Barbie meets her maker

For Quarta's 21st birthday, we had our nails done, dressed in pink and went to see the Barbie movie. I had avoided listening to reviews beforehand; I was not particularly looking forward to it because despite avoiding reviews, I could pick up on the buzz that was pegging this as a radical feminist manifesto ("poisoning the well" would not be an exaggeration). But I was pleasantly surprised. And yet, conflicted. Which is perhaps what director Greta Gerwig intended. I respect her previous work enough to give her the benefit of the doubt... and she has brought forth something I wouldn't have thought possible: a Barbie comedy... with depth.

I didn't play with Barbies growing up. I read Nancy Drew instead. I don't consider myself a feminist and never have; if pressed, I'd say I'm a Christian Classical Humanist. I was mildly surprised to see Barbie brought forward as an icon of feminism at all; that is a very 21st century rewrite of a 20th century marketing strategy that seemed designed more to promote materialism and capitalism aimed at children (must buy all the accessories!!) Also, Barbie was always shallow to me, and self-absorbed in a way that I disliked more as I grew older; she was the stereotypical "cheerleader type" who was the arch-enemy of us smart/awkward girls. Maybe Mattel made Doctor Barbie and Politician Barbie, but I certainly don't remember them featuring prominently, or at all, in the Saturday morning ads. Or maybe, my mother was skeptical about the advisability of Barbie as a role model for me until I was old enough that, when I finally did buy one, I developed a slight aversion to Barbie all on my own. Because I had my loyalties, and they were to Nancy Drew. So, I was going into this prepared to be a bit cynical... and Barbie surprised me by being a bit cynical back, but with a core of human-like compassion that elevates the story above fluff. 

Toy Story taught us that a movie about a child's playthings could have great emotional depth and be appropriate for all ages. I thought at first this was a pink-flavored riff on Toy Story. But there, the toys unquestionably serve their kids and rigorously obey the rules of their world when kids are present, only taking on a life of their own when no humans are around. Here, Barbie herself, played to blonde perfection by Margot Robbie, begins a human-like quest for self-actualization when she wakes up one morning with flat feet and thoughts of death. 

Stereotypical Barbie, after this sudden awareness of her mortality, seeks help from Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), an outcast who resembles what happened to my sisters' Barbie when they tried to turn her into Ken. She is told she needs to leave Barbie Land and go to the real world to find her girl, because she is being affected by her girl's thoughts. So Barbie sets off using all the pink modes of transport available to her... and her counterpart Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, stows away until it's too late to leave him behind. When they reach the real world, Barbie goes into Nancy Drew mode to find out what has caused the sudden self-awareness. It's a quest for the meaning of her life, and ultimately strikes the viewer as religious in nature.

Barbie infiltrates Mattel headquarters, which is in this setting run by an all-male board designed to produce a sense of vast unfairness in the audience and seems a bit of a cheap shot... until you realize that Mattel authorized this movie and will profit from it handsomely. She finally finds her girl (not quite the first one she thought it was), who is also dealing with thoughts of death, but who has some wise advice to give about Barbie's fears: "That's life. It's all change." To which Barbie responds, "That's terrifying."  

While fleeing from Will Ferrell and numerous dark-suited executives who are threatened by her intrusion into the "real" world, Barbie meets her creator, Ruth, played sweetly by Rhea Perlman. Her quest to the "real" world awakes in her a need to become real herself and find meaning by transforming from a perfect doll to a flawed real woman. At this point I realized this was a story more like Pinocchio, or the Velveteen Rabbit.

Meanwhile, Ken is discovering that men in the real world have more agency than the Kens in Barbie Land, where Ken is basically an accessory to Barbie and his only job description is "beach." So, he sets out back to Barbie Land to introduce the concept of patriarchy to the other Kens. When this news reaches Barbie, she enlists the help of the America Ferrera's character and her daughter. They have a little hesitancy about leaving everything to go to Barbie Land, but they decide that Dad will be fine without them for a bit, as he is practicing Spanish on Duolingo.

The battle of the sexes back in Barbie Land is a little over-the-top... but then, this is a comic movie about a doll developing self-awareness so... I took it as comedy. You might cry at parts though.

Barbie is appropriate for older children, but not really for the 8-10 and under set. It has a great deal of irony that will just be confusing to young children and adults who don't fully process irony. And because it posits a "Barbie Land" where women rule and men are just ornamental beach bums, you shouldn't inflict it on men or boys unless they come willingly. (I mean, give Ben Shapiro a break, of course he's going to trash the movie if he was forced to watch it. I would have done the same if I had been forced to watch Rambo.) Others have criticized the symbolism of little girls smashing their baby dolls in the first scene as being a metaphor for abortion, but I wonder if they've ever actually seen little girls play with dolls, because that part seemed humorous to me. Oh yes, and Doctor Barbie was a ringer. Again, I'd caution against ignoring the PG-13 rating.

