When I'm '64
As promised, here are photos from the wonderful (and exhausting) three-hour tour of the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World's Fair grounds in Flushing Meadows Park, led yesterday by Forgotten NY Webmaster Kevin Walsh. For more information about what's in these pics, see Kevin's meticulously detailed 1964-65 World's Fair page.
Kevin tells of the mosaics on the Shea Stadium side of the park, including the 1964 "EAT" one by pop artist
Robert Indiana—who would go on to greater fame with his tilted-"O" "LOVE" logo.
Beneath snow and ice lies this 1939 mosaic paying tribute to a star of that year's World's Fair,
Borden mascot Elsie the Cow.
Donald De Lue's statue of George Washington (actually put up between fairs, in 1959) shows him addressing a 1788 meeting of Masons—complete with Masonic apron.
De Lue also did the "Rocket Thrower" statue, which became a symbol of the '64 fair.
The column of Jerash dates from 120 A.D. and belonged to a temple of Artemis. The kingdom of Jordan donated it to the '64 fair.
You can't tell here, but this thing is
huge. Here's some perspective...
...the front-cover shot for
Coloursound, the first album by the fab
Anderson Council. Yes, that's me behind the Viewmaster. I don't perform on the album, but the group backed me on
my cover version of "They Don't Know" (MP3 link), which appeared on the Stiff Records tribute album,
The Stiff Generation (Groove Disques).
A '64 relic in sadly decaying condition, Theodore Roszak's "Forms in Transit."
I'll leave you with one more mosaic, which is actually right next to the Robert Indiana one above, memorializing Salvador Dali's exhibition from the 1939 fair,
"The Dream of Venus."Got any World's Fair memories to share? Leave a comment below.
2:03 AM
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Death By Chocolate
The Seattle chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America is holding its annual fundraiser this week: "Chocolate for Choice." The event is billed as an "evening of utter decadence all supporting a woman's right to choose."
Nice sense of self-awareness there, wouldn't you say?
Towards the bottom of the invitation is the notice, "NARAL Pro-Choice Washington is accepting donations of deserts [sic] from Pastry Chefs."
Too bad I'm not a pastry chef. Even so, I have no doubt that the organization formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League will one day receive its just deserts.
Thanks to GetReligion for the tip.
1:39 AM
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Sunday, February 27, 2005
Faked Vatican Memo Less Than Pius
Dimitri Cavalli writes in today's Palm Beach Post that the supposed Vatican memo ordering that Catholic families not return baptized Jewish children sheltered during the Holocaust is false:
Two Italian scholars, Matteo Luigi Napolitano and Andrea Tornielli, revealed that this memorandum [on Jewish children] was written by someone in the apostolic nunciature in Paris that was headed by Monsignor Angelo Roncalli, who would become Pope John XXIII. The memorandum was drafted in response to an official dispatch, dated Sept. 28, 1946, that Father Roncalli received from Monsignor Domenico Tardini, the Vatican's secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. When he was elected pope in 1958, John XXIII appointed Father Tardini the Vatican secretary of state.
An English translation of the complete text of Father Tardini's letter was published by John Allen in his column for the National Catholic Reporter (Jan. 14). A comparison of Father Tardini's letter and the memorandum reveals substantial differences in tone, language and content. Father Tardini clearly affirms that baptized Jewish children should be returned to their relatives who ask for them. For reasons that remain unclear, the individual who wrote the memorandum went far beyond what the Vatican specified.
Wartime Pope Pius XII has come under a great deal of fire from some quarters for allegedly turning a blind eye to the sufferings of Jews under Hitler. Cavalli, who is a friend of mine, has been researching Pius for some time and has gathered an impressive collection of favorable press mentions of him by Jewish leaders and Holocaust experts, some of which he includes in his Palm Beach Post piece:Did the Catholic Church withhold or return [Jewish] children? In his book, Three Popes and the Jews (1967), the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide quotes Dr. [A. Leon] Kubowitzky [later Kubovy, the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress], in 1964, as saying, "I can state now that I hardly know of a single case where Catholic institutions refused to return Jewish children."
In an interview published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (Jan. 20, 2005), Serge Klarsfeld, the French Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter, also disputed the charge that the French church kept baptized Jewish children.
Pius XII himself personally intervened in several individual cases. For example, in his book, Avenue of the Righteous (1980), Peter Hellman writes that Leokadia Jaromirska, a Polish Catholic woman, was unwilling to return a Jewish girl she protected back to her father after the war. Ms. Jaromirska wrote to the pope, asking for his blessing to keep the child. "She was instructed by the pope to return the child to its father," Mr. Hellman reports. In fact, the pope told Ms. Jaromirska that it was her duty as a Catholic to return the girl to her father and to do so in goodwill and friendship.
When Napolitano and Tornielli announced their discovery of the memo showing the Vatican's alleged position against returning baptized Jewish children, it was international news. Now that the memo has been debunked—silence.
9:48 PM
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Fr. Rob Johansen—who is currently in Florida aiding Terri Schiavo's parents, the Schindlers—writes about a Vatican cardinal's forceful statement against starving Terri. Check out the link he offers to the Florida bishops' incredibly lame statement on Terri; as Johansen notes diplomatically, they "seem to be unwilling to actually apply Church teaching to what is known about Terri's case."
8:29 PM
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With all due respect to you who are graciously stopping by, I should not be blogging this early a.m. I should be doing other reading and writing, and getting a good night's sleep for today's
Forgotten NY tour of the World's Fair grounds, which I'll be attending (and playing hooky from Our Saviour, sorry to say). I should not be trying on my new extra-shiny, extra-cheapo NYC & Co. lip gloss, and I should not be photographing myself in the bathroom mirror, with the camera wedged all the way up to the shower curtain.
Blogging should resume in earnest later tonight. In the meantime, I wish you a beautiful Sunday. If you're spending your free time websurfing, the aforementioned
Forgotten NY easily contains an afternoon's worth of enjoyment.
12:47 AM
Saturday, February 26, 2005
The AP has a good story on Pope John Paul II's using humor to get through health crises, including his current one. My favorite quote in it actually comes from John XXIII:
"It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the pope about it," John XXIII once said. "Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the pope!"
11:48 PM
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Tediously Dahl
Will Duquette revisits one of my favorite childhood reads, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and finds it full of cynicism about the office of the U.S. president. No surprise there—the book came out in 1972. But it's funny to realize how normal such cynicism appeared to me when I read the book for the first time at the age of six, in 1975. I probably had already picked up that cynicism from adults and the media—and from bitter disappointment at how my favorite cartoons had been pre-empted every afternoon by something boring called Watergate.
3:35 PM
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Terrisfight.org Is Back
Good to see Terrisfight.org back online after problems with limited bandwidth (due to the great interest in Terri) shut it down for a short while. Make sure you scroll down the main page to see the videos, if you haven't already.
UPDATE: The American Family Association offers an easy way to e-mail Judge Greer and ask him not to sentence Terri to a slow, agonizing death by starvation. (Thanks to Video meliora, proboque... for the tip.)
1:24 PM
Singularly Wrong
Last week, I posted an entry that used a course in "Living Single" as a jumping-off point for describing the difference between being single and being singular.
Today, I've added a correction and clarification from course instructor Ken Lawson, who writes that—as some commenters on the post suspected—the course is in fact about being singular.
How did Ken find my blog? By Googling my name—just as I found the "Living Single" course by Googling his. You see, he's a professional career counselor, and I was doing due diligence before seeking out his services to help me prepare for job interviews.
Did I display far too much chutzpah in poking gentle fun at the work of a man whose services I planned to employ? Absolutely. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to highlight the difference between using singlehood as an opportunity to be cynical, and using it as an opportunity to grow in one's walk with God.
Thankfully, Ken is a singularly good sport.
2:38 AM
Hacked
This post has been updated—see below.
I believe that this blog may have been hacked. I was offline for a few minutes and when I tried to log back on, Blogger would not accept my password. I managed to change my password and get back on, but it's possible that posts may have been removed or altered, or that additional posts may have been added, or that my blog's settings may have been changed. If you notice anything different, including broken links to previous posts, I would be grateful if you would please notify me at dawn -at- dawneden.com. Thank you.
UPDATE, 2/26/05: I just had the same problem again, and then again just a few minutes later. It seems unlikely (though certainly possible) that someone could have divined my new password in a matter of minutes. I think it may likely be an internal Blogger error—their system-status page says users have been experiencing many errors. When I did what Blogger says to do, reloading my browser, my password worked fine. Still, if you see anything that looks off, please let me know. Thanks.
1:22 AM
Friday, February 25, 2005
The Weekly Standard's Joseph Bottum has an excellent piece on Fatima that should interest anyone who's read the book I'm carrying in the caricature at left (the one above the donation button); it tells of the important role the visions played in communism's downfall. (Thanks to Dimitri Cavalli for the heads-up.)
11:03 PM
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I'm With the Teenage Lesbian
Stupid things like this are why I couldn't wait to get out of high school.
I can also relate to the girl because when senior-class photos were taken at my school, I read the caveat—"must wear collared shirt"—and did just that. How was I to know it was just for boys?
9:19 PM
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Yudt Better Believe It
A big hello to Teenwire editor Susan Yudt, who's been perusing The Dawn Patrol, according to my site statistics. The header of the e-mail she received that led her to this blog was the enigmatic "RE: Teen Wire and Anti-Blog-3." That "3" probably means she and her editors have gone back and forth about The Dawn Patrol three times.
Ms. Yudt was probably concerned over my exposing how Teenwire led its young readers to a site for pedophiles. Within hours of the Dawn Patrol post's going up, the Teenwire article that inspired it was rewritten and reposted to omit the offending link.
If she'd like to read more exposés of Teenwire, a good place to start would be the list of links I made up when Michelle Malkin linked to one of my Planned Parenthood watchdog entries. From there, she could move on to the article I penned on Teenwire for Crux magazine, "Everybody's Doing It."
Or, if she would rather read about herself, there's my entry inspired by an article Yudt wrote about the joys of masturbation, "Planned Parenthood: Always Ready to Give Children a Hand." It features this bit of sage advice from the Teenwire editor:Some people masturbate every day — or even more than once a day. That's fine. So is there such a thing as "too much" masturbation? According to counselors, it's only when masturbation gets in the way of daily activities — like going to school or work, or meeting friends — that it would be considered "too much." And not many people have that problem.
I'm amazed that Yudt finds time to read my blog! (And thankful that I don't have to use her computer keyboard after her.)
8:24 PM
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See the Gates, for Fox' Sake
Mansfield Fox has an inspired photoblog of Christo's Central Park installation, The Gates. It's a real you-are-there experience—all the park's sights, sounds, smells, and—best of all—dueling mallards.
8:09 PM
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The entry "F--- the Children": Planned Parenthood's Teenwire Sends Kids to Pedophile Site" has been updated, thanks to new information from readers Paul and Saint Kansas.
8:02 PM
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Visiting the folks tonight and tomorrow morning, so there'll be little or no blogging 'til the late afternoon. In the meantime, there's a well-hidden blogroll down the lower-left side of this page for you to peruse, the most frequently updated members of which include Kevin McCullough, Alarming News, and Dustbury. See you later.
11:21 PM
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Marriage Goes to the Dogs
Reader Cindi sent a link to this twisted tale of anthropomorphism, adding, "So much for the sacredness of marriage!" Do you think it is indeed a sign of a deeper disrespect for the nuptial sacrament? Or is it just one of those insane things one would expect from people who love animals so much that they follow them and pick up their feces?
(No, I am not a dog person. Cats are OK if someone else feeds them, changes their litter, and takes them to the vet.)
10:46 PM
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I'll Pass on This Commercial
I can't help it.
I do a double-take whenever I hear the chirpy girl singing the radio-commercial jingle for a utility company:
"Intelligent Energy, 1-877-I'VE...GOT GAS!"
3:35 PM
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If you're in or around the Chicago area next month, Captive Daughters, an organization that fights sex trafficking, is sponsoring a conference at DePaul University: "Pornography: Driving the Demand for International Sex Trafficking." The group's approach appears designed to bring together liberal feminists and conservatives on this pressing social issue.
