill and listened to him, despite his strong disagreement with him on the subject of abstinence-only education. The result is that Hill's ideological prejudices—he thinks poor children aren't capable of understanding abstinence—show themselves in mortifying detail. Margaret Sanger lives.

Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, wrote in What Every Boy and Girl Should Know: "It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence."

Hill's thinking, and Planned Parenthood's, is the kind that says, "Don't teach poor kids abstinence. Just teach them to use condoms, and when that doesn't work, kill their children in the womb—by any means necessary."
3:30 PM |

Val of Babalu Blog, who wrote about the New York Public Library's Che watch after I spotlighted it here, writes that the NYPL must be getting a lot of complaints—the woman answering the phone when his wife called was very displeased at the call. (Fill in "displeased" with a word I don't feel like printing—I've used up my obscenity quota today.) You can let the NYPL know your feelings about the watch—politely, please—by phoning in your complaint (contact information is in both of the afore-linked entries).
1:38 PM |

Flesh and Blog

[Graphic sexual language ahead]

A reader writing about "Skin Traitors", my broadside against right-wing bloggers who assault readers with pornographic images, suggest that perhaps the offending bloggers are just trying to look hip, countering the image of conservatives as prudes.

If that's true, then it just shows how pathetic they are.

Paying fealty to porn culture is not "hip." It is "trendy." There is a difference.

Hip is creative. Hip is memorable. Hip is something you want to be part of. It may have nothing more than entertainment value, but it entertains you in a way that makes you see the rest of the world in its invigorating light.

Trendy is a bleached-blonde gal with naked boobs. It's memorable only until you see the next one. Its only function is to provide variety for voyeuristic men's gratingly hollow excuse for a sex life.

The best conservative blogs are terrifically hip—look at Tim Blair, to name one—because they don't have anything to prove. When I visit their blogs, I know that I'm going to read the work of a writer who respects readers' intelligence—not some goofball who thinks I'm so stupid that I'll be amused by a pair of fried eggs. Or, worse, some insecure donkey who wants to insult female viewers for the sake of proving his manhood—the blog equivalent of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club.

The conservative blogger who feels the need to prove his hipness is like the poor jerk who, in trying to impress a potential date, tells her that he has to buy some Trojan Magmum XLs.

I'm not saying that such an imbecile would be lying to his intended inamorata. What I am saying is that any man who measures his self-worth by the size of his anatomy is emotionally bankrupt—and, if he's bragging about it, intellectually bankrupt as well.

Imagine if Paris Hilton tried to have a conservative blog. It'd be "hip" all right. But nobody would believe she could write anything intellectually valid, because she advertises her obsession with casual sex and pornography.

Likewise with the conservative skin bloggers—they not only offend readers who don't want to be assaulted by skin, but they also invalidate their attempts at intellectual discourse.

Readers have nothing to gain from a blogger who advertises the fact that he thinks with his penis—even if he's nicknamed it Little Buckley.

Inspiration: Twisted Spinster
1:48 AM |

Thursday, December 9, 2004

Grinch Update: More on the South Orange-Maplewood Holiday-Music Ban

The district where I went to high school, in South Orange and Maplewood, N.J., is holding firm with its ban on all religious music—even instrumentals—at holiday concerts, an issue I covered in my New York Post op-ed "The Grinch Who Stole 'Messiah.'" Today I received a letter from Doug Amedeo, a father of schoolkids in the district, who says that there is an organized opposition against the ban—but they need help. In particular, he writes, they need support from people who are not aligned with the sort of right-wing groups that the local citizens largely abhor:

I'm a parent of two children in the South Orange-Maplewood School District. I'm also a reader of your blog and found myself particularly pleased when I discovered your NY Post piece on the SOMA censorship controversy.

The objection to allowing religion to be "reflected" in the SOMA schools is that it offends sensibilities. As someone wrote in a letter in the News Record, let's ban it in schools and leave religion to our churches and synagogues. That's a poor argument. The only religion my children learn in their church is their own. Where will kids learn about other faiths? Answer, no where.

SOMA schools, like most, have always done a mediocre job presenting religious subject matter. At the elementary level, it was done indirectly as part of a holiday program. The kids learned carols about the "birth of the King" and never talked about who that King was. Judaism was poorly handled too. A minor holiday, Chanukah, was celebrated and the major holiday, Passover, was never mentioned. That said, having nothing presented is not an improvement.

Like you, I have pleasant memories of holiday programs attended as a public school kid in New Jersey. As a Christian, I enjoyed learning to sing Dradel and it thrilled me to see my Jewish friends return the favor by singing Silent Night. It came like a Christmas gift, a salute to my faith from kids who didn't share it. I hate to think that this little tradition of tolerance and good-fellowship will now be lost.

I will not spare you a short report from the front. People grumble, petitions go the rounds, but we have not formed any real opposition as yet. The Legal Resource Council, the Alliance Defense Fund and the New Jersey Family Policy Council have threatened the school district with a lawsuit. While this is encouraging, there is a downside. Those organizations also support pro-life and anti-gay marriage efforts and are viewed as suspect by the almost homogeneously liberal towns (Kerry carried 75% of the vote.)

Because Maplewood-South Orange is now home to many who work in media, the towns ordinarily receive a greater share of press coverage than you would expect from their size. The censorship story has received major coverage, though in every piece I have seen lately the fact that the civil-rights organization threatening suit is "Christian" has been played up as a major fact. The nadir has been an ABC news piece which makes it sound like Maplewood-South Orange is targeted for efforts by the Christian Right to enfranchise Christianity in the schools. Too much of this and we will see a rallying around the School Board and soi-disant progressives celebrating the censorship of their children as a victory against ignorance and religious intolerance. We would love to have a liberal group join the fight--perhaps even Ron Kuby, whom you quote--but haven't a clue how to do that. The ACLU is of course on the other side.