My mother would have disliked the fact that the movie portrayed most of the men as buffoons, like too many cartoons and sitcoms of the 20th century. And my harshest criticism would be that Ryan Gosling's Ken was not given the same opportunity for character development. Maybe, there should be a sequel giving Ken that opportunity. I think it would be great if Mel Gibson directed it.

The Right to Our Own Feelings, Part 2: The Bright Line

I promised to return to the social and emotional analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic and all its ramifications over a year ago (ed... now almost two) at the end of this post: The Right to Our Own Feelings Part 1: Things Fall Apart. I started writing this sequel almost immediately but it has been lost in multiple reboots, both literal and metaphorical, since then. I've re-read part one and feel I was at the top of my game. I didn't have the heart to add to it for the longest time, because of the complex cocktail of emotions that constitute my new normal. And this post itself was started and stopped, repeatedly, so long ago that the writing of it has itself become a mental block, which I need to address in some way before returning to normal blogging at all. So here is my (5th?) attempt to finish part 2. The first 4 1/2 paragraphs were written mostly in 2020 but edited many times. (CarpeLanam, April 8 2022).

"Solvitur scribendo" is the Latin phrase that came to mind recently as I was doing my Life Update post after the blog suffered long neglect. It means "it is solved by writing," and I thought I was being very clever and original in my riff on "solvitur ambulando," the sage advice of St. Jerome (or was it St. Augustine, or Diogenes?) to go take a walk. (THAT advice helped me amazingly during bouts of writer's block in my college years, as I would walk about campus with that faraway look in my eyes, lips moving as I mentally constructed outlines, and phrases, even entire paragraphs, fell into place). Turns out, I'm not the first to have coined the scribendo variant, but in hindsight I'm amazed it isn't more commonly seen. It essentially is an acknowledgment of the fact that journaling is therapeutic. We get clarity from the writing process. Truth may bubble up to the top, or at least we get a better perspective on a messy situation. It takes time to form words and the passage of time, or the writing process itself, may change us.

Well, there is also the fact that the whole world has drastically altered, for the very much worse, since Friday, March 13, 2020. And I'm not talking about the death tolls. I was so naive to think the high casualty numbers would be the worst to come from the pandemic! I now think the virus is the least of our problems as a country. We have a government that is actively opposing the constitutional freedoms it was sworn to protect. There is an uneasy, undeclared societal civil war in the air, and neighbors are turning against neighbors. Churches and schools were closed so long, our culture has experienced religious regression and educational collapse. Teachers, doctors, and journalists don't seem so trustworthy anymore. Crime is exploding and police are disrespected. Drug use and mental illness pose an increasing threat to social order. Social media, which used to be an outlet for the homebound and a link to distant friends, now actively censor viewpoints and people that tech overlords think are inappropriate. Christian memes are covered because of potentially offensive content; outspoken conservatives are banned outright or bullied until they give up.

And the people who are supposed to have our best interests at heart keep moving the bar in what has to be a deliberate attempt at control: Just fifteen days to slow the spread. China is our ally and if you suggest they released the virus intentionally you're racist. Once the high-risk and older populations are vaccinated, we can open up again. Sorry, you can't have a funeral service for your elderly relative, but George Floyd gets multiple. Kids are resilient, they'll be fine doing their learning in front of a computer screen. And when they come back to school, they have to wear masks all the time. Your kids are going to have to get tested twice a week if they want to play sports. But it's going to be fine, Congress just passed a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure bill.  And socialism is the new infrastructure.  Don't plan on traveling outside the country right now. But it's totally ok if the migrant trains come in, they aren't a threat. You're obviously racist if you think they are. And now everyone has to get vaccinated. You're the irresponsible one if you have reservations. You don't Trust The Science. Besides, it's mandatory. You don't want to be the ones we blame for the (check the list) omicron variant, do you? Well, even vaccinated people have to wear masks because they can catch it. If you have a small business, you have to enforce mask and vaccine mandates. If you don't, you'll be fined until you go out of business. This is just how it has to be. We know best. Just another few months to control the virus. Vax up everyone! Get your boosters and always remember, proof of vaccine is required if you want to keep your job. Be a responsible citizen: share you've been vaccinated on your social media accounts!   

This is gaslighting. And it's being done by the leaders in our society, with the full cooperation of those who profit from it (the entrenched federal bureaucracy, big tech, big pharma, cultural Marxists and corrupt institutions like Planned Parenthood). It is evil. It is wrong. And the most perverse thing about it is that it's designed to make its victims think they are the ones with the problem.