3:12 PM
At the request of a few readers, I've scanned George Gurley's New York Observer article on me and put it online. I will remove the link to the scanned piece as soon as the article becomes available in the Observer's online archive. If you read it, please see also my comments and corrections on it.
5:16 AM
"F--- the Children":
Planned Parenthood's Teenwire Sends Kids to Pedophile Site
UPDATE, 2/25/05: It seems likely that The Dawn Patrol is one of the Teenwire editors' morning reads. [UPDATE #2: No kiddin'!] Within hours of the following post's appearance, Teenwire took down its original "Does Age Matter?" article and reposted a radically altered version. The new version has a different author's name and does not contain the link to the pedophiliac "Age of Consent" Web site referred to in this post.
Unfortunately for Planned Parenthood, while Teenwire's socially irresponsible editors can run, they can't hide. Dawn Patrol reader Paul has posted screen grabs of the article as it originally appeared, including a close-up of the section of the article referred to below, where it says, "Check out Age of Consent for more about the laws in your state..."
DP reader Saint Kansas writes that "the Age of Consent folks also apparently run [a site called] loveworks, which (ho hum) sells sex toys." (See the site's WHOIS entry for details; a loveworks employee is Age of Consent's technical contact.) The "ho hum" is because the news comes as no surprise—as I write below—Teenwire sends readers as young as six years old to Scarleteen, a Web site whose shopping portal sends the kiddies to a pornography/sex-toy outlet.
Planned Parenthood's sex-ed Web site Teenwire—where children as young as six may register and ask "Experts" sex questions—currently features the article "Does Age Matter? When Girls Date Older Guys," which invites readers to visit a pedophile-run Web site.
The article tells little girls that besides the possibility of an older man's being too "controlling," "a girl who's hooking up with an older guy needs to think about something else, too—the law....Check out Age of Consent for more about the laws in your state."
The words "Age of Consent" in the Teenwire piece link to a Web site which is very clearly run by pedophiles.
Although the link opens up a window that first shows a disclaimer saying Teenwire does not "necessarily" endorse the site, it offers no warning of Age of Consent's actual nature. That nature may easily be discovered by anyone clicking on the words highlighted beneath the banner atop each of the site's pages: "Cool Teen Sites." The "Cool Teen Sites" that the Teenwire reader will find through Age of Consent include a page of shots of teenage girls stripping or kissing one another for webcams.
But that's the least of it.
Age of Consent's main page has a prominent link to its "Editorials"—dozens upon dozens of articles offering justification for having sex with children and viewing child pornography.
One of these editorials is titled simply, "Possession of Child Porn Should be Legal." It begins (deletion mine):
F--- the Children
Plain. Simple. Blunt.
The possession of child pornography should be legal.
Again, this article is accessible directly through Planned Parenthood's Teenwire. All the child—as young as six, by Teenwire's own rules—has to do is click on the link to Age of Consent, and then click on "Editorials."
Voila. "F--- the Children."
How can parents trust an organization that, with all the money it gets from taxpayers—over a quarter-billion a year—can't pay someone to check the links for children on its own Web site?
The truth is, this is not an aberration. Teenwire already links to Scarleteen, a Web site founded by a lesbian pornography writer, whose store enables children to purchase pornography from a sex shop. Scarleteen volunteer bulletin-board moderator Tim Adams, writing to me to complain about The Dawn Patrol's Teenwire/Scarleteen exposé, has stated, "In regard to pornography as itself, I am of the belief (as well as a great many who...support comprehensive sex education) that pornography isn't as 'harming' as you'd like to portray it." That is Teenwire's attitude as well (link features graphic images).
So remember, when you hear Planned Parenthood educators rail against abstinence-only education in favor of "comprehensive sex education," this is what they mean by comprehensive: "F--- the children." God help us.
I've closed the comments section for this post because it's grown too unwieldy. (For some reason, Blogger wouldn't let me close the comments unless I hid them all—sorry. Thanks very much to Paul, Saint Kansas, Jivin J., Gormuu, and others who wrote with helpful information.) If you have additional information to add on this topic, please send it to me at the address at left (several inches down from the ol' tip jar) and I'll put it up if the mood takes me. Thanks.
3:17 AM
At Least She's Morally Consistent
UPDATE: I've corrected the source for this quote.
Jeff Grimshaw sends a quote from actor/opinion-journalist Michael Moriarty:
My recent obituary of playwright Arthur Miller and my estimation of his place in world history provoked a pro-choice woman to defend her acceptance of abortion. When I remarked that the advocates for a New World Order firmly believe no one exists until they are aware they exist (cf. philosopher René Descartes), and that since the first trimester of gestation may not yet enable thought, this "scientific" fact justifies early abortion, the lady replied that destroying the fetus is no more insensitive than taking a brain-dead patient off life support. Of all my encounters with the pro-choice lobby, this was the most shocking and yet revealing comment I'd ever heard.
2:24 AM
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University of New Hampshire's Class Whore-fare
Lance Salyers of Ragged Edges has a finely argued piece depicting the University of New Hampshire's "Sex Fair" as gender politics run amok:
Does anyone else see the irony in a group advocating for gender equality sponsoring a fair that glorifies the kind of mindless, responsibility-free, "satisfy MY basest of appetites" view of sex that, in the end, perpetuates gender inequality? If sex becomes nothing more than the art of using another to scratch my itch, it is women who lose. So long as men are stronger than their female counterparts and are the active half of the dance card (one gives while the other receives), recreational sex will always turn women into objects and men into the powerful owners of those objects.
Read the whole thing.
1:54 AM
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Praise the Lord and Pass the Remuneration
The donation request that I put up a couple of days ago looks mighty low-tech compared to Michael Bates's full-scale, multimedia, 1970s "Hour of Power"-style leisure-suit-and-cheesy-sideburns telethon. He says it's in memory of w. euGene Scott. Make sure you click on the "I Wanna Know" song—it grows on you.
1:37 AM
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Planned Parenthood Imitates The Dawn Patrol
Last month, I noted that the discovery of a so-called "gay gene" would spell trouble for Planned Parenthood. Sure enough, Margaret Sanger's organization is up in arms over a Maine Republican's attempt to protect the homosexual unborn should a "gay gene" test ever be developed.
Commenters, please read the comments rules at left. Your cooperation is appreciated. Profane and abusive comments will be deleted as soon as they come to my attention.
12:36 AM
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John Bambenek must be having a slow week at work, because he's been blogging like mad. Lots of interesting, below-the-radar items about culture-of-life issues and crazy lefties.
12:09 AM
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
A Quick One
Some mindless fun courtesy of my British e-mail pal Geoffrey Littman. I have tried this, and he's right:
This is so funny! No matter how many times you try it, you just can't outsmart your foot!
1) Whilst sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2) Now, whilst doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.
Your foot will change direction - and there's nothing you can do about it!
2:45 PM
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The 'Eye' Has It
Kudos to CBS Radio for getting the Terri Schiavo conflict right in 20 seconds. A national newscaster just said that Michael Schiavo is arguing that Terri is in a vegetative state, while her parents want tests to determine if she is in fact in a "minimal state of consciousness," in which case she should be kept alive. Having seen videos of Terri, I'd argue with "minimal," but at least CBS had a grasp of the issue—not like NPR yesterday.
1:02 PM
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"Complete"? Nonsense!
The message of many self-help books on relationships may be found in the title of one recent tome: You Didn't Complete Me. These books instruct single women that they have to stop looking to a man for fulfillment, and instead find life's meaning through other means—within themselves, or within their relationship to God.
It's a very nice message for those who are lonely, and I fully support it, with the exception that its basic premise is completely false.
We all want to believe that we can be complete without anyone else. But that's silly.
At the beginning of Genesis, God creates one thing after another and pronounces it "good"; He creates man and pronounces him "very good." When He finally pronounces something "not good," it's solitude: "It is not good for man to be alone."
You show me a single person who ultimately wants to be married but is currently "fulfilled," and I will show you someone who is desperately trying to convince himself that he does not feel a very present vacuum in his existence.
That's not to say that You Don't Complete Me and like-minded books don't make an important point. They just don't go far enough.
It's true that no one can be completed by another person. But it's true only because no one can be completed, period.
Another person's love and companionship can bring me a kind of fulfillment that I can't get on my own. But I will never be completed, because it is not in the human nature to be completed. We can hope to grow closer to completion in this life, but the only thing that can truly complete us is heaven—where we will fully become who we are in God.
The Apostle John writes in 1 John 3:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
We are works in progress.
St. Augustine is best known for two sayings addressed to the Lord. One is, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
The other: "Let me be chaste—but not yet."
Those two lines are intimately connected. Put them together, and you have the human condition. We long for fulfillment in our relationship with God, but we are tempted instead to seek it in relationships with others. In that "but not yet," I especially hear the desire to not only be unchaste, but to avoid taking the long view of any potential relationship. It's much easier in the short run to dive in without thought to the spiritual and emotional consequences.
I believe the answer is to seek in our relationships with others—especially with a spouse or hoped-for future spouse—the kind of relationship which we could bring before God and not be ashamed. The kind that would be to His glory.
Even in that kind of relationship, I'd still be incomplete. But a truly complete person doesn't require someone else. Jesus said, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage." Our very need for human companionship makes us incomplete. So I'm glad I have that vacuum that's never quite filled. What I seek is the right person to not quite fill it.
2:04 AM
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Mark Kellner writes of the first-ever campaign from the Committee to Protect Bloggers: an effort to persuade Iran to release two bloggers jailed for speaking out against recent arrests of cyberjournalists and bloggers.
1:55 AM
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Many thanks to those who answered yesterday's call for donations. I have to go to sleep shortly, but will thank each donor personally via e-mail later today.
1:30 AM
To the Max
UPDATE: The following event has been canceled. I'm leaving the item up just to tell the world about Maximilian Kolbe.
Via Culture of Life comes word of an event that I won't miss: a free showing of "Maximilian: Saint of Auschwitz" this Friday, February 25, 7 p.m., at St. Mary's Hall, 440 Grand Street, Manhattan. What I've learned thus far about St. Max's life has touched me deeply. He is the patron saint of journalists and pro-lifers, and I identify with him as a role model. He's also influenced me to take a stronger interest in the Roman Catholic Church.
The film showing, sponsored by the Catholic young-adults apologetics group Defenders of the Holy Trinity, will include a talk by Paul Vastola from Knights Of the Immaculata on the topic, “Grace Abound In Me: My Life With Christ," giving a personal testimony of how St. Maximilian Kolbe brought him closer to Jesus.
12:33 AM
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
NPR's Persistently Deceptive State
Just heard on NPR's "All Things Considered": "Doctors say Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state." Then the announcer added, in a clearly incredulous tone of voice, "Schiavo's parents are fighting to prevent the removal of her feeding tube."
The media keeps repeating this "persistent vegetative state" canard. Never mind all the doctors—including a Nobel Prize nominee—who deny that she is in such a state.
Watch the videos linked on the right-hand side of the TerrisFight.org multimedia page. This woman is not a vegetable. NPR should be ashamed.
For updates, visit BlogsForTerri.com.
5:02 PM
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"Father of the Fetus"
It is amazing to see just how far news organizations will go to avoid the term "unborn child." They'll mangle the language in every other way, just to avoid that loaded phrase.
My friend Peter spotted this latest example, from an Associated Press story about a pregnant woman who was murdered:
"Jones said he didn't know who was the father of Underwood's fetus."
The word "father" means the male parent of a child. Yet the AP would rather use that word outside its normal context—creating the ludicrous "father of [the] fetus"—than risk the suggestion that an unborn child is just that.
2:02 PM
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Pray for Terri Schiavo. Her feeding tube could be removed at 1 p.m. today. For updates, visit BlogsForTerri. To see videos of this vital and engaged woman whose husband is trying to have her killed, go to the right-hand side of the TerrisFight.org multimedia page.
2:03 AM
Planned Parenthood's Racist Roots
Planned Parenthood currently has a feature on its Web site honoring black politicians who support the organization. It's headlined, "Celebrating Black History Month: Choice Champions."