If you'd like to contact Doug Amedeo, I'll forward correspondence to him.

5:56 PM |

Hacked

Someone hacked my main page, Gaits of Eden, today.

It doesn't look like it was Planned Parenthood—most likely some juvenile, or someone with a juvenile sensibility. I couldn't see what they put up—my computer wouldn't load it, thankfully—but the title was "F-rting D-ughboy" (omissions mine, to repel Google) and I'm guessing the content was the same Flash animation of that title that made the rounds of the Web a while back.

I don't know how they got in—my Web server is checking my FTP logs. It's a good reminder to change one's password frequently.

And if you ever see anything as incongruous as a f-rting d-ughboy on my site, you know I didn't put it up...
3:43 PM |

POP GEAR! Presents a Mod Christmas Ball

Whether or not you can make it to Rififi at Cinema Classics this Saturday night to hear me deejay, POP GEAR! co-promoter (and Dawn Patrol jingle writer) Michael Lynch takes you there with his inspired Mod Christmas Ball radio commercial.

I'll be deejaying at POP GEAR! from 10 to 11 p.m., but the event goes all night. Here are the details, from Michael's promotional e-mail:

'Tis the season to be groovy at the 2nd annual
**MOD CHRISTMAS BALL**

That's POP GEAR!
Saturday, Dec. 11th at RiFiFi

Drink/Dance and make merry to the swinging seasonal sounds of '60s Pop, Garage, Soul & Freakbeat
Rare rockin' holiday tunes sprinkled in to make your jingle belle rock.

DJs Kittybeat, Michael Lynch & Dawn Eden
+ Guest Special guest spinner:

DJ Pythagoras - The Prophet Of The Streets
(Augustus of NYC's Mod faves HEADQUARTERS)

Festive film clips projected all nite!
*~* Santa*~* & *~*Starlets*~*
*~* The Monks*~* & *~* the Martians*~*
*~* Barbarella*~* & *~* Barbi Benton*~*

POP GEAR!
Dec. 11th 10pm-4am

@ RiFiFi
332 East 11th Street, NYC
(btw 1st and 2nd Aves)
FREE!!!!

*~* We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Pop Gear*~*
1:19 PM |

If you're a blogger or if you peruse a number of blogs, and are sick of reading about the 2004 You-Know-What Awards, lovable Midwestern curmudgeon Saint Kansas feels your pain.
3:38 AM |

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

Killing Time

The New York Public Library's latest catalogue features the "Che Guevara Revolution Watch"—glorifying the defender of Joseph Stalin and mass murder.

"The continuing revolution, and the time, on your wrist," touts the NYPL's e-mail announcing the new item for sale in its capitalist gift shop, while its Web site adds:

Revolution is a permanent state with this clever watch, featuring the classic romantic image of Ché Guevara, around which the word "revolution" -- revolves.

The fact that the NYPL is making money from this grossly misguided, horribly influential man who celebrated hatred is especially ironic because it is Communism-celebrating libraries like the NYPL that are helping keep Cubans under tyranny, as Paul Berman recently wrote in Slate:

The modern-day cult of Che blinds us not just to the past but also to the present. Right now a tremendous social struggle is taking place in Cuba. Dissident liberals have demanded fundamental human rights, and the dictatorship has rounded up all but one or two of the dissident leaders and sentenced them to many years in prison. Among those imprisoned leaders is an important Cuban poet and journalist, Raúl Rivero, who is serving a 20-year sentence. In the last couple of years the dissident movement has sprung up in yet another form in Cuba, as a campaign to establish independent libraries, free of state control; and state repression has fallen on this campaign, too.

These Cuban events have attracted the attention of a number of intellectuals and liberals around the world. Václav Havel has organized a campaign of solidarity with the Cuban dissidents and, together with Elena Bonner and other heroic liberals from the old Soviet bloc, has rushed to support the Cuban librarians. A group of American librarians has extended its solidarity to its Cuban colleagues, but, in order to do so, the American librarians have had to put up a fight within their own librarians' organization, where the Castro dictatorship still has a number of sympathizers.

To courteously make your voice heard about the New York Public Library's celebrating and romanticizing a notorious enemy of freedom, call Sara Abraham, director of retail marketing, at (212) 930-0591 or Paul LeClerc president & CEO, at (212) 930-0736. (Information from the NYPL contacts page.)

Thanks to Kevin Kane for the tip.

UPDATE: Binky the Web Elf reminds me that there are creative options available for those who would like their wardrobe to "Just Che No."

TRACKBACK: Val of Babalu Blog, who I take it is a Cuban-American living in Florida, has plenty to say about this item, including a list of just a few of the people Guevara is known to have murdered. Val writes:

It is quite apparent that the ALA [American Library Association] is nothing but a collection of snivelling apologists for Marxists' murders.

I can imagine that these folks at the NYPL don't know that there are people who may have fathers or brothers or uncles or grandfathers that were killed by the hand of Che Guevara himself. What would they say to them? How could they justify making a buck by using the image of the very same man that killed their family members?

COMMENTS: John Gallo writes:

What I always found so ironic about the merchandizing of Che is the fact that those who admire him for his revolutionary activity (mainly far-left-wingers and communists) never seem to object to the fact that Che's image is used for such a strictly capitalist purpose. He's probably spinning in his grave now, no? Especially since he hated America and it is mostly Americans who use his image to make a hell of a lot of money....

To me, Che was a very smart man, a very well-read man, an interesting man....but that does not take away the fact that he was indeed a murderer and caused a lot of misery for the people he gets credit for allegedly "liberating". Just ask any Cuban exile the truth. Just see how even 40-plus years later how Cubans are treated by this so-called "liberation" and you will see the truth.