If you have ever seen someone using this form of manipulation, you never forget it. Thirty-some years ago, I was with a group of young women who accompanied a friend to retrieve her dog from her ex's house. She had left in a hurry, afraid the verbal abuse would become physical, and she wanted moral support. I was really young. I knew about alcoholism in theory, but not Narcissistic Personality Disorder or gaslighting. She had timed it right - he had already had a few drinks that evening and was just off-balance enough that she could get the dog, put his leash on and lead him away, tight-lipped and focused. But it was truly chilling to see how he worked: verbally assaulting her, dishing out heaping servings of shame to her, but then turning on the charm toward us. That was my introduction to the fact that some people have a dangerously faulty wiring that compels them to belittle, manipulate and control others. And not just people. Morally bankrupt institutions and governments as well.

The experience also acted as, I guess, a kind of immunization against future gaslighting. Or maybe a booster shot. I grew up in the 70's as a preacher's kid, and there were plenty of Sunday School classes that warned you about all the creepy cults, and plenty of people I heard about who fell into their traps. Mr. Barrett, my Christian schoolteacher in 6th grade, read us a rather shockingly lurid true-crime book about the Jim Jones mass suicide cult in Guyana. I was naturally quite suspicious of strangers after being strongly warned about stranger danger as a young child trick-or-treating, and would never take candy from strangers, let alone get into a car with them. As an adolescent, I wondered, who would I ever follow into the unknown? I decided it would either have to be Jesus or someone sent by Jesus... but how could you be sure? Well, it's true there are many false teachers and many people who claim to have God's approval and do not. There are wicked people who use their power to abuse the trust of good people and do terrible harm. That is why the complicity of our government and big-tech overlords in shutting society down for their own profit is so hard to bear, and the censorship of dissent by media and social media is so disturbing. 

But the preponderance of the evidence and the corroboration of multiple witnesses is always going to tend toward a confidence in the truth of the message. The arc of history is long, but it will tend toward overthrow of the revisionist historians and cult leaders. The fascist social influencers of the day may have America goose-stepping towards Gomorrah, but ordinary people using ordinary skills, who are skeptical about one-sided messaging and do even a little digging to clarify the narrative, will be the enlightened ones in the end.

The Right to Our own Feelings Part 1: Things Fall Apart

Note: Well, it has been six months since my last, relatively carefree blog post. Maybe you should follow me on Instagram if you want happy pictures; I've been putting them there. In this post, I'm working out something that needs to be analyzed, and it's taken over a week so far with not much progress. So here's to Socrates and avoiding the unexamined life which is not worth living. Part 1 of who knows.

I feel like I should have been carefully chronicling the events of 2020 thus far. The vague uneasiness about the strange new flu coming from China, the first rumors of it spreading to this country. Trying to go on, choosing not to live in fear and to continue life as usual for the sake of the children, and then having fear and isolation imposed on us in the blink of an eye by the very political leaders who, five minutes previously, were celebrating absolutely open borders and no restrictions whatsoever. Being lectured on how selfish and irresponsible it would be to go out and buy masks; only to be shamed what seems like a few days later for not having them on at all times. Looking forward to major events for my children: prom, concerts and school plays, a Spring Break trip to Arizona, two graduations... only to have them yanked away on March 12. Wednesday, planning for the trip to Arizona, the tasks that needed to be finished before then. Friday, everything was canceled. Abruptly. Teachers scrambled to craft something resembling school lessons for the rest of the year. Everyone worked from home, or lost their work altogether. The streets and skies were as silent as the days following 9/11, but without the comforting feeling of coming together in unity after a terrible attack. The Saturday before, getting together with the Mom's Breakfast Club at the Kitchen Table Cafe... the Saturday after, everything quiet and anxious.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm an introvert and of course, we introverts know how to thrive without a crowd of people around, at home, pursuing our own hobbies and interests. But these, as virtually every ad reminds us lately, are "uncertain times," and the things you need to stay sane in uncertain times -- work, church, school, community -- were all taken away as well. Some of us practice activities like music, knitting, quilting, reading, etc. to help us cope with a tendency to anxiety or depression that is only going to get worse when we are deprived of the activities of normal life and the social interactions that used to keep us centered.

In the first few weeks of lockdown, I was optimistic that I could distract myself with knitting and quilting beautiful things. I queued a bunch of free patterns on Ravelry (although they are still suppressing my profile pictures and bio, so the ownership is still as bigoted as ever) and started Bonnie Hunter's Unity quilt... all of these are very exciting and beautiful and I'd like to work on them, but as the days of deprivation wore on, I have struggled on Sleeve Island of one sweater that I started last fall, and forced myself to finish three extremely basic baby quilts... because babies continue to be born despite the quarantine rules, and babies need blankies. The same with all my grand intentions of cleaning and organizing my house... a nice thought, and of course absolute cleanliness is mandatory now, but there is just no mental/emotional bandwidth to complete them.

And then, just when we were celebrating graduations and births and friends as best we could in our drastically reduced circumstances, adapting to the new world order that had been imposed on us, peering into screens or putting out posts on social media or pretending to celebrate from six feet away through a mask -- the riots and civil unrest started.