To those who know Planned Parenthood's history, the organization's flattery of blacks is nothing but a sick joke.
Brian Clowes, PhD, of Human Life International, has compiled a remarkable collection of nearly 1,200 quotes from the Birth Control Review, published between 1917 and 1940 by the American Birth Control League, forerunner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The sheer breadth of the quotes from magazine, edited by Birth Control League/Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger until 1928 and continuing to represent the views of her organization thereafter, show that Planned Parenthood's philosophy is grounded in disgustingly obvious racism and eugenics.
All of the quotes were taken from the 1970 unabridged collection of the first edition of the Birth Control Review by Da Capo Press (a division of Plenum Publishing Corporation). Clowes precedes each one with a helpful coding system, including:
[ABO]—Pro-abortion quotes
[ADU]—Pro-adultery, pro-fornication and pro-prostitution quotes
[COE]—Quotes advocating forced abortions, sterilization and contraception
[EUG]—Pro-eugenics quotes
[FAM]—Anti-child, anti-marriage and anti-family quotes
[ILL]—Quotes advocating illegal Activities
[INF]—Pro-infanticide quotes
[RAC]—Racist quotes
[REL]—Anti-religious quotes
Following are some typical examples, but I invite you to peruse the archive yourself (read the introduction first). As you read them, keep in mind that Planned Parenthood flat-out denies that Sanger was a eugenicist, though it grudgingly admits that some of her "progressive" ideas—such as placing illiterates in concentration camps—are "objectionable and outmoded."
"We hear a great deal about preserving our institutions of democracy and the traditions of liberty, free speech, free press and all of these ideals for future generations. Rather should we be concerned as to the quality of life that we are passing on today. What type of people are we breeding to form future generations? These institutions and traditions will take care of themselves if the people of future generations will have the intelligence to use and appreciate them. We have got to revalue our own human values...Birth control can be used as a means to raise the level of the intelligence of our population; to lower infant and maternal mortality. It can be used to improve our general health and well-being and it can curb the pressure of population which explodes into war."
—Margaret Sanger, "Doors to a New World." Birth Control Review, Volume XXIII, Numbers 5 and 6 (New Series, February-March 1939), page 168.
"If it is necessary, and hence legitimate, for the government to control production and distribution, income and wages, why is it not equally necessary for it to control the number of the beneficiaries of all this? In other words, why is not birth control as necessary to the welfare of the state as any of these others?"
—Theodore Dreiser, Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 4 (New Series, January 1934), page 2. [Yes, that Theodore Dreiser. "An American tragedy," indeed.]
"Eugenics without birth control is simply a castle in the air, a beautiful vision in the clouds, no doubt, but not to be brought to earth. Birth control—in the wide sense which includes sterilization and some day perhaps even more radical measures—is the chief instrument vouchsafed to civilized men wherewith from the infinite possibilities of brutal procreation to carve the great future of the race."
—Havelock Ellis. Quote from his book More Essays of Love and Virtue, Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 12 (December 1931), page 357.
This last quote requires an introduction. It appeared one year before Sanger began her notorious Negro Project, which Planned Parenthood calls a "unique experiment in race-building and humanitarian service to a race subjected to discrimination, hardship, and segregation," and black leaders like the Rev. Johnny M. Hunter call simply "genocide.""... the low incomes which Negroes receive make bachelorhood and spinsterhood widespread, with the naturally resultant lowering, in some cases, of sex standards. On the other hand, the mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that part of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.
"There comes, therefore, the difficult and insistent problem of spreading among Negroes an intelligent and clearly recognized concept of proper birth control, so that the young people can marry, have companionship and natural health, and yet not have children until they are able to take care of them. This, of course, calls for a more liberal attitude among Negro churches. The churches are open for the most part to intelligent propaganda of any sort, and the American Birth Control League and other agencies ought to get their speakers before church congregations and their arguments in the Negro newspapers. As it is, the mass of Negroes know almost nothing about the birth control movement, and even intelligent colored people have a good many misapprehensions and a good deal of fear at openly learning about it. Like most people with middle-class standards of morality, they think that birth control is inherently immoral.
"Moreover, they ["Negroes"] are quite led away by the fallacy of numbers. They want the black race to survive. They are cheered by a census return of increasing numbers and a high rate of increase. They must learn that among human races and groups, as among vegetables, quality and not mere quantity really counts."
—W.E.B. DuBois, Professor of Sociology, Atlanta University. "Black Folk and Birth Control." Birth Control Review, Volume XXII, Number 8 (New Series, May 1938, the "Negro Number"), page 90.
Yes, it's that W.E.B. DuBois—the founder of the NAACP.
Planned Parenthood is quite aware of DuBois's quote. In fact, on its Web site, it refers to the sentence beginning, "The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously," and states: "Taken out of the context of his discussion about the effects of birth control on the balance between quality-of-life considerations and race-survival issues for African-Americans, Dubois' language seems insensitive by today's standards."
You now have the full context of W.E.B. DuBois's infamous quote. Does it mean anything in context, other than an utterly abhorrent argument for reducing the numbers of blacks in the population? Why can't Planned Parenthood simply admit it has a racist past?
Maybe because it still is a racist organization—both in its targeting its clinics in poor neighborhoods so as to kill a disproportionately high number of black babies, and in its unfair treatment of minority employees.
Happy Black History Month—from Planned Parenthood.
1:06 AM
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Dishwashing Liquid Seeks Furniture Polish
That's right. Dawn seeks Pledge. It's the return of the tip jar (see the "Make a Donation" button on the upper left-hand side).
I've never been comfortable with having a tip jar, because I like the idea of having a labor of love, plus I believe there are always charities more needy than myself (like Priests for Life, or the St. Gabriel's tsunami-relief effort). The one time I had a tip jar before, to make up for unexpectedly high Web-server costs, I took it down as soon as I'd raised the amount I needed.
But times have changed. I'm out of a job now. Every little bit helps.
Please know that I am grateful to you just for reading my blog. If you feel moved to give, wonderful. If not, I won't think any less of you.
In case you hear of a job that might be right for me, I'm looking for a mid-level one that would draw on my expertise as an editor, copy editor, and writer. I'd consider a media company or a nonprofit; before I was at the New York Post, I worked as an editor for nonprofits such as the Jewish Book Council and the College Board. Until the right full-time position comes along, I'm available for freelance copyediting and writing—just last week, I had an op-ed in National Review Online. And while New York City's my preferred locale, I'd be open to relocating anywhere I wouldn't have to drive—especially Washington, D.C.
12:10 AM
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Monday, February 21, 2005
Op Dread
Irate home-schoolers wreak revenge on clueless editorial cartoonist.
What I want to know is, where did the cartoonist go to school to learn how to draw pervert parents? His abusive father looks like Richard M. Nixon reimagined as a vinyl-record store clerk.
5:22 PM
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Barlow Farms notes a New York Times piece that uses faulty theology to knock intelligent design.
For solid theology and cogent defenses of intelligent design, visit Wittingshire.
4:16 PM
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My post about "The Day the Earth Stood Still"'s representing Hollywood's fantasy of Alger Hiss's bringing world peace is now on Crux magazine's pop-culture blog, Situation Critical.
3:59 PM
Chesterton Leads the Savant-Garde
Reader Joseph E. sends this fascinating G.K. Chesterton-related news item from The Guardian:
Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language. Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities are the key to unlock the secrets of autism....
Like ["Rain Man"] Peek, Tammet will read anything and everything, but his favorite book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton. "With all those aphorisms," he says, "Chesterton was the Groucho Marx of his day." Tammet is also a Christian, and likes the fact that Chesterton addressed some complex religious ideas. "The other thing I like is that, judging by the descriptions of his home life, I reckon Chesterton was a savant. He couldn't dress himself, and would always forget where he was going. His poor wife."
3:00 PM
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
Unmourned
Today's Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger has a bizarre and poignant story about a 76-year-old man whose body was found in his home—along with $235,000 in uncashed Social Security and pension checks—over a year after he died.
Thanks to Caren Lissner for the tip.
5:38 PM
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You learn things in church: Today, at Our Saviour in Manhattan, Fr. George Rutler mentioned in his homily a story I hadn't heard on the news—St. Paul's tomb has apparently been found.
4:56 PM
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Currently listening to Bill Kelly's show on WFMU until 5 p.m. (available online)—still the best "mindless teenage brain rot" on the airwaves.
UPDATE: You missed it. But you can still listen to Kelly's archived shows.
3:48 PM
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The Day the Earth Stood Still:
An Alternate Hiss-story
Michael Rennie and Alger Hiss: Two great actorsYesterday I watched
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" for the first time in several years,
and I finished reading
Whittaker Chambers's
Witness. As a result, I discovered a subtext in the film that I had never noticed before.
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is not only, as is often said,
a Cold War cautionary tale. Released in 1951, one year after
Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, the film is also a Hollywood fantasy of the Alger Hiss case, with Hiss a godlike hero who would give us world peace if only we would see him as he really is.
The alien character Klaatu is played by
Michael Rennie, whose patrician accent (which his landlady pegs as "New England"), lanky figure, and perfect comportment would be instantly identifiable to anyone who had watched newsreels of the Hiss trial.
Klaatu/Hiss touches down in Washington, D.C.—of course—in a spaceship that should be familiar to anyone who knows their
Jonathan Swift: It's Laputa, the floating city of airy-fairy academia—Hiss being a Harvard man at home in the rarefied echelons of the nation's intellectual elite.
Immediately Klaatu/Hiss settles in a modest district street—the better to be around "real people"—and sets about spreading his message of world peace. Hiss was the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Of course, this world-peace message is too important to be entrusted with just one nation, so Klaatu/Hiss insists on bringing it to all the world leaders—just as Hiss did through his involvement on the U.S. side of the ill-fated 1945 Yalta conference in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered Eastern Europe to Communist domination.
But resistance emerges in the form of pesky government agents, who are abetted by a
Whittaker Chambers-style informer:
Hugh Marlowe as Tom, the boorish would-be fiancé of
Patricia Neal's Helen. When Helen—representing the American people who trust Hiss—attempts to prevent Tom from reporting Klaatu/Hiss's whereabouts to the government, he replies, "You'll change your mind when you see my picture in the papers." Hiss supporters similarly argued that Chambers—who experienced tremendous personal loss for his role in the Hiss case—was a mere opportunist.
Klaatu/Hiss's final message to the world reveals that his plan for world peace is based on reliance upon robots who police planets and destroy all aggressors. This is the ultimate realization of a Marxian
god of the machine, precisely what Chambers was warning against when he wrote in
his foreword to Witness of the faith at the heart of Communism:
It is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "Ye shall be as gods." It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man's liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man's destiny and reorganizing man's life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because man's mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God.
And so, Klaatu/Hiss departs—just as Hiss went away for what was supposed to be a five-year sentence, of which he served only three years and eight months. But the film ends on a note of hope—just as Hiss's supporters continued to proclaim his innocence.
Meanwhile, it would be Chambers's own witness—and the influence it had upon
Ronald Reagan and many others—that would ultimately contribute to the greatest stride our generation has seen towards peace: the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War. Now,
there's a story worth filming. But, over 50 years after "The Day the Earth Stood Still," Hollywood's producers remain, in the words of
Don McLean, a generation lost in space.
12:20 AM
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Congratulations to the brilliant Chez Joel "Dawn for a Day" contest winners! I don't envy Joel his task of picking out the best ones—many of the entries made me laugh out loud.
11:39 PM
'Terri Can Be Taught to Communicate'
My mother (whose autobiography is linked at left), commenting on a post about Terri Schiavo, writes about her own experience working with similarly disabled patients. I have met one of the patients she mentions and can attest to the inspirational quality of her life; she has an incredibly strong will to live.
I am a cognitive therapist who has worked with post head-injury patients for the past 14 years. I worked almost daily with 2 quadriplegics, one of whom had a brain-stem stroke, is tube-fed and has virtually no movement except eye blinks to communicate. Both of these patients are living amazing lives of ministry to others. Both are able to exhibit joy and to communicate their wishes. Terri can be taught to communicate.