6:17 PM |

I Think It's Safe to Say That This
Campaign Was Conceived With Sin

Via Reuters:

LONDON - A Christmas "immaculate contraception" campaign for a morning-after pill has been pulled by a drug company after causing religious offence.

The poster, which appeared on London Underground trains, asked: "Immaculate contraception? If only."

"It might be Christmas time," it continued, "but condoms still split and pills still get forgotten. So if your contraception lets you down, ask your pharmacist for Levonelle One Step."

The explanation from the manufacturer is priceless:

"This advertisement was intended as a play on words to indicate that there is no such thing as immaculate contraception."

How right they are—especially when that "contraception," as with the morning-after pill, entails taking human life.
3:41 AM |

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Annie of After Abortion prints her e-mail exchange with Andrew Sullivan. The most diplomatic things I can say are that Sullivan's ungentlemanly, and a poor debater—and that's putting it mildly.
9:37 PM |

The 'Joy' of Abortion

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal is mad. Catholics for a Free Choice President Frances Kissling has written an article urging pro-choicers to recognize the tragedy of abortion, and even though it's a calculated appeal to gain sympathy for the pro-abortion side, Smeal isn't buying it.

Smeal tells the Village Voice that Kissling's wrong when she says the pro-choice movement should "present abortion as a complex issue that involves loss—and to be saddened by that loss":

"I don't hear her saying that there's joy sometimes," says Smeal. "I think if an 11-year-old is pregnant, it's a great relief for her to have an abortion."

There she goes, pulling out the time-honored "think about the 11-year-old girls" card. Elsewhere in the Voice piece, Smeal whines about how Kissling focuses on criticizing late-term abortion, when most U.S. abortions are done in the first trimester. But she doesn't hesitate to bring up the image of the cute 11-year-old girl having her uterus scraped out—oh, excuse me, she doesn't want us to picture that part.

The Smeals of this world want us only to imagine the trauma that such a young girl would endure in a pregnancy. They don't want us to imagine the trauma she would undergo having to live her life knowing she had the child that was growing inside of her killed. And they want us to imagine, in moral terms, that the trauma of the girl's pregnancy would far outweigh the grave sin of the unborn child's murder.

The "joy"? What kind of sick individual would say that we haven't heard enough about the joy of abortion?

Frances Kissling wants to rescue the pro-choice movement from people who look upon abortion as a treasured fetish, a right to be preserved at all costs. She has her work cut out for her.

As Joe Starr of the American Life League tells the Washington Times, " "If Frances Kissling continues on this path, logically she would end up as pro-life. I don't see any intellectually honest option available to her."
8:19 PM |

No Sugar Tonight

For a single woman, there are two different kinds of loneliness: the loneliness for anyone, and the loneliness for the one.

I felt the loneliness for anyone for several long years. It can be felt regardless of whether one wants to be married—it's a hunger for physical and emotional closeness that can exist either within or without a marriage. But it's always accompanied by a willingness for casual sex—casual sex with pseudo-spiritual, "I really respect you" bells and whistles perhaps, but casual nonetheless.

These days, I feel the loneliness for the one, and as a result, I sleep alone. But I can't describe how much better this loneliness feels than did the other kind. The difference is profound, and it's more than I could have imagined when I was living the lifestyle of my single peers.

I recently had a sharp decline in my vision—not so bad that I couldn't see, but bad enough that my contacts and (groovy) glasses weren't correcting my vision the way they should. My optometrist stepfather examined me and prescribed a glucose-tolerance test, a two-hour ordeal that entails drinking a sickly sweet Tang-flavored soda.

The results showed that I have reactive hypoglycemia, a condition marked by wild shifts in blood-sugar levels. If I eat sugary food, my blood-sugar level first goes up and then seesaws down to a level lower than it was before.

As with diabetes, it affects the blood vessels in the eyes and hence vision. The good news is that, according to my stepfather, my vision can and will improve if I adopt an anti-hypoglycemic diet, which mostly means eating more protein and—the hard part—cutting out sugar.

What's struck me since learning of my hypoglycemia a few weeks ago is how much less difficult it is to stop eating my favorite sugary foods when I know that, for me, there is a direct correlation between sugar and sight. I'll look wistfully at cookies, cake, or chocolate, and then—struck by the thought of what they'd do to my eyes—pass them by.

It's much the same with casual sex. The sugar-high of intense closeness is inevitably broken by separation—which leaves one feeling lonelier than before.

I stopped having sex before marriage because it was affecting my spiritual vision. I couldn't see who I was, or who men really were. And I certainly couldn't see where any of us stood in relation to God.

So has my spiritual vision improved since I cut out the "suite" stuff? I think it has. Certainly, it feels better to be out of the vicious cycle of longing, all-too-brief satisfaction, and emptiness.

But, as Paul writes, it's not my own vision that counts: "We walk by faith, not by sight."

TRACKBACK: Nathan has a beautiful response in Brain Fertilizer:

I think this perfectly illustrates the feelings of the woman at the well who answered Jesus, "I have no husband." She knows that quenching her thirst with earthly water (casual sex) will invariably leave her even more parched. She thirsts for the love of her life, and knows once she finds him she will thirst no more. A love consummated and dwelling in Christ cannot fail.

Nathan also makes a prayer request on my behalf, for which I am thankful. Thanks too to Roy Jacobsen for the mention.
1:16 AM |

Monday, December 6, 2004

Scouts' Honor

It's stories like this that make me proud to be an American:

If not for Cub Scouts in Houston, Army Spc. Joseph Lowit would find it next-to-impossible to celebrate Hanukkah. As part of a service project, Pack 1190 from Congregation Emanu El prepared care packages with Hanukkah candles, menorahs and dreidels -- giving Lowit and 150 other soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait a way to mark the holiday.