I suppose it was inevitable: Jeremy Boreing, of the Daily Wire, had a very apt tweet analyzing the causes on May 30:

1. Instill fear
2. Lock people in their houses 
3. Drive tens of millions out of work 
4. Remove the pressure valves: Sports, Concerts, Bars, Theaters, Lunch with Friends... 
5. Close the churches 
6. Dehumanize through masking the healthy 
7. Wait 
8. Strike match...

It must have felt like this when the Iron Curtain fell over the old Soviet bloc. Suddenly neighbors were viewed with suspicion and the usual social channels became filled with political recriminations. People hunkered down in their increasingly inadequate homes while gangs of Communist thugs roamed the streets, determining who needed to go to the Gulag next and doing their level best to erase history and remove every trace of the old order. Ordinary citizens lived in fear over things they had written, said, or even thought in the old days, and dreaded the midnight knock at the door.

Except now, the police are the enemy. The military are tools of oppression. Every mention of the current President must be one of condemnation... or you will be cancelled. If you have a business, well, if it's located in the downtown of a major city, you better show prominent support for the BLM and Antifa terrorists, and even then expect to lose your entire inventory and have your store smashed up. Maybe, if you're fortunate, you will say the right things to appease them and be allowed to continue doing business on social media. But you better not have any police officers or military members in your family. You better say the words they want you to say, read the books they promote. Better kneel in front of the occupiers, just to be safe.

Well, I refuse to go along with this madness. Yes, there is a political component to what I'm writing, but I think it goes deeper, and a fair-minded human being with very different political views than mine would agree with my fundamental right to feel what I feel, think what I think, and with very limited restrictions, say what I want to say, even if it goes against the woke groupthink currently in power in our country.

In the next part, I want to go back to basics, which helps many people struggling with overwhelming adversity. And the first step to psychological survival, as I see it, is owning your feelings and thoughts, and accepting that you have a right to do so. Indeed, it is what proves your existence.

Cogito, ergo sum.

Book Review: Quiet

 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain is one of those books that I wish I had written.  Page for page, I can't remember the last time I nodded, gasped or exclaimed in agreement and recognition of a nonfiction author's observations; observations that seem so obvious and common sense, but I had never seen articulated before.  I've known I was an introvert for, well, forever, and I've also always intuitively known that fitting into the world was harder for me than for others.  Self-fulfilling prophecy? No, now I think it is the Extrovert Ideal of our culture working itself out.  How many times have I been told to get a thicker skin, not to take things personally, be tougher, more assertive... and how many more times than that I could, again intuitively, tell that someone was thinking that in my direction.  Here, finally, is some positive reinforcement for those of us who have to mentally arm ourselves for the sensory assault of going out into the world and come home exhausted every day; we are actually important to the smooth functioning of society, whether or not society sees it that way.  Just give us our personal space, respect our need for down-time to recharge the batteries, and whatever you do, don't put us in an open office plan and subject us to endless interruptions, multitasking and meetings.

Cain visits such extrovert-only environments as Harvard Business School, Tony Robbins seminars, and Rick Warren's Saddleback Church to explore the extent of modern America's culture of extroversion.  It wasn't always this way; in the early days of this country, much more emphasis was placed on character, and many presidents were introverted.  It's hard to imagine that happening now.

She explores the complementary relationship (albeit deeply strained) between FDR the extrovert and Eleanor the introvert, Eleanor serving as moral compass to Franklin's energy.  In the same way, Rosa Parks was the quiet strength behind the Civil Rights movement energetically led by Martin Luther King (whom Cain assumes to be extroverted, although I've read differing opinions on that).  The unique difficulties of relationships between sometimes conflicting personalities are explored briefly.  Then she goes into the science behind the differences in the brains of introverts and extroverts.  This is fascinating information, some of it very new neuroscience.  I suspect her spot on the political spectrum is further left than I'm used to, judging by her examples (Darwin, Gandhi, Al Gore(?)) and the evolutionary assumptions underlying her scientific explanations.  I still think learning about the neocortex and the amygdala is a valuable exercise.  So it's the "fight or flight reaction" I'm experiencing every weekday when I walk into the boisterous 8th grade class.  Good to know, I guess, and it explains why I feel compelled to advocate for the concerns of my introverted students, who are in danger of being overlooked.

I really appreciated the final chapter on education and introverted children, and I believe all teachers should read it.  Our current system is heavily weighted toward group activities, which favor extroverts and leave no time for the quiet individual practice (10,000 hours to achieve excellence) and deep thought needed to perfect a skill.  In addition, the pushiest of extroverts tend to take over a group, introverts shut down rather than participate, and are left feeling there is something wrong with them, when they make up anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the population.  I also really liked her brief historical survey at the very end of the book; attitudes toward introversion and extroversion through the ages.  Jacob and Esau; the four "humors" (melancholy and phlegmatic being the introverted ones); Milton's Il Penseroso as opposed to L'Allegro.