The problem with "living" wills is that they rely on healthy people to project how they will feel is they later have a catastrophic illness. The will to live is so profound that we cannot possibly know that we will not want to live under even the most appalling conditions. In many many cases, it looks worse to you than to your dear family member who is laying there. And, having the power to snuff out the light on that person, a believer would have to wrestle with God's will, i.e, "Choose life, that she may live." Terri has so blessed the lives of those near and far. Her parents can be very proud. I would gladly volunteer to help her, if permitted.
2:24 PM
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A Cure Thing
A beautiful response from Joseph in the comments section of "Past Imperfect," in answer to a criticism that those who uphold abstinence-'til-marriage deny homosexuals the hope of marriage:
The most disordered thing about homosexuality is not the sexual attraction to one's own sex, it's the inability to properly relate to the other sex. When you marry you forsake all others, of either sex. Homosexuals don't need to learn to hate their own sex, they need to learn to love the other one; when you frame the issue that way, it is obvious that there is hope; "psychologists" think "curing" homosexuality is either wrong or impossible because they view it negatively, as denying one's nature, rather than positively, as overcoming a defect in one's ability to love.
2:10 PM
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Planned Parenthood's Prostitution Connection
The latest edition of the Planned Parenthood Action Network e-mail "The Insider" aims to get supporters fired up against the Bush administration's Global AIDS Bill. "[T]he ultraconservatives in power have imposed their own moralistic and dangerous agenda on women and men in Africa and the Caribbean putting their lives at risk," Planned Parenthood's anonymous letter-writer snorts.
The e-mail goes on to list the various ways that the bill, which directs $15 billion to 15 African and Caribbean countries for AIDS prevention and care, offends Planned Parenthood's sensibiities. The first two are predictable: It sets aside money for abstinence-until marriage programs, and it allows religious aid organizations to opt out of performing referrals for services that conflict with their beliefs.
Then, out of the blue, comes this complaint:
"The Litmus Test. This amendment requires organizations to have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution in order to be eligible for global AIDS funds."
But—but—I thought Planned Parenthood cared about women! How could it possibly object to a restriction on aid for organizations that don't explicitly oppose the inherently degrading evil of prostitution?
All it took was a simple Internet search for "International Planned Parenthood" and "prostitution" to find the answer, in an article written by Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher.
Mosher's piece is about the Global Fund, a U.N.-administered program for AIDS relief. The U.S.'s Global AIDS Bill earmarks some money for the Global Fund, but not nearly as much as organizations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation would like. For one thing, money spent by the Global Fund, unlike the Global AIDS Bill, would be free from the oversight provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"While USAID is not perfect," Mosher writes, "many in the agency would have difficulty accepting the notion, bruited about by both [the World Health Organization] and IPPF, that abortion ('termination of pregnancy') should be used to prevent the spread of AIDS. After all, half of all babies born to HIV-positive mothers do not have the disease. As for the half that do, their plight does not justify killing them in utero, any more than it would justify killing them after birth. The position of WHO and IPPF that the spread of AIDS can be checked by abortion is no less reprehensible as saying that abortion should be used as a means of population control—an idea that many nations have forcefully rejected as genocidal."
It is this same International Planned Parenthood-backed Global Fund that "shows every sign of wanting, through its programs, to work for the normalization of prostitution in Africa," Mosher continues. "Ignoring the views of Ugandans, Kenyans and other Africans who are strongly opposed to prostitution, U.N.-sanctioned 'AIDS prevention' programs work to legitimize the prostitution 'industry' and emphasize the 'rights' of 'sex workers.' U.N. AIDS prevention programs service prostitutes, and their clients, with 'reproductive health' supplies—including condoms and abortions—and are silent about the exploitation of women and girls sold or trafficked into sexual slavery."
The Planned Parenthood Insider e-mail, after lambasting the Global AIDS Bill's requirement that aid agencies oppose prostitution, concludes, "Please help us remind President Bush that condoms and real sex education work. Education and access to condoms allow individuals to make their own best decision about how to protect themselves and others against HIV/AIDS."
The message is that "real sex education...allow[s] individuals to make their own best decision" about whether prostitution is OK. Think about that the next time someone tells you that Planned Parenthood knows what's best for humanity.
1:13 AM
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Friday, February 18, 2005
All the Nudes That Fit
Here's a new twist on an old story...
A strip club in Boise, Idaho, has found a way to get around a local law forbidding complete nudity in public unless the display has "serious artistic merit."
It has an "Art Club Night," where, for $15, patrons get a sketch pad and pencil so they can "draw" the strippers' nude performance.
I like the way the BBC took the opportunity to illustrate this item with a ghastly Picasso nude, below which some copy editor attempted to earn his salary by writing, "The club's amateur artists are unlikely to rival Picasso's famous nudes."
9:49 PM
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Chilling
John Bambenek, in an entry asking readers to lobby the state's attorney to investigate Terri Schiavo's collapse, links to a page of documents that arouse suspicion as to the collapse's cause.
Read the documents yourself. Even if there's the slightest possibility that Michael Schiavo caused his wife's collapse, that alone should be cause for him to be prevented from having charge of her care—or, rather, her murder.
6:32 PM
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Shock and Blog's Jinx McHue offers a snarky new term for Democrats under Dean: DUDs.
4:45 PM
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Understanding Stem Cell Research
Most media outlets don't go out of their way to explain stem-cell research to the lay reader. They won't say, for example, that the bills proposed by various states (and passed in California) for public stem-cell research funding are primarily to fund research with embryonic and not adult stem cells— because embryonic stem-cell research is shunned by the private sector. Likewise, they won't say that one of the reasons the private sector refuses to fund it is because embryonic stem-cell research carries the risk of tumors. (A recent article in The Weekly Standard has more on the media's bias against reporting results adult stem-cell research.)
Today, Joel Helbling, using information from the Stem Cell Research Foundation, has an easy-to-understand chart showing the results of studies released in the past three months involving adult and embryonic stem cells. Make sure to read the synopsis at the bottom. It's an excellent snapshot and gives a hint as to why the public should know that adult stem-cell research is a better investment.
1:46 PM
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Tonight is a very rare occasion in the Dawn Patrol annals because I am not going to stay up until the wee hours to write something topical or heart-rending to greet you, dear reader, in the morning. Instead, I am going to bed early. I have been sick and rundown for a week, now slogging away on antibiotics, and the frustration of trying to function as though I'm at full energy is making me feel like the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass. I should return to posting sometime tomorrow—thanks for your patience.
11:06 PM
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Tell Them About Terri
This is a critical time in the fight to prevent the murder of Terri Schiavo. John Bambenek has a list of government officials that you can contact to advocate for Terri, as well some talking points. Updates on Terri's case are available on Media Culpa and TerrisFight.org.
2:53 PM
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Following some initial hiccups, The Dawn Patrol now has HaloScan comments. This means that I have more administrative control over comments than I did with the Blogger system, which was not allowing me to delete individual comments. In addition, I can now edit comments. Soon, I hope to be able to set up an automatic word limit for them; in the meantime, I reserve the right to trim comments that are longer than, say, Washington's farewell address.
I promise to use these newfound powers only for good. I love reading what most commenters have to say here, and am grateful to those who take part. The only ones whose comments risk editing or deletion are those who break the comments rules at left.
A sad side effect of the switchover is that all the old Blogger comments have disappeared into the ether. If there is a comment heaven, I have no doubt that the vast majority have ended up there, with only a few in comment purgatory and none in the other place.
2:19 PM
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Past Imperfect
When I wrote that the homosexual community should take responsibility for its sexual behavior rather than blame the spread of AIDS on meth users who don't use condoms, I expected someone would ask me what right I had to address gays at all.
Instead, a former boyfriend has emerged who knows exactly what right I have to to address sexually compulsive drug users—and he accuses me of hypocrisy.
He's someone with whom I had what I considered a "mature" relationship back in late 1992, when I was 24, meaning that we weren't in love, but had sex—just like grown-ups. This was my year 7 B.C. (Before Christianity), during the dark period I described to The New York Observer's George Gurley, when I was on antidepressants that did little to solve my crisis of existence.
The letter-writer and I dated for less than three months, and I have not seen him since. The Observer piece brought me back into his sights and caused him to find The Dawn Patrol.
He writes :
You look great, you are off the pharmaceuticals, and, judging by your publicity, the sex dependency is gone, too. All of that is great!
If it's all Jesus's doing, that's great, too, though I personally feel that the kernel of truth in all religions remains a constant.
What does bother me a little is your lack of charity for those whose risky behaviors didn't change the same day that yours did....
[Gay men] will not give up the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake without an epiphany, and such epiphany will not derive from abstinence campaigns. Until every member of each at-risk group reaches whatever realization fate holds for them, it is only humane to work toward reduced risk.
After describing his own experience among meth users as a teen, he writes:[I] learned that these people are in a helpless grip. They come in innocent, and are literally possessed by the drug....
I suggest that when you attempt to tell black, poor, addicted, gay people that abstinence is their sole salvation, you are not at one with the kernel of truth I mentioned earlier....
Fifteen years ago, when I met you, you were young, talented, white, comfortably situated, and living a life of chemical dependency and sexual desperation. If you were to go back in time and speak to your young self, I doubt if you could have found the right words to end the risks you were taking.
The cynicism here—masquerading as pragmatism—is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I'm not even going to address the reference to blacks and poor people as having more difficulty with abstinence than the rest of us. That reeks of Margaret Sanger's fearmongering rants about poor blacks being unable to control themselves, reproducing like "human weed."
"Until every member of each at-risk group reaches whatever realization fate holds for them, it is only humane to work toward reduced risk." This is libertarianism at its most soul-denying. The implication is that people are going to destroy themselves; therefore they should be given the least destructive means to do so. This is the rationale behind legalizing prostitution and hard drugs.
A healthy society treats certain behaviors as being more acceptable than others, so that those who are behaving in a way that harms themselves or others are forced to deal with the unpleasant consequences of their behavior. Changing the paradigm from one of correcting dangerous behavior to merely reducing risk writes off an entire class of people, leaving them to sink deeper into the pit of addiction and disease.
Does anyone think that sexually transmitted disease among teens has decreased since Planned Parenthood increased its efforts to give them sex-positive education? Think again. Does anyone think that because more men and women are receiving contraception through Planned Parenthood, the organization is performing fewer abortions? Think again.
Lives are not saved by reducing risk. Lives are saved by eliminating risk—even if it means hurting some people's feelings by telling them society will not condone their efforts to harm themselves and others.
Some people are kleptomaniacs, yet our society is not so sensitive to them that we teach kids in school, "If you can't avoid stealing something, just don't steal anything too big." We advocate abstinence from stealing, and we view kleptomania as a disorder. Likewise, society has a compelling interest to advocate that children abstain from sex outside marriage, and to treat premarital sex as disordered behavior.
I know exactly what I would say if I were to go back in time and speak to my younger self. I would say the same things that I would say to young women today who engage in premarital sex—what I said to myself at age 31 when I looked at what I had accomplished in my single life.
Do you want to get married?
I have no answer for the single person who does not wish to marry. That's not my ministry. But I know that even when I was having sex with this man whom I did not love, I greedily, hungrily, ate up everything he gave me that even slightly hinted at what I really wanted: real affection.
I sought out sex because I believed I was not worthy of love, and I believed that I had to grab what I could. I stopped seeking sex when I realized that my hunger for the substitute had worn away my ability to recognize and accept the real thing.
The big lie of "Sex and the City" and all our culture's various glorifications of casual sex is that they tell people that the fake thing will lead to the real one. That's like saying that learning to detect the taste of Ripple will teach you how to discern a merlot. It doesn't work that way. You have to cleanse your palate.
Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."
The sin of our age is that, rather than admit that we are sick with moral blindness, we choose instead to change our definition of health. "If you were blind, you would have no sin," Jesus said to the Pharisees, "but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains."
2:07 AM
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Apologies to those to whom I owe e-mails. I've been sick since last Thursday with a sinus bug that's sapped my energy, and now the antibiotics are taking their course.