"Thanks to them I can, and I am very grateful," wrote Lowit, a 26-year-old infantryman from Miami who is the only Jewish soldier on his base in Iraq....

The boys of Pack 1190 talked about what it might be like to be a Jewish soldier at Hanukkah, and decided to make greeting cards and assemble goodie bags for troops.

"I thought it was a worthy cause because...it was giving greetings to people without any family to celebrate," said 8-year-old Jordan Todes, who crafted many of the cards from construction paper.

Two Scout musicians -- Jarrett Taxman on guitar and Mitchell Chaiet on the cello -- played classical tunes outside a Houston bagel shop to raise money for Hanukkah supplies and toiletry items such as razors for the soldiers' care packages.

"There's some Jewish troops in Iraq that are maybe the only ones in their unit," said Jarrett, 11. "It's really hard to celebrate if you're the only one. I'm just really glad I could help."...

Lowit, who helps patrol Iraqi towns, said the Scouts' concern for fellow soldiers made him smile. He has even become "pen pals" with one of the youngsters.

"I love kids and to know that Pack 1190 supports us was great," wrote Lowit, who has a 4-year-old daughter. "It really touched my heart."

When the Boy Scouts took a strong stand against having openly homosexual leaders, liberal organizations attempted to paint them as a white-bread, all-Christian institution.

In fact, the Boy Scouts are one of America's longest-standing institutions dedicated to equality and respect. Back in the 1950s, when law schools still restricted admissions of Jews, young Jewish children of working-class backgrounds like my father gained experiences and opportunities through scouting that they would never otherwise have had.

My dad was among the winners in a Boy Scout essay contest where the prize was a cross-country train journey to California, where the scouts met the state's beauty queen and its senator, Richard M. Nixon. (Dad admits that he was more excited about meeting the beauty queen.)

If you'd like to support the Boy Scouts, they have an online-giving site.
8:13 PM |

Sweet Chastity

On these cold and lonely December nights, when I think about how nice it would be to be able to sit by the fire with my husband—that is, to have a husband...and a fireplace, though the husband alone would do in a pinch—it is comforting to know that the Abstinence Clearinghouse understands...

...my oral fixation:

Yes, it's Abstinence Gum, one of several tasty products the Abstinence Clearinghouse markets to educators. Quoth their online catalogue: "A unique way to communicate the message of abstinence. Each box of spearmint-flavored chewing gum is imprinted with the message: Chew on this . . . Stick with Abstinence. Perfect for Title V Programs and youth presentations. Bulk pricing available."

If you'd like something sweeter, there are chocolate-flavored Abstinence Mints: "Individually wrapped chocolate mints. Message: Keep the Commit'mint' - Save sex for marriage. Quantity discounts available."

But suppose you've been, like me, abstinent for so long that you're just waiting to exhale—with the right marriage-minded person, of course. In that case, Abstinence Clearinghouse recommends you put your lips to latex—latex Abstinence Balloons, of course:

These 11" latex balloons are a great way to dress up your next event! Available in purple, green and gold, these balloons are imprinted with two abstinence messages: Abstinence - Mission Possible and Abstinence Works!

But if you really want to celebrate your chastity in a fun and stimulating way that will not remind you at all of anything having to do with sex, there's the Abstinence Sucker:

"Want a unique giveaway item for your next class or abstinence presentation? These suckers, in cherry flavor, are a fun way to get the message to teens: Don't Be a Sucker! Save Sex For Marriage. Bulk pricing available."

Cherry flavor. Lovely.

Still, in the battle for teens' hearts and minds, I'd rather organizations hawk embarrassing kitsch like that...

...than truly disgusting kitsch like this (Planned Parenthood's "condom lollipop").
2:51 AM |

Read "Planned Parenthood's Rape Cover-Up"

If you missed my entry on Planned Parenthood's Rape Cover-Up," please check it out—it's based on important new research.
2:18 AM |

Planned Parenthood's Latest Victim

Last month, in "Planned Parenthood Tells You How to Abort Your Baby—No Prescription Necessary", I described how Margaret Sanger's organization is telling women to go to the Web site of the radical group Women on Waves so they can learn how to use the abortion pill at home. Now, a New Zealand woman has done just that, ordering the pill online—and she nearly died of a hemorrhage.

To be accurate, while the New Zealand woman is reported to have ordered mifepristone over the Internet, the Planned Parenthood-endorsed Women on Waves site teaches how to use a different drug, misoprostol. But as Planned Parenthood helpfully explains on its Web site, mifepristone needs to be administered in conjunction with misoprostol in order for it to work, so it's possible that the women in fact took both drugs.

At any rate, Planned Parenthood touts mifepristone as "safe" and pushes it to teenage girls on its Teenwire site—even giving them an 800 number to call for information, and telling them how to get around parental-consent laws with a "judicial bypass."

Planned Parenthood tells women how to give themselves abortions at home because, the organization claims, it is the only way to "protect" them from having to get illegal abortions. The argument is cruelly misogynistic, because it implies—falsely—that a woman giving herself a dangerous pill at home is "safer" than one who undergoes a dangerous procedure in a hospital. And both women, under this assumption, are safer than one who undergoes childbirth. (To those who would point to the dangers of childbirth in Third World countries, the obvious answer is, is it any safer for a woman who's hemorrhaging from an abortion pill to seek medical care in such locales?)

But Planned Parenthood's greater-good argument for its touting at-home abortions is completely moot in the case of the New Zealand woman who almost died. That woman had options. If she was smart enough to know how to buy an abortion pill online, she must have known that New Zealand clinics would have given her a legal abortion.