Political Tuesdays - Cultural Reclamation

I've never been able to stick to one topic.  Earlier in the political season I gave myself permission to take Tuesdays for political wonkery and punditry, with my own particular lighthearted satirical twist.  I return to blogging about knitting, quilting, book reviews, family events, etc. on the other days.  I figure no one has to read my blog, but I know some are interested in politics who aren't interested in needlework.  And I'm interested in the bigger political picture.  You can take the girl out of Washington (D.C.), but you can't take Washington out of the girl.

Of course, I've never been purely a political wonk.  I'd describe myself as a cultural conservative, a values voter who came of age in the days of Reagan and the Moral Majority.  I like the Republican party, even though its leaders have been curiously unable to articulate a unifying vision in recent years.  I dislike the modern Democratic party, although family history says I have to be sympathetic with those coming from the Democratic party of a generation ago, which didn't have quite the hostility toward issues of moral principle as we routinely see today.  I've saved a special measure of my political snark for Libertarians, who seem to have an idea that political decisions need to be made in a moral vacuum.  I have a problem with this way of thinking even though I agree with them on fiscal policy, and for the life of me can't understand libertarianism's appeal to many of my Christian friends.

Of course, it's not politics that is weighing down our hearts right now.  Yesterday as I watched the elementary school across the street I saw sherriff's cars making repeated stops, to reassure and provide a stable presence.  I visited my daughter's middle school to see her dance class practice; the holiday "spirit day" assembly they were to perform at postponed until January, multiple 8th-grade girls dropped out of the dance routine to cry and hug each other.  It's hard for teachers after last Friday; it's hard for parents and it's very hard for the kids.

"Moral values" in the culture are important to me not just because of my background but because of my 13-year-old daughter, the one with Down syndrome. For the present, in America, wanted children with disabilities, as long as they are allowed to be born, receive the best medical and educational interventions in the world, frequently administered by the very people who are most in favor of legalized abortion. This ethical schizophrenia works in my daughter's favor, but I don't feel I can trust it. Just today I heard of a UK politician who advocated mandatory abortions of babies with Down syndrome and other disabilities. I'm thankful for the outrage that has stopped it... so far.

The unthinkable has happened, several times over, aggravated in horrific ways and brought to our national attention in a way we can't ignore.  The economic situation may have more of a practical impact on all of our lives, but somehow no one can give full attention to the fiscal cliff negotiations.  Perhaps the most ancient taboo is matricide; add to this the slaughter of innocents, by someone not far out of childhood himself.  Is there a political solution?

Only insofar as political solutions ever address moral issues.  "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."  Check out Ben Stein's always wise remarks.  In reality, the culture wars of the 80's and 90's never went away; we just ignored the underlying moral decay because we were distracted by the shiny internet.  I'm of the opinion that gun control is a minor issue; treatment for mental illness is a better fit for this particular case - many have read the viral essay on this topic, and it resonates with us at the same time that it grieves us.  But maybe in addition to discussing mental illness, we could spare a bit of time for discussion of how to restore a culture of common decency and respect for fundamental moral values.  I'm going to go out on my preacher's kid, Christian schoolteacher limb and say yes, we should.

Someone needs to tell people not to get divorced.  How many of these crazed killers come from broken or fatherless homes?  Someone needs to tell kids not to rot their brains with constant exposure to violent video games, and parents not to let them.  Someone needs to tell rich people not to use their money to try to buy their own and their kids' happiness at the expense of ordinary human contact.  Someone needs to tell them that personal peace and affluence only goes so far or lasts so long.  Someone needs to tell them they should be going to church each Sunday, and working hard the other days at something other than a gaming console.  I have no problem saying those kinds of things.  I'm used to being ignored; I'm both a mom and a teacher.

In the recent election cycle, the Romney/Ryan ticket was criticized for wanting to return to the America of the 1950's.  That's not looking so bad to me, right now.

No Emanations or Penumbras Here

I like my constitutional review straight up.  Which is why I like Justice Roberts' opinion yesterday, even though I hate Obamacare and think it will lead to economic collapse if fully implemented.  The obligatory disclaimers: I'm not a constitutional scholar, I just play one on this blog.  (And yes, this blog is normally a needlework blog with a dash of family life and book reviews thrown in.  What can I say, I'm versatile.) It has been almost 25 years since I sat in a Con. Law class, and about 15 since reading Robert Bork's The Tempting of America, which formed my opinions on this issue and I highly recommend.  I would be extremely interested to read Bork's opinions on this ruling, but until I do, I will break with the reactionary conservative take on this and say it was a good ruling, a refreshing exercise in judicial restraint, and possibly the jolt our country needs to get it back on track.  In the extremely bizarre alternate reality where I am a Supreme Court Justice, I might even have written it, although I don't know -- it would take a lot of chutzpah to go against Scalia.