2:01 AM
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Bin-Laden
Valerie of Kyriosity (who created the Dawn Patrol logo) needs help giving good riddance to bad rubbish:
How do you throw away a garbage can? I left a decrepit one out for the bulk trash pick-up this morning. It didn't get taken. I probably should have left a note on it.
8:56 PM
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Headline of the Day
"U.S. Navy names attack sheep after Jimmy Carter" — Roger Kimball, Armavirumque
* * *Juicy personal posts to resume later tonight...
8:46 PM
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Note to self: Do not, repeat, do not think of the "Mister Kane, Mister Kane, Mister Kane" song unless you want to have it go through your head incessantly for the rest of the day...
2:15 PM
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Tiffany's and the Sacramental Sense
My friend Michael Potemra—an Evangelical Christian who lives in Manhattan, and is literary editor of National Review—writes that he found an echo of Catholicism in, of all places, the Tiffany & Co. jewelry store:
From the threshold of Tiffany's, to its inner precincts, was a very big step. I knew that if I walked in, I would walk out with an engagement ring; if I walked out with an engagement ring, I would ask the woman I love to marry me; if I asked her to marry me, there was a substantial risk that she would say yes; and if that happened, then I would be committed to her, for life, in a way I had never been committed to anything or anyone ever before. So I took a deep breath, and entered the temple.
The business was transacted swiftly—rings examined, ring bought, blue box wrapped up. Then the salesman engaged me in post-transactional pleasantries. "So," he asked, "how did you meet your fiancée?" I could feel myself start to blush at the idea. "Please," I implored him, "say potential fiancée! I haven't even asked her yet." The salesman then beamed at me with the benevolence only the confidence of ancient wisdom can provide. "Sir," he said patiently, "when you present her with the blue box, things will go well."
One major reason I consider myself Protestant is that I am deficient in what has been called "the sacramental sense"—the intuition, central to the faith of (among others) Catholics and Confucians, that the correct performance of rituals is efficacious. But here I was, faced with a secular hierophant who was assuring me, with priestly kindness, that the magic would be performed, and my wish granted. Not owing to any virtue of the officiant (in this case, me), of course, but, as the Roman theology has it, ex opere operato. The proper matter for the sacrament will be present: the blue box. The proper form will be present also: The words, "Will you marry me?" How, then, can the desired result not be achieved-the single syllable, "Yes"?
I was grateful for the salesman's kind words of encouragement; I actually did find them comforting. And yet: When—twelve days later—I sank to my knee and asked her to marry me, I was putting no trust in the blue box. I asked, without any assurance of any kind, for a free act of her grace, sola gratia. (I am thrilled to report that Carolyn is now, in fact, my fiancée.)
12:01 AM
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Life Imitates 'Team America'
"Let me tell you how all this works: you see, Team America is funded by the corporations, so they fight for the corporations...while they sit in their corporation buildings... and they're all corporation-y...and they make lots of money!" — Hollywood actor "Tim Robbins" (as portrayed by a puppet), "Team America"
"The press is reporting things that are absolutely irrelevant to any of our lives and they are sensationalistic and it is damaging. We start to think that these things are important, like [the rape trial of NBA star] Kobe Bryant and [the molestation trial of] Michael Jackson and yada, yada, and meanwhile, you know, endangered forests are being slaughtered for toilet paper, you know, sequoias—whatever it is." — Hollywood actress Daphne Zuniga, Washington Press Club Foundation dinner
6:46 PM
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The latest blogstorm is over the Tulsa World newspaper's attempting to silence gadfly Michael Bates by threatening to sue him for linking his BatesLine blog to its Web site and quoting its articles. Stay tuned to BatesLine for updates on this one, as it has implications for every blogger who links to any newspaper's site or quotes from other sources' articles—which is to say, everyone. Fortunately, Michelle Malkin and many other bloggers have already rallied to Michael's side, so I don't doubt this whole thing will turn out to be nothing more than a major embarrassment for the World.
UPDATE: The story has reached CNN, where the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz has come out in Bates' defense.
6:10 PM
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Gene Genie Goes Up in Smoke
Remember the study that was announced a few weeks back which was supposed to prove once and for all that there's a genetic cause for homosexuality?
Never mind.
5:44 PM
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They Never Meth a Man They Didn't Like
The New York Times' report on the homosexual community's considering "radical steps" to prevent methamphetamine users from spreading AIDS has a familiar ring: Anything But Abstinence.
According to the story, homosexual activists are seriously considering ways to physically "thwart" such druggies—who typically have sex sans condoms—from making their conquests.
This is the looking-glass world of gay lib, 2005. Homosexuals are willing to put up with the loss of their civil rights at the hands of their health-minded brethren. But ask them to take personal responsibility for their actions by voluntarily refraining from sex? You must be a homophobe!
You won't see any serious consideration of abstinence by the homosexual leaders interviewed for the Times piece, but you will see plenty of references to the Edenic world that would exist if all gay males used what is so coyly called "protection." The thought that some unsheathed malcontents might ruin that paradise for everyone else drives men like Charles Kaiser, a historian and author of The Gay Metropolis, to say, "Gay men do not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease. A person who is HIV-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person's head."
Yet put a condom on that same HIV-positive man, and he can presumably put bullets through as many heads as he wants—he just has to try harder. A 2003 UNAIDS report found that even when condoms are used consistently, they fail to prevent HIV transmission 10 percent of the time.
What the AIDS lobby refuses to acknowledge is that condoms used consistently do not stop HIV. At best, by cutting the infection rate, they only slow its spread. The only way to eliminate AIDS is through abstinence and monogamy—a method which has proven successful in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa.
As long as America's homosexual community continues to perpetrate a victim culture—poor widdle us, we're only trying to have fun—and refuses to take responsiblity for its own actions, its civil liberties will be at risk...from within.
12:59 AM
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Monday, February 14, 2005
Godspy contributor John Zmirak offers an exceptionally witty take on the theology of the body—or, as he puts it in honor of Valentine's Day, the "theology of love." Here's his take on the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to artificial means of contraception:
To utilitarian Americans, this seems like a pointless distinction: The end justifies the means. When we want to lose weight, we get liposuction. When we want the kids to sit still, we give them Ritalin. When we want more milk from a cow, we genetically engineer it using alien DNA from a grasshopper. Descartes taught us long ago that the point of science was to become the "master and possessor of nature." But the Church sees Creation as covered with big, greasy divine fingerprints, which we're not supposed to wipe away in our rage to tidy things up. And because sexuality is even more sacred than eating, we must treat it with more reverence than we do, say veal cattle. The best way to explain the Church's official theology is to compare spacing children to losing weight. You can achieve that through dieting—or you can try bulimia. If you think they're equivalent, you probably better go back to your gastroenterologist.
11:36 PM
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May the Best Pun Win
Just for fun, Joel Helbling of Chez Joel is holding a "Dawn for a Day" contest, with real prizes: a $50 Barnes & Noble gift certificate, and—from the Eden archive—a copy of the infamous "Kerry's Choice" issue that named Gephardt as the senator's running mate. Visit his Web site for details.
9:49 PM
I must be the most overexposed copy editor in the history of the world. As Gawker reports, the New York Post is so eager to give me its unique and special brand of press that it reprinted yesterday's Page Six item in today's paper.
12:54 PM
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Welcome to readers who found this page via my op-ed in today's National Review Online. Much of the current Dawn Patrol is taken up with the New York Observer's profile of me and related hoopla, but if you'd like to read more on Planned Parenthood-related topics, there are many relevant pieces in the archives, including exposes of Planned Parenthood's Teenwire site and a study that examined a chain of 288 high-school sex partners (apologies for the headline). In addition, Crux magazine has a summary I wrote of my Teenwire research, and my main page has links to writings on other topics, including my interview with Harry Nilsson.
12:24 PM
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No Love Lost
One of the most telling things about the New York Post's latest broadside against Very Important Person Dawn Eden (who, until the Post started spreading rumors, was a very faceless copy editor) is Page Six editor Richard Johnson's gleeful take on my sex life.
Extrapolating data from George Gurley's New York Observer profile of me, Johnson notes that I did not lose my virginity until what Page Six considers to be a horribly advanced age. The real sin, of course, is that being a never-married woman, I have had sex at all—but that's a concept far beyond Page Six's ability to comprehend.
The other bit of information Johnson gives from Gurley's piece is that I haven't gone beyond kissing a man in "a year or two" (the uncertainty is his, not mine). Again, in Page Six terms, this is shocking. If readers used to the comings and goings of the Hilton sisters aren't already convinced of my utter deviation from established social norms and all that is holy, they are now.
It's things like that which make one realize there are really two universes: The Mainstream Media and Everyone Else.
The mainstream media forces Valentine's Day down our throats, stating quite clearly that unless a single woman has a hot date on this very day of the calendar, she is a pathetic, unattractive git.
In truth, anyone who knows anything about love knows that there is no guarantee that one will meet the right person at any given point in one's life. One may wish to just fool around in the meantime, but Page Six itself shows on a daily basis the toll of such hedonism, spelled out in bitchiness, superficiality, and backbiting, not to mention abortion and sexually transmitted disease.
Thankfully, there is another way, and—unless your name is Richard Johnson—chances are I don't have to tell you what it is. There are men and women reading this who are dateless today not because they're undesirable, but because they are too wise, deep, and principled to settle for something superficial. Here's to you this Valentine's Day. My heart goes out to you.
Paul writes in Romans 12:2, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
I may be in the Page Six universe. But I'll be damned—literally—if I'm of it.
2:19 AM
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Sunday, February 13, 2005
Sick, Sick, Six
[UPDATED TWICE]
The New York Post apparently considers me such an important person that it's not enough for someone there to simply smear me to Women's Wear Daily (in an article that WWD went on to retract). Now that writer George Gurley has profiled me in the New York Observer, the Post's Page Six column today takes a remarkably gratuitous swipe at me.
I think you can tell the attitude of the Post pretty well by the way its gossips' claim "Dawn Eden...was fired from The Post for improperly rewriting a news story to reflect her rabid anti-abortion views."
UPDATE: As has been noted in the comments section, the official reason given for my firing was making a blog entry on company time. I find it quite interesting that the Post would now come out and admit publicly that the real reason was my so-called "rabid anti-abortion views."
UPDATE #2: Interestingly, the Page Six item is available only online—not in the actual newspaper. Hmmm.
TRACKBACK: Saint Kansas writes, "Methinks the anonymous source doth protest too much..."
2:58 AM
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Planned Parenthood Fights Syphilis With Sex!
Edmonton (Canada) Sun columnist Andrew Hanon, alarmed at the city's syphilis outbreak, seeks wisdom from a local Planned Parenthood exec—and does she give him an earful. But before we get to her advice, let's see what the U.S. government has to say about this disease, which, among other things, increases the risk of HIV transmission two to five times.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, condoms do not protect fully against syphilis, as they do not cover the entire area where sores may occur, plus one may have a sore without realizing it. That's why, again according to the CDC, "The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, is to abstain from sexual contact or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected."
The agency adds, "Avoiding alcohol and drug use may also help prevent transmission of syphilis because these activities may lead to risky sexual behavior."
In light of that, how do you think Planned Parenthood is reacting to the syphilis outbreak in Edmonton?
That's right! They're throwing a sex party!
"This [syphilis outbreak] is way more mainstream than most people think," acknowledges Lynn Rounds of Planned Parenthood. As far as she's concerned, the biggest reason that it's spreading so rapidly is that while sex is everywhere in society, it's still a taboo to talk about it openly and intelligently. As a result, ignorance is rampant and people who think they're safe are actually endangering themselves and others.
"The message is always 'Go do it, go do it. See how fun it looks, but don't talk about it.'"
So, in Planned Parenthood's eyes, if people only got over their inhibitions about sex, there'd be less syphilis. Never mind that what the organization commonly calls "safer sex" has no meaning with a disease against which, as with human papillomavirus, condoms offer no real protection.
Hanon continues; comments in brackets are mine:That's why Rounds is a member of a group called SPIN, or Sex Positive INnovations, a committee of sexual health professionals who are working to, in her words, "normalize sex."