Planned Parenthood bears some if not all of the guilt for the woman's harrowing experience, because, along with sister-organization the International Planned Parenthood Federation, it continues to promote mifepristone, actively fighting attempts to ban its use. The deaths of mifepristone users, and the FDA's recent black-box warning on the drug, have only steeled the organization's resolve.

Planned Parenthood never pretended to care about unborn children. Now it's proving for all to see that it doesn't care about women either. But it sure cares for that quarter-billion or so that it gets each year in taxpayer funds.
1:27 AM |

Sunday, December 5, 2004

Whoever's choosing the New York Times op-eds must be a fan of vintage pop. Today, Steve Martin writes about one of the first singles I ever bought: "King Tut." I still have the 45 with picture sleeve, credited to Steve Martin With the Toot Uncommons.
1:25 PM |

Skin Traitors

I've noticed that some "porn conservatives" on the Web (not to be confused with the merely pottymouthed "South Park conservatives") think it's quite witty and ironic to put a photo of a nearly naked woman on their blog. Apparently they feel that setting up a boys-club mentality on their site is a deft satire on real boys-club types. And, hey, they get the added bonus of all those extra readers who drop by to look at the skin—poor ignorant saps who don't get the "joke."

I wonder if those porn conservatives would put up the girlie pics if they knew how women feel when they discover them on supposedly right-wing blogs. I see something like that, and I'm immediately offended. I think, "Here is someone who sees me as genitals and—maybe—a face. He certainly doesn't think I have a brain."

Perhaps the offending bloggers think that women should just jade themselves and not be affected by such images. If they believe that, they are wrong—and hypocrites to the supposedly enlightened ideals that they espouse.

TRACKBACK: JRob writes that porn conservatives are limiting their options: "As long as we are perceived as thinking of women with zero respect as to their thoughts, we can pretty much forget about being taken seriously by many women in the moderate area of the sociopolitical spectrum."
1:43 AM |

Swiss Watch

We now return to Andreas Gossweiler, the Swiss man we last saw asking about why Americans are hung up on chastity and abstinence. Readers gave him a virtual earful—I've put all the responses on a separate page.

Based on Andreas's response, it seems readers' comments didn't reach him. However, he was a very good sport about the whole thing, and I think both he and readers did a great job of disagreeing without being disagreeable. And now there's a whole page of great apologetics for chastity and abstinence where there wasn't one before.

Andreas writes:

Wow—where should I start? First I'd like to thank all your friends who wrote answers to my question.

Mark Kellner writes: "My natural proclivity may be to rob banks..." Sex is not a crime since it doesn't harm anybody, provided that both involved persons are enjoying it.

[Also re Mark,] my city (Zürich) was influenced by Huldrych Zwingli, not Calvin. These days, Zwingli is not very popular because most people think that he is to blame for a certain lack of lust for life which you will notice, if you ever visit my hometown. For example, Zwingli was responsible for the destruction of all the precious, beautiful works of art in our churches.

Mark says: "By denying our natural urges, we avoid chaos..." I respect your choice, Mark. But I think that denying our natural urges leads straight to chaos.

Wolf Paul writes: "It's not just small communities...any Catholic or Reformed believer who takes seriously the teaching of his church would agree." Perhaps Wolf thinks that roughly 90 percent of the Swiss citizens do not take seriously the teachings of our churches. Most people I know would disagree with that view. However, it's true that church membership is dwindling rapidly.

[Wolf Paul wrote:] "Most Europeans would not be in favor of children under 16 being given detailed instructions for engaging in sex." Not true. My father attempted to tell me everything when I was about 13. I replied: "I already know this!"

Your mother asked: "How many Swiss girls' hearts are broken every moment of the day...?" I don't know, but social relations (that includes sexual relations) may lead to deception and sorrow, while they are sometimes very rewarding and pleasant. I think that freedom is not the way to everlasting happiness. Freedom means that you're free to become deceived, it's true. But I think oppression is much less likely to lead to everlasting happiness.

To Captain Givler: Sex is better than murder! In fact it's fun, while murder certainly isn't. Why are you Americans always mentioning murder and hold-ups when you talk about sex?

Tag Evers wrote: "Sex involves intimacy and vulnerabilty..." I fully agree with Tag. Every Swiss agrees. However, this does not mean you have to marry. I did not marry my girlfriend, nor do I plan to marry her, but she certainly is not a stranger to me. How would that be possible after six years? And we do not feel that we are 'losing a part of ourselves.' The opposite is true.

Brett Taylor wrote: "As Muslim immigration increases rapidly, how long will Andreas consider his view as that of most Europeans?" Brett, I'm not afraid of the Muslims. Trust me, there are not many Muslims here. They will stay a minority. And most of them are quite nice and civilized. I don't think they're here to conquer Switzerland.

1:28 AM |

Saturday, December 4, 2004

J.R. Taylor has an insight on "20/20"'s Matthew Shepard story that no one else has voiced: It's an example of how mainstream-media reporters use their colleagues' leftist bias to create "scoops".
10:05 PM |

Charles G. Hill of Dustbury has a sharp eye for hypocrisy—and he's turned it upon the United Church of Christ's TV ad campaign.
3:19 PM |

Some Saturday snarkiness for you, courtesy of Nathan at Brain Fertilizer.
2:50 PM |

UPDATED—Planned Parenthood's Rape Cover-Up

Here's what could well be the most damning proof yet of how Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are brazenly defying state and federal law by failing to report tens of thousands of statutory-rape cases each year. John Bambenek has taken statistics from Planned Parenthood itself, as well as documents received via the Freedom fo Information Act and other sources, and compiled a list estimating how many sexually active underage girls used abortion providers' services in the year 2000—including not only those who received abortions, but also those who received prenatal services or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Not every case may strictly be statutory rape—laws vary from state to state—but these statistics give a window into the common practice at Planned Parenthood clinics to refuse to report statutory rape.