Ideas have consequences.  Elections have consequences.  For too long, the American people and their elected representatives have relied on the judiciary to rescue them from their own imprudence.  But the Supreme Court, like all the courts below it, is supposed to be apolitical.  Remember those statues of Justice blindfolded?  The Court should be above the fray of the 4-year election cycle.  To the masses of angry conservatives: were you this upset about Roe v. Wade, which didn't directly affect your pocketbook?  And if you were, what was your remedy?  Those of us in the pro-life movement have known for decades that we have to take the long view.  In the ordinary course of American life, if we want political remedies, we have to get involved in the political process, which is messy and carries no guarantees.  If we want judicial remedies for political problems, it's like asking for a S.W.A.T. team with fully automatic weaponry to take out a gopher.  The collateral damage of such an approach has been the story of my generation. 

At the very least, yesterday's ruling did not find a new "right" lurking in the emanations and penumbras of the Constitution.  In fact, it looks like it may have significantly restricted the recently very loose interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause.  This is a good thing... even a groundbreaking thing.  I suspect this ruling will be studied as a landmark case from now on, and that it is a good thing for America as new cases testing the government's regulatory powers come through the judiciary.  But Roberts has perhaps done even more, by doing less.  He has placed responsibility for good government back where it belongs; the people and their duly elected representatives.  That's all; nothing new, nothing proactive.  Good, old-fashioned separation of powers.  "Individual mandate?"  No, just a fancy-schmancy term for "tax."  And Congress has the power to tax.  Whether it's wise to tax the people this much or not is for the people to decide.  This ruling was not judicial overreach (if anything, it was underreach compared to what we've seen recently): Obamacare was executive and legislative overreach, and the remedy for that is not in the courts.

To take care of the problem created by Obamacare, we the people need to take care of the problem that we elected four years ago.  That has always been the way it is, but sometimes it's easier to get mad than to get busy.  We can't afford that self-indulgence now.  Justice Roberts has given the nation a dose of tough love and sent us on our way to the ballot-box.

If you want further reading, try these:

Hugh Hewitt
Red State
Real Clear Politics
William Kristol

Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum.


Fiber arts blogging will recommence next post with the Tour de Fleece.

String of Consciousness: 2 Rows

Knit two together yarn over one two three four five, no, six, yarn over slip two as if to knit two together - but don't actually knit them, knit one, then pass the two slipped stitches over - that's it, yarn over one two three four five...
this is going to take forever, I'll just do two rows, out and back, the second row is straight purling.  If I did just two rows every day it would take... about a year to knit this stole, this is going to take forever...
this yarn is like knitting with air... the emperor's new clothes... weightless, cashmere so fine... it was so ugly, who would want a khaki shawl, so I dyed it, rather proud of that, came out beautiful but a tad hard to see the stitches because they're so small... Steve was the first to make a Lady MacBeth comment but won't be the last, it rubs off on my hands and then my hands touch my clothes and I hope it comes out, it was a little embarrassing at the concert last night, maybe no more knitting with this yarn in public, I'll have to rinse the shawl in vinegar water to set the dye before I'd ever wear it...
I never wear shawls, why am I doing this 12 shawls in 2012 challenge anyway, I never wear shawls... but I like to knit, that's why I'm doing it, and because it's there, the challenge of the thing, but I never wear shawls because they make me look dorky... Jemima Puddleduck syndrome... or is that dumpy middle aged woman wearing a shawl she knit herself syndrome...
oh well, slip those two stitches together, don't knit them, that's it, then knit then pass the two stitches over, more or less, this is a simple enough pattern so far even if my hands are hot pink...the lace part comes at the end, and then I go back and knit the other half of the shawl exactly the same way... most of the rows are quite boring, actually... one stitch at a time isn't so bad... why do I like knitting anyway when I get bored halfway through the row and the yarn is so fine it's hard to knit with, I think maybe I'll get some tiny glass beads to add to the lace at the end, it says that will help the drape on this shawl I'm not going to wear and make it pretty... but it won't be pretty if the yarn is constantly leaving a trail of pink-red dye over everything... and even if it is pretty it won't be pretty if I never wear it, it'll just be packed away in a box in the closet... almost done with the first row of stitches, at least I'm making progress, let's see this is the 5th shawl so far this year and I never wear shawls, but maybe I'll win fame and acclaim on Ravelry, hey fame and acclaim rhyme, and they'll award me a free shawl pattern of my choice and I can knit more shawls that I'll never wear...
past the turn now, it's all purl from here on, I should really get out of bed soon, nice to sleep in on a Saturday morning but I have a lot to do, papers to grade, Bede and Caesar to translate for the Latinstudy list, cooking for tomorrow, library, shopping, ugh, needs to happen today or it won't get done before spring break, and what if we all end up in traction because we're so hopeless we can never learn to ski, or what if we can't afford lessons and lift tickets, or what if...
just knit, it's easier that worrying... the stitches stay done once you make them... nothing else stays done, not cooking, not cleaning, not nagging the kids... what about those 6th graders, how many more times will we have to go over perfect tense and they still won't get it... some do, some don't I guess... will this work ever be finished, too pretty to wear, stored away in a box in my closet like my great-grandmother's wedding dress, every stitch by hand but if you do it right it stays done... it's all I have from my great-grandmother other than her scrapbook of fancy needlework patterns from newspapers and some of the quilts probably... she was a remarkable woman and no one remembers her now, once in awhile I'm sure my uncle thinks of her but no one else probably, that generation is all gone...
what will it be like when I'm gone and my kids take out the box of shawls I never wore and try to figure out what to do with them, they'll get to live on in someone else's closet or get shared around the grandchildren or great grandchildren, now that's hard to imagine, let's pretend I'm young for a little longer shall we, there the row is done and I'm getting up now.