"We promote healthy sexuality in fun, non-judgmental ways," she explains. "We try not to do things in the preachy, high-school sex-ed style."
SPIN's biggest event of the year is tomorrow night at the Cosmopolitan Music Society. "Some Like It Hot" is billed as "an omnisexual adventure" [see the poster] and carries the caution, "some adults may be titillated."
The evening's highlight will be the Sexual Pursuit game show, hosted by Donovan Workun of the comedy troupe Atomic Improv. There will also be other entertainment, a sexy fashion show [featuring "a drag queen in baby dolls"], booths and displays, all designed to inform guests about how to have lots of fun while minimizing risk.
"We don't have an official definition of healthy sexuality," Rounds says. "In my view, it's whatever consenting adults want to do as long as they're making informed decisions. [Paging Dr. Kinsey—Ed.] The term 'sex positive' means we support individuals' choices."
Proceeds from the event will go toward producing a CD version of Sexual Pursuit, which the group plans to distribute across the country so it can be played in bars. [The better to thumb their noses at U.S. government-agency advice that syphilis be prevented by "avoiding alcohol and drug use." They're Canadian; what do they care?]
Rounds promises that the evening will be "a little risque, pushing the boundaries a bit," but that it will be much more than the average porn-and-hooters sex show.
"We're not going to be objectifying anyone. It's going to be a lot of fun and very sexy, but the underlying message is about health."
I picture a skanky Beat poet in a 1950s East Village cold-water flat. He can claim quite rightly that, beneath all the living organisms, rust stains, and used condoms in his kitchen sink, the bottom of the basin is actually white. And so it is with Planned Parenthood—somewhere beneath the "comprehensive sexual education" ordure is an "underlying message...about health." But they're feeding their their filthy dishwater to our kids.
1:48 AM
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Friday, February 11, 2005
One Man, One Devotee
The latest edition of the Planned Parenthood Insider, an e-mail sent to members of the Planned Parenthood Action Network, states,
We all know about the scary abstinence-only programs that teach gems like: "Just as a woman needs to feel a man's devotion to her, a man has a primary need to feel a woman's admiration. To admire a man is to regard him with wonder, delight, and approval. A man feels admired when his unique characteristics and talents happily amaze her." (Rep. Henry Waxman's Abstinence Only report of 12/04)
It is amazing that this is the scariest abstinence-only gem that Planned Parenthood could come up with, especially since—unlike some of the other examples cited in the Waxman report—it's absolutely true. Men do seek primarily to be admired for their "unique characteristics and talents," while women seek primarily to receive unqualified love and devotion.
That's not to say men don't want love as well, or that women don't wish to be admired for their own unique characteristics and talents. But anyone witnessing male-female interactions, even if only for a short time, would surely see that one sex mostly desires a certain type of proof of affection, while the other mostly desires a different type. An understanding of this can only help teens who wish to one day develop a love relationship leading to marriage—which is to say, most teens.
Why, then, would the statement of this truth in an abstinence-only education program rile Planned Parenthood so much?
I believe it's because it strikes a blow to the heart of Planned Parenthood's message, which is that gender is a meaningless social construction.
G.K. Chesterton, writing in G.K.'s Weekly in 1930—the same year Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger opened her Harlem clinic targeting blacks for birth reduction—saw what was coming. He observed then in "The Equality of Sexlessness," with the innocence of a time before life could be created in the lab,When all are sexless there will be equality. There will be no women and no men. There will be but a fraternity, free and equal. The only consoling thought is that it will endure but for one generation.
11:08 PM
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Putting My Own Spin on Things
If you're in the East Village tomorrow night, by all means stop by POP GEAR!, the monthly Sixties-pop night put on by my friends Kittybeat and Michael Lynch, where I'll be doing my regular DJ spot—spinning boss tunes while rare Mod-era film clips unspool on the big screen. (To see just how boss, check out what I played last month. Methinks more British tunes and a little bit of soul are on the way this time.) I'm the first DJ, manning the turntables from 10 to 11 p.m. After that, I can be found frugging up a storm on the dance floor until heading home at midnight, but the music and film clips will continue 'til 4 a.m. Rififi at Cinema Classics is at 332 East 11th Street, between 1st and 2nd avenues, and admission is free.
9:07 PM
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Virginia Is for Losers
Virginia Republican State Sen. Ken Cuccinelli has penned a harrowing letter to a local paper about the failure of his recent bill to institute health and safety standards in abortion clinics. The bill, which was written after a series of ghastly mistakes and misjudgments caused a woman to bleed to death at an abortion clinic, lost by a vote of 9 to 6. The senator writes:
In following up on this tragedy [of the woman's death], I learned some startling facts. I did not know that abortion clinics are not regulated, nor are they required to be inspected by the Virginia Department of Health....
Could any other kind of medical practice survive in the face of frequent emergency 911 calls to save their own patients? I don't think so.
My purpose in introducing a bill requiring regulation of abortion clinics was to guarantee a basic level of care for any woman seeking an abortion in the Commonwealth. I am unabashedly pro-life and believe that no child's life should be taken in this way. But my pro-life position also includes concern for the mother. Women seeking abortions are often young, unsure of their options, and frightened. Often the main concern is just to get the procedure done without anyone finding out....
The Virginia regulations for outpatient surgical facilities is 40 pages long. Last year we attempted to have these rules applied to abortion clinics without success, so this year we came forward with only 38 provisions — down from several hundred and focusing on those provisions that spoke directly to patient health and safety. The final bill contained less than 10 percent of the regulations applied to outpatient surgical facilities, and I had removed those provisions that had been traditionally identified as most onerous.
The requirements are minimal. They include such things as requiring a surgeon to perform the surgery (currently any M.D. can perform abortions in Virginia, e.g., dermatologists and psychiatrists), requiring a nurse trained in recovery room techniques to be on duty during recovery, requiring that only licensed personnel prescribe medicines, requiring sterilized equipment and supplies. Several of the requirements directly addressed the situation that we believe resulted in the death of the young woman in Northern Virginia. Each abortion clinic would be required to have ambulance service available, and the physician who performed the procedure would be required to stay on the premises until the patient was released. Nurses would need to be trained in resuscitation techniques, and they would have to have resuscitation equipment available. Doors and halls would have to be large enough to allow a gurney to get in and out....
Sadly, even reduced to these minimal provisions, it was too much for most of the members of the committee. We often hear that pro-choice advocates want abortions to be safe, legal and rare. But it is often hard to see this in their actions. I explicitly stated to the committee members that I was prepared to let any senator delete any of the provisions in the bill they felt were onerous. It was equally clear that each and every person there who claimed to be for safe abortions wanted no protections in place....
Anyone that would like me to e-mail them a list of the 38 standards that I proposed is welcome to send an e-mail with such request to district37@sov.state.va.us.
Read the whole thing.
No doubt the abortion-rights lobby has its own side of the story and will claim that Sen. Cuccinelli's admitted pro-life position precludes any real desire to compromise. Yet the fact remains that in Virginia, as well as much of the rest of the country, the state views abortion in the light of Roe vs. Wade as a "relatively safe" procedure—freeing it from the regulations protecting patients who have any other type of surgery. This, despite the fact that post-Roe research has shown abortion to be four times deadlier than childbirth, carrying a distressingly high risk of complications.
As Sen. Cuccinelli says, think about the abortion lobby's opposition to any new safety regulations—and its complete unwillingness to compromise—the next time you hear Hillary Clinton drag out that old Bubba mantra: "safe, legal, and rare." Bill may have felt our pain—but he sure didn't feel the pain of our unborn children—and neither does his wife.
7:38 PM
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WWDelighted
I am happy to report that today's Women's Wear Daily has a retraction of the erroneous article it published about me last week (fifth item), including my own story of what happened at the New York Post. Kudos to reporter Sara James for making amends.
3:01 AM
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Murdering the Language
Here are my votes for the most nauseating passages from Rebecca Traister's Salon piece lauding the increasingly radicalized abortion-rights movement, "Morality Play":
- In the "Block That Metaphor" department: "After years of intermittent jostling from the inside, a December essay by Catholics for a Free Choice president Frances Kissling on the value of the fetus seems to have cracked the hard ideological shell of the pro-choice community, exposing its messy theological, moral and emotional innards. The resulting scramble may not be the end of a movement, but rather a chance at rebirth before what could be the fight of its life."
- And in the "Is It a Baby—Or Is It Pus?" department, this quote from Amy Richards, the woman who stopped two of her triplets' hearts rather than have to buy mayonnaise at Costco: "Older women have always been more likely to talk about abortion because for them it was something heroic. Younger women, we don't have to talk about it. That doesn't mean we're ashamed, but it's the same way I don't talk about having warts removed."
Kissling, Hillary Clinton, and others can talk all they want about abortion's being "a difficult choice." Articles like Traister's prove that the pro-choice movement has no difficulty dehumanizing unborn life.
1:09 AM
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For those who haven't yet seen the print version of this week's
New York Observer, here's what the start of the front-page article on me looks like.
12:01 AM
Thursday, February 10, 2005
The Terri Schiavo That Her Husband Doesn't Want You to See
You must see this.
Terri's Fight has video clips of Terri Schiavo (see "Videos of Terri" on the right-hand side of the page).
Anyone seeing these videos has to conclude: This is not a vegetable. This is not a limp, lifeless body hooked up to tubes, unable to react to her surroundings. This is a vital human being who struggles to interact with those around her—and in her own way, through eye movements, smiles, laughs, and vocal utterances, she succeeds.
It especially tears me up to see the video of Terri with her mother. It's exactly as I imagine it would be if I were head-injured and my mother were visiting me. To think that anyone could want to murder a visibly responsive person, simply for being too ill to form words or function independently, is unthinkable—like the Nazis' hatred of "useless eaters."
There is something deeply wrong with a culture and court system that would attempt to have a defenseless person such as Terri murdered, while convicted felons enjoy due-process protections. Watch the videos. See for yourself. Take action.
For news on Terri and information on what you can do to make your voice heard in her defense, visit Terri's Fight. Media Culpa is also a good resource on the Schiavo case and culture-of-life issues in general.
10:07 PM
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Blonde Spot
Gawker had some fun yesterday alleging playfully (albeit incorrectly) that New York Observer writer George Gurley has switched his loyalties from Ann Coulter to yours truly. Now Dustbury's Charles G. Hill picks up the mock story with a handy chart depicting "The Ann Coulter/Dawn Eden Dichotomy."
My favorite comparison Charles makes is the "ideal audio equalization" for Ann's and my voices, though he's being overly kind in assuming I need no volume reduction. When I'm not careful, I can sound like Little Red Riding Hood in that Looney Tunes cartoon where she says, "Hey, Grandma!"
(Soundbite taken from Looney Tunes .WAV Files.)
6:49 PM
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Thanks very much to those who have commented with encouraging words. I wish I were able to respond to each comment. Please know that your encouragement means a great deal to me.
8:50 AM
Eve of Destruction
This post has been removed, as a new and improved version is now available on National Review Online.
1:31 AM
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Sorry if you tried to reach this site while it was down last night and early this morning. I'm told it was server trouble—and not the work of an anonymous source at the New York Post.
1:22 AM
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Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Welcome, new readers! If this is your first time visiting my site, check out my home page for more information about me and my writing.
5:29 AM
An Astute Observer
I am very grateful to writer George Gurley for enabling me to tell my story on the front page of this week's New York Observer, which came out today. He did a phenomenal job. I will always remember this day.
That said, in an article of this length (nearly 4,000 words!), there are inevitably a few inaccuracies, and I would like to take the opportunity to correct them here:
- I strongly object to Gurley's statement uptop that I was "working some of [my] pro-life views into an article." To say that I was working my own views into the piece implies that the information I added was untrue. I wrote that that in-vitro fertilization routinely results in the destruction of embryos. The fact is that only 10 to 20 percent of all embryos created outside the womb go on to produce pregnancies.
In addition, as the Washington Post has reported, there are currently over 400,000 embryos in frozen storage in the U.S.. Not all embryos survive freezing, and the live-birth rate is lower for frozen embryos than for ones that are not frozen. I stand by what I added to Susan Edelman's article and believe it is perfectly relevant given the article's subject matter.