In California alone, abortion providers saw 25,359 underage teens. Many if not most of them represented cases of statutory rape.* Yet, as California state assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy has noted, Planned Parenthood, the largest and most vocal abortion provider, "rarely, if ever, reports cases of child sexual abuse."

It's no wonder that Planned Parenthood's sex-ed Web site, Teenwire, which recommends anal sex to girls as a means of "preserving" their virginity, welcomes children as young as 6.

Kudos to Bambenek for his important research. I'd like to see legislators use it confidently against Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt. The culture-of-death dowager is currently pushing Congress to pass a bill she calls "Putting Prevention First," which would give Planned Parenthood even more than the quarter-billion in taxpayer dollars that it already receives.

UPDATE: Bambenek has added to his entry a list of sources for his statistics and writes: "Using all these sources, this study concluded that Planned Parenthood and like organizations fail to report cases of obvious child sex abuse (despite clear legal requirements to do so in many states) 84 to 88% of the time."

*Excerpt from California Penal Code Section 261-269:

261.5. (a) Unlawful sexual intercourse is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person who is not the spouse of the perpetrator, if the person is a minor.

For the purposes of this section, a "minor" is a person under the age of 18 years.

11:39 AM |

Haven't forgotten to print Andreas's responses to the readers who answered his question about chastity and abstinence in two posts last week. I'm hoping later today to put up both his response and a new page containing all the reader replies.
2:35 AM |

Friday, December 3, 2004

What Rolling Stone Should Be Like

Before I got a real job and got serious about this blog, I was a Sixties-pop historian with 80 CD-reissue liner notes to my credit (most of which you can see in Yahoo's music shop). But those days are over.

Most of the time, I can get through the day without wishing Sony Music was on the phone asking me to write the liner notes to the long-awaited CD by some wonderful obscure arist like my friend Brute Force. But not today.

Today, The New York Times, of all publications, has an op-ed by Shaun Considine, "The Hit We Almost Missed," about how Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was nearly prevented from being released. It's the best rock-history essay I've read in recent memory, beautifully done, hitting all the right notes from both a historical and musical point of view.

So much of what passes for music journalism is hype and, especially in Dylan's case, hagiography. It's exhilarating to read a historical piece written by an expert who offers a wide perspective, rather than just centering his world upon his admiration—or loathing—of one musical artist or genre.

I particularly like the writer's subtle touches—the literary equivalent of ear candy—like what I take to be a sly reference to Clive Davis in the final paragraph. (The tip-off is that the unnamed man had "no claim to having ears.")

Where is this Shaun Considine and why have I been so ignorant as to have not heard of him before, when I've heard of so many hack rock-critics who think Goddard Lieberson played on the San Diego Padres? I want to meet him. I'd be honored to brush the dust off his 45s. But he's so cool, his 45s probably don't even need cleaning—he actually listens to them.
8:38 PM |

Planned Parenthood's 'Choice' for Men

Planned Parenthood has long argued that abortion is "a woman's choice"—and that fathers must be prevented from having any part of the decision to end their unborn child's life.

Now, Planned Parenthood's vice president of medical affairs, Dr. Vanessa Cullins, tells USA Today that men should have a choice—as long as they choose not to be a parent.

The "choice" language, which is so much a part of Planned Parenthood's propaganda, looks bizarre when Cullins grafts it onto a discussion of a possible new male contraceptive in the story Male birth control moves closer to reality" (emphasis added):

"It may be easier for men to leave contraception up to women, but there have been some recent surveys that suggest the majority of men are willing to share in the responsibility for family planning," Cullins said. "And I think if you talk to men who are in situations where they didn't want to have a child, I think some of those men would tell you they definitely would've wanted to have had either shared in, or made, that decision themselves."

So Margaret Sanger's organization does believe men should have a voice in whether or not they become fathers—as long as that voice says the word "no."

When men do have the option of a contraceptive, women who want to become mothers will have one more obstacle to overcome: dissuading their husbands of the temptation to make themselves infertile. What is a "choice" for men—infertility—instantly denies women their choice to become mothers.

How interesting that Planned Parenthood idea of "choice" operates only in favor of death.

TRACKBACK: The Curt Jester's Jeff Miller has more on exposing and countering Planned Parenthood's inconsistencies.
5:53 PM |

Karol of Alarming News is threatening to write a self-help book for single women, to counter The Rules and He's Just Not That Into You. She doesn't pull any punches. I particularly like this observation, which goes against the "Sex and the City" mentality that seeks to find the flaws in every rough diamond:

[I]f you're constantly complaining about how terrible men are, why would any of them want to date you? Negativity is a huge turn-off.

4:11 PM |

Rep. Waxman's Abstinence Report Is an Abortion

As Michelle Malkin, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and others reported yesterday, the report from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on abstinence education reads as though it were written by the staff of Planned Parenthood and SIECUS—and it probably was. Waxman's pro-Culture of Death bias is obvious in his inaccuracies—most glaringly in his cover-ups and fabrications about the connections between abortion, depression, and suicide.

The report points to an abstinence-education curriculum which states, "The psychological effects of the abortion choice should be considered....[A] woman could experience anxiety, grief, regret, guilt, and/or depression. In many cases, follow-up counseling for women who have had abortions has been necessary and helpful. Following abortion, according to some studies, women are more prone to suicide and therefore need extra support from family and health professionals."