Book Review: Demonic by Ann Coulter

Source: amazon.com via Katherine on Pinterest

After reading Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America, I'm through apologizing to anyone for my fanship of conservative provocateuse Ann Coulter.  She's exactly right.  She knows her history better than many tenured professors at major universities, and uses her considerable research and writing skills to present a compelling case that liberal groupthink must be countered vigorously by ordinary Americans and resolute leaders if we want civilization to survive.  The question that kept coming to me, page after page while reading, was "Why aren't we taught this in our history classes?"

If Coulter tends to follow her meticulously-researched facts with a chaser of caustic wit, usually at the expense of contemporary Democrats, it's probably because earnest conservatives without that protective armor of irony quickly fall victim to the relentless attacks of the very mob psychology she describes here.  (Not that those who do write with the requisite irony are safe from attack, as Coulter's own biography demonstrates, but at least they give fair warning to the rabble that they are not intellectual lightweights, and that in itself does scare off quite a few.  I know whereof I speak.  There are sectors of the online knitting community -- yes, knitting -- where the liberal bullying and Palin Derangement Syndrome make it unsafe for conservatives to post.  And of course, the 2009 Ides of March purge has never been satisfactorily explained.)

Central to Coulter's argument is the neglected history of the French Revolution, which she retells in chilling detail in two seminal chapters that are not for children or the faint of heart.  Later in the book she returns to the mob-induced Terror and links it to its modern equivalents.  From pp. 265-266:

   ... In the course of France's short revolution, 600,000 French citizens were killed and another 145,000 fled the country.  That's in a country with between 24 and 26 million people, about the current population of Texas.  In terms of population loss, that would be the equivalent of the United States having a 9/11 attack every day for seven years.

   ... How did the nation of Voltaire, Descartes, Pascal, and Moliere transform itself into a bloody saturnalia overnight?  This is a question liberals don't want us to think about.

   The inheritors of the French revolutionary tradition always adhere to the same basic program.  Psychopaths from Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong to Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro have used the rabble to grab power, with essentially the same justification, the same objectives, and the same bloody results.

  All these monsters were praised in the New York Times and enthusiastically supported by the Democratic Party.

Some of the more shocking results of mob psychology in our times are terrible miscarriages of the criminal justice system.  Sometimes the innocent are falsely accused, as during the '80s, when false accusations of child abuse led to witch hunts and wrongful imprisonments led by, among others, Janet Reno.  Sometimes the guilty are wrongly excused, as when 5 attackers in the vicious 1989 rape of the Central Park jogger had their convictions vacated, despite their videotaped confessions and being found guilty in a jury trial.  (This is also a very difficult chapter to read, and the book as a whole is definitely not for children).

I challenge my Democratic friends to read this book.  You will not like it; you will probably be infuriated.  But ask yourself if your party is really going in a direction you are happy with, or, as Coulter contends, has become "the party of abortion, adultery, and everything bestial in society."  While I personally want Republicans to win at the ballot box, I would also like to live in an America where both parties are equal believers in basic human rights and dignity, and where there is a free, fair, and civil debate.

Sometimes, I think, living a decent life really is as simple as keeping the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.  Moderns who pretend otherwise, who base their morality on an attempt to be well thought of and sophisticated, nearly always fall into the mob mentality that Coulter so aptly describes in this book.

Book reviews: D'Souza, Godfrey, Coulter

These are some of the books I've been reading lately.  It's an eclectic mix and I don't have time to do a thorough review of each one, but I'm sure you can deal.  I'll have quilts to show soon.