- Gurley's attempt to explain the nature of in-vitro fertilization is garbled. He writes: "Through in-vitro fertilization, multiple embryos are fertilized and implanted one at a time until as many as 12 survive." What he means is that, for each woman who receives in-vitro fertilization treatment, as many as 12 embryos are produced. They are implanted—actually two or three at a time—until one or more survive. The remainder are frozen or destroyed.
- Edelman's article came out January 9, not January 16.
- My Tuesday Night Trivia pal's name is spelled Nick Sarames (not "Saramef").
There are a few other facts that are slightly off, and there are naturally things that I might have put differently if I were writing about myself. But overall, I'm elated. Gurley set out to draw a portrait that would—as with all his work—go deeper than the average personality profile, and he's unquestionably succeeded.
1:51 AM
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Pick to Click
Today's must-read blog is Saint Kansas, who finds new and sickening aspects of the SpongeBob SquarePants "tolerance" campaign spearheaded by the We Are Family Foundation:
WAFF is also naming March 11 "We Are Family" Day and pushing for Congress to do the same: The We are Family Foundation is spearheading the passage of a resolution in Congress to recognize a National We Are Family Day. We have designated March 11th as the appropriate day as it is the six-month anniversary of the September 11th event. We Are Family Day will be a time to celebrate our common humanity.
Excuse me? The September 11th "event?" Do you mean the "buy two tacos get the third taco free" event at Nacho Stop? No, you're referring to the simultaneous hijacking by Islamic terrorists of commercial flights and the destruction of the World Trade Center and a large chunk of the Pentagon. "Event" my a** ... that was an act of war.
He adds: "I can't sign the WAFF tolerance pledge, because I don't believe that 'America's diversity is its strength.' America's unity is its strength. America's tolerance is a very nice idea that gets people's throats slashed when they open the door."
Read the whole thing.
1:30 AM
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If you've written to me recently and not received a reply, please don't take it personally. It's just been a busy time.
1:21 AM
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Mums the Word
Something odd happened to me as I was walking home this afternoon. I had just checked my P.O. box and had my arms full of packages, so I probably looked a little overburdened. As I approached a steakhouse, a Jersey tough-guy type walked out of the restaurant, carrying, rather incongruously, a bouquet of mums. It was wrapped in paper, as though he'd just bought it.
The moment the man saw me, he handed me the bouquet. "Here," he said. "These are for you."
I was stunned. I used to buy flowers for my office sometimes, but no one other than a relative has bought them for me in years.
I thanked him and asked him, why me? He just said, "They're for you. From your Man."
Actually I couldn't tell if he was using the capital M or not, but as I walked away with the beautiful springlike bouquet, that was how I felt. Even when flowers come from a man, they're still a gift from the Man—and I was thankful.
5:00 PM
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Oh! You Beautiful Del
Del Shannon died 15 years ago today, by his own hand.
I was the last person to do an in-depth interview with him, and I will never forget the shock of hearing WCBS-FM DJ Harry Harrison announce Del's death on that chilly morning in 1990.
Years later, I would write in an article for Fufkin.com:
I consider myself extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to interview Del Shannon in person. He was everything that a fan could possibly want or hope him to be: kind, sensitive, intelligent, with a great memory and an easy laugh, willing to talk about anything. More than that, he had a good heart and was extraordinarily humble. Too humble, really; he had little concept of how deeply his songs were loved.
Keep in mind that Del (like Elvis, he deserves to be called by his first name) was, along with Roy Orbison, one of rock's first true singer-songwriters. He composed nearly all his own hits, as well as the Peter & Gordon classic "I Go to Pieces". For him to be topping oldies bills with ersatz Marvelettes and the like, which is how he made his living during the last 20 years of his life, must have have felt demeaning. Yet, he kept at it, delivering his trademark falsetto and playing lead guitar like a true rock and roller. George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Mike Campbell recognized Del's sincerity and his unquenchable creative flame, and they all worked with him during his last years. That the demons of depression, which had dogged him since his youth, caught up to him before his Wilbury-related recordings could be released was a great tragedy, not only for Del's fans, but for whatever innocence was left in rock and roll.
Del not only sang but also wrote and played guitar on "Runaway"—forever embedding A-minor as rock's chord of loneliness. From the booklet of This Is Del Shannon (Music Club), a CD I compiled and annotated, comes this story of his best-known recording, including quotes from my interview with him:Del's first single would be the biggest hit of his career. He never made a secret of the true subject of "Runaway." "I ran away from myself....I always want to run away from A to B, and then I get to B and I wanna go back to A. I think everybody wants to run away. That's why that song seems to live on."
Aided by Max Crook on Musitron (a prehistoric synthesizer), Del wrote the song at the Hi-Lo Club one night in 1960. Onstage. As they were playing with Shannon's band, Crook hit upon a chord progression that Shannon liked. He asked Crook to keep playing it, over and over, while he worked out a melody. "Got in trouble with the club's manager, too," he recalled, "who finally came up on the stage and told us we were nuts: 'Stop playing that! What are you doing?'"
1:57 AM
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Give Me One Good Reason
Dennis of Vita Mea has a contest just for today. Until the New York Observer story comes out tomorrow with George Gurley's story on me, Dennis is inviting readers to offer their best guess of the reason I'm no longer at the New York Post. The prize is from my own collection: a copy of the Post issue with the infamous "KERRY'S CHOICE" cover, announcing the senator's running mate: Dick Gephardt.
1:20 AM
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Monday, February 7, 2005
Going Public
Now it can be told: The reason I've refrained from sharing the true story of why I left the New York Post—as opposed to the lie spread by a Post employee and published by an outrageously credulous Women's Wear Daily—is because I've been saving it for an article by George Gurley to appear Wednesday in the New York Observer.
When the article appears, I will publish a link to it here, as well as comment on it and, if necessary, add additional information or clarification about the circumstances of my job loss.
I'm terrifically honored to be profiled by the accomplished Gurley, who approached me before the news of my firing came out—he'd been following The Dawn Patrol since reading about it in Gawker. (That was the interview that perpetuated the "born-again" canard—but I'll forgive the Gawker folks because they've been very kind.) The long list of notable Gurley interviewees includes Ann Coulter (twice), David Brooks, and Dorothy Rabinowitz, as well as Victoria Gotti and Paris Hilton, to name a few.
Expect a photo too—there was a photo shoot today. The photographer told me she'd once photographed Twiggy. I couldn't have been happier.
9:21 PM
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Wood-Pulp Fiction
Here's the best rumor I've heard so far on why I lost my job at the New York Post, from Sarah W. in a comment on an Ace of Spades entry:
I heard she was actually fired for suggesting that "when the last tree is felled, Christ will return" to justify her excessive use of the office supply of white bond letter size copy paper.
7:43 PM
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My friend Caren has a photo on her blog today that the Charlie Brown in each of us could appreciate.
10:41 AM
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'Fess' Company
The Curt Jester, responding to a story about a priest who takes call-in confessions on the radio, offers an Internet first that's guaranteed to bring a smile: an interactive page offering the opportunity for "e-fession."
"One-Click Absolution!" the page boasts. "Avoid Hell Through HTML."
I particularly liked the suggested text for those unsure of what to confess:
"FATHR 4GIVE ME 4 I 1/2 SINNED, I 4NOCATED 1X, DRANK & 8 2 MUCH, HAD 6UL THOUGHTS."
In case you're wondering, since it was my first time confessing and I had a lot of ground to cover, my penance was 90 Hail Marys and 90 Our Fathers. Sigh.
1:53 AM
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At Least He Didn't Call It a Licorice Stick
At the formerly Anonymous Blogger's Super Bowl party last night, a gent named Barry told me about how, back when he was a U.S. customs inspector, Benny Goodman reported him to his supervisor—twice in two years. Each time, it was for the same reason.
Knowing Goodman's notoriously troublesome personality, can you guess why?
Each time the legendary bandleader faced Barry at the checkpoint, Barry, dutifully doing his job, would say:
"Could you open your instrument case, please?"
An inflamed Goodman would erupt, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Benny Goodman!"
"That nice," Barry would answer. "Could you please open your instrument case?"
That was all it took to make Goodman sing, sing, sing to Barry's supervisor.
Recalling the incidents, the former customs agent mused, "I should have said, 'Oh, really? What instrument do you play?'"
1:36 AM
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Sunday, February 6, 2005
Sooner or later, everyone gets their just des(s)erts,
or,
I Am Pro-Chocolate America
Thanks so much to everyone who's written in with support and prayers after Friday's outrage—and thanks to my friend Janet for the delicious dinner last night (when she snapped this pic). Stay tuned for further developments.
1:50 AM
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Oh God! You Devil
The writer of a Village Voice article on teens charged with a hate crime for beating a Satanist felt moved to elucidate a theological point:
It's important to note that Satanists don't worship the Judeo-Christian devil. Instead, they believe in the power of the individual, and see Satan as a metaphor for self-determination.
I believe one of the Infernal Majesty's highly placed assistants, a Mr. Screwtape, would have something to say about that. As he wrote to his nephew regarding an unwitting human "patient," in a letter found by C.S. Lewis:My dear Wormwood,
I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us by the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course, this has not always been so. We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism, and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skeptics....
I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that "devils" are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them), he therefore cannot believe in you.
1:43 AM
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Friday, February 4, 2005
Stem Heat
UPDATE: WWD has retracted the story referenced below.
If you haven't yet read about how I was smeared today in Women's Wear Daily by "a source at the New York Post," read that entry first.
I finally took a look at the New York Post editorial that, according to what "a source at the Post" told Women's Wear Daily reporter Sara James, had been "apparently embellished" by "one of [the Post's] copy editors, born-again Christian Dawn Eden."
(In fact, the "embellishment," as I wrote earlier, is not "apparent," but nonexistent. I worked in the news department, which is separate from the editorial page, and never had computer access to any of the editorial-page articles—the only kind of access by which anyone could secretly make changes. The Post's own records will bear this out.)
What I saw in the editorial proved to me that neither the person at the Post who fed the lie to James, nor the reporter herself, had any more clue than anyone else in the mainstream media as to what supposedly "born-again" Christians (and the adjective is James's, not mine) think about stem-cell research.
The quotes James's piece attributes to me are "slamming" three New York State senators for pushing a "harebrained scheme" for a state-sponsored stem-cell research institute. James never says exactly why the editorial opposes the scheme—but hey, if you're a born-again Christian who's telepathically rewriting the words of an article that has never come across your desk, who needs a reason?
Here's what the editorial actually says:
We don't have anything against stem-cell research, properly conducted. Cures for all manner of chronic diseases stand to be discovered — and we have no doubt that people of good will can resolve the vexing moral questions that are now slowing progress.
But we also don't doubt that when stem-cell breakthroughs are achieved, private-sector labs will make them — not programs run by state government....
New York, in any event, can't afford to borrow a dime for any reason, let alone to finance stem-cell research.
State Comptroller Alan Hevesi points out that the state already faces another $47 billion debt-burden.
And that doesn't begin to include public-authority and other debt for which Albany ultimately is responsible.
Adds Hevesi: "The state is going to have to go into a budget freeze...in order to get out of this."
Where are the "embellishments"? Where's the born-again Christian outrage over this mysterious "stem-cell research"—which, unlike the word "Christian," needs no prefix to identify why the "vexing moral questions"?
The point is, the words of this editorial carry no controversy at all—unless a liberal New Yorker who's never met any Christian to the right of Al Sharpton believes they came from the illicitly typing fingers of a conservative "born-again." It expresses the party line of the Post's editorial-board members, in their typical fashion—approaching the issue primarily from an economic stance, while giving a nod to its moral dimension.
Stay tuned to The Dawn Patrol for further developments.
9:56 PM
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SMEARED
UPDATE: WWD HAS RETRACTED THE STORY REFERENCED BELOW.
The story about me under the headline "DAWN OF THE DESK" in the "Memo Pad" column of today's Women's Wear Daily is absolutely, completely untrue.