But it's not so, says Waxman:

In fact, an executive panel of the American Psychiatric Association found that '[for] the vast majority of women, an abortion will be followed by a mixture of emotions, with a predominance of positive feelings.' A longitudinal study of young women aged 14 to 21 found that '[a]lthough women may experience some distress after having an abortion, the experience has no psychological effects on their well-being over time.'"

The American Psychiatric Association has a long history of placing liberal ideology above scientific research—as witnessed by the political machinations that caused it to cease calling homosexuality a disorder. The right way to gauge the effects of abortion upon women is through scientific studies—many of which found results far worse than the temporary "distress" in the research cited by Waxman.

A study of 507 women who had abortions, published in April 2004 in a French medical journal available online in PubMed revealed "a recurrent tendency in women to become psychologically defensive in reaction to VPT [voluntary pregnancy termination] and to repress their emotions as well as the natural development of maternal tendencies that accompany the experience of pregnancy. This obstacle to psychological engagement seems to be associated, according to the case in hand, to a particular form of pathological mourning of the pregnancy, to a factor of recourse to action (especially amongst adolescents) or to later difficulties in dealing with further pregnancies."

Another study, in the medical journal Adolescence (also available on PubMed), compared a group of women who had abortions in their teens with ones who had abortions in their 20s:

Specific differences in perceptions of coercion, preabortion suicidal ideation, and nightmares post-abortion were found in the adolescent group. Antisocial and paranoid personality disorders as well as drug abuse and psychotic delusions were found to be significantly higher in the group who aborted as teenagers.

On After Abortion, Emily Peterson notes additional research:

[C]ontrary to [Waxman's] unsubstantiated belief that there's no connection between abortion and suicide, recent medical studies about the psychological aftermath of induced abortion in the British Medical Journal and the Canadian Medical Association Journal show higher rates of clinical depression and psychiatric hospitalization after abortion. Most on point, an August 2002 study in the Southern Medical Journal...looked at California Medicaid records for 173,279 women who had an induced abortion or a delivery in 1989 and linked them to death certificates for 1989 to 1997. Compared with women who delivered, those who aborted had a significantly higher age-adjusted risk of death from suicide. "Significantly higher" means 254% higher.

Still more studies linking abortion with depression and death are referenced in Dr. David C. Reardon's "The Abortion-Suicide Connection" in The Post-Abortion Review.

Rep. Waxman and his cheering section at Planned Parenthood accuse abstinence educators of withholding information from children that could save them from disease. Yet Waxman himself would prevent children from receiving information that could save them from depression and possibly death.

FURTHER READING: Kevin McCullough writes in his WorldNetDaily column about one group whose opinion the Washington Post failed to solicit for its story about the Waxman report: abstinence educators.
2:19 AM |

Thursday, December 2, 2004

UPDATED—Jesus and His Usual Gang of Idioms

Caught the following lines in a sermon on the site for the United Church of Christ's "Still Speaking" campaign. That's the campaign based around a TV commercial which contrasts a good, tolerant UCC church with an imagined evil church whose bouncers toss out homosexuals and minorities. Give me a church where the pastor speaks in good old, heartfelt, salt-seasoned exhortations—and not, as with the UCC's Rev. Allen Heckman, cliché-ridden Purpose Driven 40 Days of Jabez-on-autopilot platitudes:

We are called to walk the walk, to talk the talk, to put our money where our mouth is, lead by example, carry the torch, beat the drum, tell the story, get our hands dirty, think outside the box, carry our cross, follow Jesus Christ.

FURTHER READING: On Christianity Today's Weblog, Ted Olsen offers spot-on commentary about the UCC commercial: "[T]he message of this ad isn't that the UCC welcomes minorities—it's that all the other churches out there hate you."

Mark Kellner observes: "Jesus accepts people, but wants them to live better lives. The UCC seems to suggest that they don't make any demands on anyone, which must make for lively vestry meetings, to say the least."
7:55 PM |

I'm not entirely satisfied with Brett Taylor of Saint Kansas's promised explanation of why the term "homophobia" is misleading and wrong (caution: strong language)—he doesn't hit the target as hard as I'd hoped—but I do think he made one important point:

Not wanting to picture Gore Vidal and Merv Griffin in bed naked is not homophobia, it's just plain good sense.

7:33 PM |

Welcome, Michelle Malkin Readers

I know you're looking for Planned Parenthood coverage, so here are links to some of the highlights (some of which quote graphic sexual language from PP Web sites):

"The Times' Abortion Debacle That Won't Die" (about the Amy Richards/"I Had an Abortion" T-shirt connection)

"Teenwire's Graphic Porn Connection" (about how PP's sex-ed site gives children a portal into an online sex shop)

"The Whole Death Catalogue" (on the online shop of PP's San Francisco affilliate, which sells "Pro-Choice" thong underwear)

"Planned Parenthood to J.K. Rowling: Give Us Genital Hogwarts!" (yes, they use Harry Potter to indoctrinate kids)

"Planned Parenthood—Behind Your Teenage Daughter All the Way" (PP's Teenwire site advocates anal sex as a method of "preserving" one's virginity)

"Planned Parenthood's Teenwire Welcomes First-Graders" (no exaggeration)

"Planned Parenthood's Teenwire—The Very Bestial Name in Sex Ed" (the site features an animation of a couple copulating with a cow)

"Planned Parenthood Tells How to Abort Your Baby at Home—No Prescription Necessary"
3:36 AM |

School of Crock

If you'd like to watch the New England liberal establishment as it twists itself in knots trying to figure out how to win over values voters, get a load of Harvard Crimson editor Kate A. Tiskus's new column, "Let's Talk About Sex."