Life After Death: The Evidence by Dinesh D'Souza is something of a companion piece to his What's So Great About Christianity, which I reviewed a few months ago.  I believe his argumentation skills have improved measurably since the first book.  This is a book to recommend to agnostics and any atheists who are intellectually honest enough to be interested in evidence.  It's also good for believers who interact with atheists and agnostics, or who merely want to understand the terms of the conflict we find ourselves in.  D'Souza describes himself as a kind of "Christian cage-fighter" who likes to handicap himself when arguing against secularists by using only secular proofs, kind of like tying one hand behind his back.  He doesn't ever really untie the religious hand, but the final chapter is pretty much guaranteed to anger the hard-core New Atheists if they manage to get that far.  It's a difficult read in the sense that most of us don't have a strong grounding in philosophy (or our memory of Rel/Phil in college is rusty).  But D'Souza carefully spells out the history of the debate and uses clear examples to make deep philosophy understandable.  I appreciated this book and -- the ultimate testimonial for me -- it's one I'll probably try to buy after reading it from the library.  Well worth the reading for people serious about the great questions in life.

An Unexpected Journey: Discovering Reformed Christianity by W. Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary in California, is a brief presentation of Reformed teaching and a spiritual autobiography.  Godfrey observes that the spiritual autobiography, while prevalent in other branches of Christianity, has been neglected in the Reformed tradition, and sets out to rectify that.  Godfrey was raised as a nominal Methodist but experienced a more vibrant faith in the Dutch Reformed tradition.  He notes the importance of family life, the catechism of children, and education as features of Reformed practice that appealed to him.  Although he comes down squarely on the side of Van Til in apologetics and I come from the classical apologetics camp myself, he makes an interesting point when he says that recognizing the presuppositions of secular intellectuals and thereby defusing them is important for young students.  He says, “The Reformed Christianity that I learned was not fearful of the world or eager to hide from the challenges of the day.  Rather, it was confident that the mind should be used as a servant of true religion.” (p. 79) Those of us in the Reformed tradition love our theology, and this is a very theological autobiography.  In the “Worship” chapter there is a discussion of how the Reformed tradition of simple, intellectually stimulating and heartfelt worship is threatened by the prevalence of worship styles lifted from the Pentecostal and Arminian Revivalist traditions.  I think this would be a good book for those who are dissatisfied with life in the typical American megachurch but don't exactly know what they're looking for as an alternative.

I know it's a Sunday and schadenfreude is a poor excuse for Christian charity, but I might as well confess it now -- I love Ann Coulter.  I want her to be Secretary of State (or perhaps even more powerful, White House Press Secretary) in a Palin administration.  I recently finished If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans and am working through Godless. It's hard, because every page is packed with the kind of wit you don't find in even the best newsrooms anymore.  Witness: "When a Democrat is in the White House, Republican senators vote by huge majorities to confirm extreme left-wing lawyers to the Supreme Court, such as former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When a Republican is president, Democratic senators turn every Supreme Court nomination -- even lower court appointments -- into Armageddon."  (Godless, p. 106).  Been there, lived that.  I was in Washington for the Souter and Thomas confirmations.  I know, you wouldn't think Souter could provoke Armageddon.  But so true.  And to top it off, Coulter is blonde.  I'd like to see her handle the blonde jokes.  Payback time!

Defining the Blog, part 2

So, last post I revealed to you what you had probably figured out already.  The blog will be eclectic.  I know that some people can blog and stick to one subject.  I will not be doing that.  I will, however, be in the running for the world's only blog about knitting, quilting, teaching Latin, and book reviews.  I love all of those things and will probably be alternating my blogtime between them.  So far in my blog history, I have not yet run out of book reviews that I want to do.  And if I blogged about every knitting pattern in my Ravelry queue, I could focus on that for about 4 years without missing a day or repeating a pattern.  Or every quilt pattern I have tagged for inspiration among my books and magazines.  I could work my way through Latin tutorials and share with you the accumulated wisdom of 11 years of teaching an ancient language.

But I refuse to limit myself.  I could dabble in political discussion, housekeeping tips, favorite recipes, history and current events, and of course philosophy and theology.  There are always family photos and humorous stories to share. 

Lack of attention span, you say?  Jill of all trades, master of none?  "A little learning is a dangerous thing"?  Most probably.  But if I had a single specialty and stuck to it exclusively, I would be a university professor and not a blogger, and I'd be having a whole lot less fun.

If you're just here for the quilt, it's called (appropriately enough for this entry) "Windmills of My Mind" and is my own design.  I was inspired by an article in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (before it changed its name and defied punctuation rules -- March 2005 #370) called "Big Block, Little Block" about creating transparencies with two different sized variations of the same block pattern.  I figured that if two different sizes were good, three would be better, or at least a whole lot more interesting.  It was interesting piecing, all right.  I narrowly escaped being driven insane by the permutations of different colors to get the layering effect.  Enjoy -- it's one of my favorite quilts.

I just found out today about the website sewmamasew, which is organizing a giveaway day on several craft blogs.  Check it out... the blogs usually require you to leave a comment to enter for their giveaway, and it's open for another 24 hours or so.