Citing "a source at the Post," it claims that I, as a copy editor, "apparently embellished a Jan. 18 editorial about stem-cell research during the editing process." It says I was "evidently fired from the Post on the day the stem-cell item ran."
This is a complete lie and it can easily be disproved. I have official Post documentation relating the circumstances of my departure, which I have thus far kept confidential. I do not know whether this story was spread by someone attempting to make me publicly reveal those circumstances. In any case, I will not do so at this time, because this utter falsehood may be disproved without opening my personal records.
As a copy editor on the NEWS copy desk and not the EDITORIAL PAGE department, I had NO computer access to the editorials. I would only see them when they were on page proofs, where I would mark grammar and spelling corrections ONLY. These page proofs were then given to the editorial-page editors, who would make the changes themselves. I never once while I was at the Post accessed an editorial in a manner that I could possibly make any change without the editors' full and complete knowledge.
The Post's computer system leaves a trail and it is clear who accessed its files at every stage in the production process. The records will show that not once in my three years at the Post did I ever access an editorial on the computer, which is the only place where anyone might possibly make a change without the editors' knowing.
The WWD story claims I declined comment. In fact, when the reporter, Sara James, called me, I refused to even hear what the accusations were.
I first asked James who was her source. When she said "a tip"—not even saying it was from "a source at the Post"—I did not want to hear it, because I believed anyone who would claim to have inside information about me would have to be hostile, and I did not wish to aid such a story in any way. As a result, this is the very first I've heard of these lies.
This is the most outrageous thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
I am examining my options.
UPDATE: Longtime Post copy editor Joshua Tanzer has sent the following e-mail to WWD:
Dear WWD editors:
I read the item "Dawn of the Desk" by Sarah James (http://wwd.com/issue/article/96351) and I'm stunned by how colossally wrong it is. I work at the New York Post, I know the facts of the story, and they don't resemble what your writer wrote even a little. She obviously heard a rumor from someone and, failing to get any confirmation from anyone who knows, published it anyway. As a journalist with more than 20 years' experience at major newspapers in New York, New Jersey and Oregon, I would be very wary of a reporter who exhibits the standards I see in Ms. James' column. I don't know or care who her source was, but I would ask her if, in accordance with the age-old rule of journalism, she had more than one.
Joshua Tanzer
TRACKBACK: Thanks to Gawker for the encouraging words, and for the much-needed smile they gave me with their headline: "A Snake in Eden."
Yippee-Ki-Yay!'s McGehee, seconded by Dustbury's Charles G. Hill, calls me "the victim of the first non-Strib stribbing."
7:51 AM
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Planned Parenthood Already Found One on Uranus
AP: "Astronomers Find 'Hot Spot' on Saturn"
2:23 AM
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Thursday, February 3, 2005
'Culture' Vulture
Planned Parenthood's anonymous blogger on SaveRoe.com, whom I call Ms. Curettage, is apoplectic over President Bush's referring in his State of the Union speech to upholding the "culture of life":
Still, does signing into law measures that confer rights on the fetus, and ban abortion procedures, and give health care entities like insurance companies the right to refuse to refer for abortion, really create a “culture of life?” And what does promoting abstinence at the expense of the truth about contraception have to do with the culture of life?
Gotta watch out for those nasty laws that "confer rights on the fetus," like the right not to have a pair of scissors stuck into the back of their skull, or the right to receive anesthesia before they are killed—both of which Planned Parenthood violently oppose. Because the next thing you know, someone might pass a law that would give them the right to be born. And then where would we be?
Ms. Curettage goes on to offer her own suggestions for fostering a culture of life, including "[making] it a crime punishable by hard time in a labor camp for health care officials to heave kids off of insurance roles" [sic]. Apparently it is up to private insurers to carry the financial burden for America's children. Well, it's nice to know Planned Parenthood is in favor of some sort of "labor."
She also suggests outlawing the mullet haircut. Clearly, this is a woman who has given great consideration to the life issues of all time.
"Admittedly," Ms. Curettage concludes, "these are small contributions for changing the culture, but as Margaret Mead never said, don’t think that changing one small thing at a time, even a hair cut, won’t make a difference. It’s the only thing that ever does."
"Small thing[s]" like haircuts are more important than small things like "fetuses." That's Planned Parenthood's philosophy in a nutshell.
If Ms. Curettage ever tries to give you a haircut, just watch where she puts those scissors.
5:38 PM
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I look forward to reading the entries to Scott Sala of Slant Point's contest asking readers to provide supporting material for a statement in the president's State of the Union address. (And no, Bush didn't lie—he was just being diplomatic.)
1:16 PM
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Just did an all-nighter to finish my first feature for Touchstone (I'd already done one for their Generation X offshoot, Crux), so blogging will have to wait 'til I awaken...zzzzz...
7:21 AM
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'Conscience Never Lets You Forget'
This story got me choked up:
GYPSUM, Colo. (AP) -- An high school graduate has confessed to cheating on an English literature test -- 47 years ago. Eagle Valley High School Principal Mark Strakbein said he got a one-page, handwritten letter from a 65-year-old grandmother of five who admitted she and a friend stole the answers to a Shakespeare test in the fall of 1957.
"I know it makes no difference now (after 47 years), except maybe this will keep some student from cheating and help them to be honest -- conscience never lets you forget -- there is forgiveness with God, and I have that, but I felt I still needed to confess to the school."...
Strakbein said he read the letter aloud to every homeroom class as a lesson in following your conscience.
"You could have heard a pin drop," he said.
3:35 AM
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Something in the Hair
Last night, I was standing on the underground PATH platform just after getting a haircut (you can see my newly trimmed locks, set against a copy of the Zombies's Odessey and Oracle [sic], at right). Suddenly I felt the breeze of an oncoming train.
For the first time in a long while, I was struck by how romantic and sensuous it feels to have a cool breeze caressing my hair. For a fleeting moment, I was Cathy on the moors: "Heathcliff!"
It reminded me not to let everyday preoccupations get in the way of the little pleasures that are there for the taking.
12:01 AM
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Wednesday, February 2, 2005
But Would You Rather?
When I attended the New York City science-awards dinner last year (the one where Dr. James Watson told me, "They say I'm a killer"), I had an exchange with CBS's Bob Schieffer.
The newsman was autographing complimentary copies of his book, This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV. I introduced myself as a fellow member of the Fourth Estate.
The punchline was that I wrote headlines for the New York Post.
Of course, Schieffer asked for an example, and, of course, I told him about my most famous achievement (which would win me that year's first-place New York State Associated Press Award for "Brightest Headline").
He burst out laughing. "I want your job!" he exclaimed.
Somebody better tell him it's available—and quick.
1:47 PM
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Joshua Tanzer's boss has finally introduced herself—after only 265 days.
12:19 PM
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Sanitized for My Protection
Do you ever have a moment when you recall something from your past—and realize that, for many years, you've been rewriting your own history?
Ever since I began to seriously work on being chaste until marriage, I've had a certain party line about my past. I'll tell people that before I became a Christian, I had some concept about the importance of saving myself for the one I loved, but I misunderstood the nature of chastity. In essence, I thought that as long as I waited to have sex until Mr. Right came along, there was no harm in making out with an attractive Mr. Wrong. But an unexpected flashback to my young adulthood recently reminded me that I was only remembering half the story. Something simple and innocuous sparked one of those memories that opened floodgates.
I suddenly recalled that, in a strange way, I was chaste for much of the time that I was in makeout mode—only it was despite my own wishes.
What I'd forgotten were all the times when, as a college student, I'd be out with a male friend, enjoying his company, hoping for something more—only to have him give some reason why it couldn't be.
That happened to me more times than I could count. It probably happened many more times than I had actually managed to snag a passionate good-night kiss. Yet I'd blocked it out for all these years—because it was painful.
I can still remember the sequence of events. I'd be out with a man whom I considered a love interest. We'd share great conversation, laugh together, and develop a rapport. But when the romantic tension became too great, he'd back off.
Most times, I don't think I even got the "lets be friends" speech. I just had the uncomfortable realization that, for some reason, he didn't want to risk ruining a friendship by adding the element of passion.
It always made me feel rejected. I'd second-guess myself, certain that I was too intimidating, or too unattractive. I'd beat myself up with the thought that I would never meet a man who'd desire me as I desired him. I'd buy an 8-ounce bag of Cheez Doodles and a bottle of Diet Pepsi on my way home and get orange fingerprints all over the "Swineherd" story in my book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, only to feel self-piteous and fatter to boot.
But at the moment when I first felt that rejection, there was also another feeling in my mind—something that annoyed me, but which I couldn't shake. It was the nagging thought that what was painful now might someday make me thankful.
I really didn't like imagining any future happiness coming out of such an experience, because I wanted only to feel sorry for myself—to think I'd been right in wanting a man to validate me by showing me just how attractive I was. Once I became sexually active, I quickly blotted out all memories of the awareness that it might be better to not have sex at all than to force a sexual element into a relationship that was doing very well without it.
Looking back, I realize that what I took as a rejection was really a form of protection. Those men saw something in me that they didn't want to corrupt. They could have perceived me as innocent, or, more likely, as a lonely young woman who was trying to fill an emotional void with physical contact. But whatever the reason, whether they consciously realized it or not, they were protecting my chastity.
Times have changed, and my heart's "God-shaped vacuum" now has a permanent Tenant. In relationships, God's grace has enabled me to resist the desire for physical validation, and focus on giving rather than taking.
Still, I look back on the girl who felt rejected, and in some ways I don't know what to say to her. She had her reasons for wanting to obtain something physically to make up for what her fears and loneliness made her incapable of obtaining emotionally. I want to tell her that it was all for the best—that all those times she felt shunned, God was really protecting her.
She wouldn't believe me. I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes. But I know that the life I live now is so much better than the one I lived before. No matter how important my worldly desires and passions may seem to me, there is something above them. I don't know what that higher, marital love feels like. I only know that it exists—and it's worth all the effort to be the kind of person who can give and receive it.
The Apostle John writes:
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.
1:17 AM
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Al Qaeda's Doll Moment
The Curt Jester raises an important point on terrorists' taking a G.I. Joe doll "hostage":
Could this indicate that Al Qaeda has hooked up with COBRA? The war on terror won't be won until we have captured Cobra Commander who is rumored to be hiding out some where near the border of Afghanistan. I am still waiting to hear if Beach Head will mount a team to rescue the captured Joe?
1:02 AM
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Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Scott Sala of Slant Point notes that liberals, not just conservatives, are starting to see that New York City's public high school for homosexuals (which is, as the school's Web site formerly stated, "a 'haven for LGBTQ'—the Q for 'questioning' youths") is not good for the kids or the city:
While the current principal insists the school is not a "gay high school," but instead open to anyone, the curriculum would make most parents gag at the prospect of letting their child set foot inside. Students turn tricks at night, practice drag dancing and attend after school programs specifically catered to the gay lifestyle.
UPDATE: Here's the New York magazine article on which Scott's post is based.
4:13 PM
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It's All Fundin' Games 'Til Some Baby Gets Hurt:
Caption Contest Winner
Thanks very much to everyone who submitted captions for the photo of the woman being pawed while wearing her "Fund Abortion" T-shirt.
I liked all the submissions. Here are some favorites—
From Jan, The Happy Homemaker: "Death Warmed Over" (you know, because they're thermals)
From Ed Jordan of Media Culpa: "This is where the baby was growing, and this is where the baby would have nursed."
From Jeff Miller, The Curt Jester: "What do you mean you have to pay for the shirts COD? Oh, that means culture of death."
From Mark Kellner: "What? I thought it would say FUN Abortion!"
And the winning entry, from Cathy:
New shoes -- $495
Weekend in the Bahamas --- $785
Abortion --- Priceless
Note to Cathy: If you have a blog (the link to it on your Blogger profile didn't work), let me know so I can put it on my blogroll (which will be coming later this week, along with the long-overdue conclusion of my Oklahoma reminiscences).
2:58 AM
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Quote of the Day
Bonnie of Off the Top, writing about the planned convention for "GodBloggers":
I just pray that "blog" never ends up above "God" on the spiritual food chain, for me or anyone else.
2:28 AM
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