Despite its title, the column is about homosexuality and same-sex "marriage"—and what the enlightened folk at Hahvahd can do to raise those dunderheaded red-staters' level of intelligent discourse. "Harvard students in particular have a chance to make a real impact on issues of sexuality in their home states," Tiskus writes, "but they need to take a new approach."

After warning against making "condescending oversimplifications about people of faith," Tiskus proceeds to do just that (emphasis added):

Dismissing the statements of relatives and friends as “homophobic,” even if they are, deprives students of the opportunity to advance substantive arguments that might have reached their target if they had been framed as a point open for discussion and not a pronouncement from on high.

Got it? So people who don't believe in homosexual "marriage" are "homophobic"—but to win them over, Hahvahdians have to ignore their unenlightened stance. (Never mind the fact that the very word homophobia is insulting to heterosexuals, as it turns a positive—the fact that men and women's true biological and spiritual nature is heterosexual—into a negative. Brett Taylor of Saint Kansas has promised to address this on his blog [but be advised that his language is too strong for the kiddies].)

So just how are those higher beings at the Ivy League school supposed to reach the blockheaded Bushies? I've got an idea. Remember those afterschool specials, where kids would win over racist family members by saying things like, "I have a black friend," or getting Mom and Dad to watch Sidney Poitier in "To Sir With Love"?

Sorry, that wasn't an original idea. I stole it directly from Tiskus:

Small things like offhandedly mentioning a friend your mother met while visiting is gay or watching the occasional movie with a positively depicted gay character can go a long way toward eroding the impersonal concept of the “gay movement,” with all of the images of an incomprehensible, radical culture that phrase can evoke.

Such blatantly patronizing language, condescending towards both readers and their imagined conservative friends, would be embarrassing in a junior-high school newspaper, let alone the newspaper of one of America's most respected universities.

I tell you, it's enough to make one switch to the Yale newspaper—except, as Kevin McCullough observes, that's even worse.

* * *I haven't forgotten about publishing Andreas's response to the readers who wrote to answer his question about chastity and abstinence (see the "Swiss Patrol" entries below. It'll go up this evening. Sorry for the delay—I'm out enjoying my "Sunday" this afternoon with a Ray Milland double-bill at the Film Forum.
1:44 AM |

Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Radio Free Eden

Here's something for fans of mid-'60s-style pop: "Girl on the Northern Line," a song I wrote a few years back, performed by Dawn Patrol/Gaits of Eden jingle-writer extraordinaire Michael Lynch.

The song came to me on the PATH train in early 2001, at a time when I'd recently fallen in love with the Anglophiliac sound of the Anderson Council. I wrote the tune hoping they'd perform it. I don't think it ever got beyond rehearsals, but the group's lead singer Peter Horvath did record a great demo of it himself (which I'd put up here, only I don't have the means to transfer it from cassette).

At any rate, Michael did a beautiful job when I invited him to try his hand at the song. He played all the instruments, perfectly capturing the sound I'd requested—the vocal feel of Peter & Gordon, with the guitar lick taken from the Nightcrawlers's "Little Black Egg."
11:37 PM |

Post-Birth Abortion in Holland—
While U.S. Planned Parenthood Says, 'Explore Euthanasia!'

Post-birth abortion. That's what a Dutch hospital is doing, three years after Holland made it legal for adults in pain to request terminal injections. The government there has yet to set guidelines for carrying its euthanasia laws to allow the killing of patients who have "no free will," such as babies and the mentally ill, but apparently the hospital has no fear of prosecution, according to an Associated Press report:

The hospital revealed last month it carried out four such mercy killings in 2003, and reported all cases to government prosecutors. There have been no legal proceedings against the hospital or the doctors.

Don't expect Planned Parenthood to issue a statement on the killing of babies outside the womb—it's careful to avoid any comment on euthanasia on its main Web site. But the organization's external links make its position clear—with a special section for sites on the "End of Life".

Of the four links on Planned Parenthood's "End of Life" page, three are for pro-euthanasia organizations. (The fourth is for a hospice-advocacy group.) Two of those links, for Choices in Dying and the Hemlock Society USA, are outdated, but someone looking for those sites can easily find them by searching for the organizations' names as they appear on PP's list. The working link is for the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization, the site of Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphyr, which features the Euthanasia World Directory.

The PP-recommended* Choices in Dying site states that its mission includes "encouraging politicians, through letters and personal contacts, to amend the criminal code to include physician-assisted death of competent adaults [sic] as long as acceptable guidelines are followed."

How can these suicidal/homicidal nut jobs be competent adults? They can't even spell "competent adults."

Likewise, the PP-recommended Hemlock Society USA site states that the organization "aggressively pursue[s] significant legislative reform, promote pain care, put teeth in advance directives and legalize physician aid-in-dying."

If only Planned Parenthood would show the same concern about "pain care" for the the dying unborn. It's fighting tooth and nail against the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which would require that pregnant women seeking an abortion be offered the option of anesthesia to ease the pain of their dying unborn child.

Does anyone expect Planned Parenthood to come out swinging against the Dutch slaughter of newborns? I certainly don't. If there's one thing that online Dumpster-diving has taught me about Margaret Sanger's organization, it's frightfully consistent.

*Planned Parenthood's main links page states, "Links are provided for information only and do not imply an endorsement of views, products, or services." I believe that the fact that three out of four of the organization's end-of-life facts are for euthanasia organizations implies an endorsement of those organizations and their message.

The "post-birth abortion" term was coined by Shock and Blog's Jinx McHue.

SEE ALSO: MediaCulpa's "Five Questions for the Dutch Baby Killers"; Dustbury's "A step beyond Ludovico's technique."
3:12 AM |

I just wrote a headline for a story about a $2 million painting of a half-naked woman that was stolen from an art gallery: "No nude is bad news."
1:16 AM |

Search this blog: