- Octomom Redux.
- Sex is optional.
- “Social issues” waning?
- Provoking culture war.
- Tom Howard anthology.
- Aggressively inarticulate.
- Time magazine, adult edition.
- An original poem.
1
The news that some wanker has fathered 150 children inseminated 150 women has people, for some reason, questioning “the baby business” again. This trumps even Octomom.
Whatever it takes, I guess, though this, too, shall quickly pass (see Harrison Bergeron).
Quite apart from concerns about genetic half-siblings accidentally finding each other and spawning chimera or something, we’ve been commodifying babies for decades now.
- The press writes, with no sense of irony, of a same-sex couple’s child who, rest assured, was not a conceived in the back seat of a ’53 Chevy on the levee when passion overcame them.
- Single parents adopt, apparently without any preference for married couples.
- A gynecologist gets sued after refusing to inseminate an unmarried woman (who might or might not also be lesbian) although he refers her to another doctor who will oblige her.
- Some pro-life people are fine with “test tube babies,” provided none is left in the tube or the freezer.
The linked discussion at the New York Times, at a glance, appears to have nobody who even acknowledges the commodification concern. Every contributor assumes way too much of the status quo for my comfort. The President of Barnard College comes closest, but nowhere near close enough.
I’ll say it because somebody needs to get it on the table: Resolved, that children should be born only to husbands and wives as the proximate result of a Marital Act.
My sincere sympathies to infertile couples for whom mere debate may seem cold and insensitive. “Wounded puppy looks” carry much weight in politics these days, but since Abraham lay with Hagar and begat Ishmael, assisted reproductive technologies have been problematic.
2
Further resolved, that extramarital randiness is nothing entirely new.
What’s newish is the notion that sex is not just enjoyable, and not just necessary for the perpetuation of the human race, but necessary for individual human thriving.
Tell that to Mother Theresa. Sex is optional.
3
I’ve been rooting for the emergence of sane Democrats, since sane Republicans have apparently acquired some Contagion or something. By “sane,” I used to mean primarily “pro-life on liberal grounds.”
But things seldom stand still for too long. The GOP can no longer expect unquestioning support because they mumble a few insincere pro-life pieties:
I don’t know where she stands on social issues, but as a Harvard professor, I’m sure it’s well to the left of where I stand. But I’m tired of seeing my support for social conservatism dictate my vote for candidates who, in my view, work to undermine the stability of families by taking the sides of powerful financial interests. If Elizabeth Warren were a standard-issue Democrat, I wouldn’t give a fig for her candidacy. But she proved by her frustrated service in Washington that she can be an authentic populist. Why isn’t the Republican Party producing people like her: candidates who take clear and unambiguous stands against the bigness of banks, regulatory capture, and in favor of Main Street over Wall Street?
4
Not a single gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender sparrow can fall to the ground without The New York Times knowing it …
… surely the answer to the problem is simple: adopt a zero tolerance policy toward bullying, and enforce it strongly …
… Remember this when liberals accuse conservatives of provoking a culture war. The school system is trying to stay neutral on this issue, but it’s the cultural left that’s taking them to court to force them to take sides, when taking sides is not necessary to do what the left claims it wants them to do. This is not about protecting gay kids, but about propagandizing all the others, and using the false flag of suicide to wage culture war ….
(Rod Dreher again, this time calling out the propagandistic agenda of standard anti-bullying programs)
5
Ex-Evangelical, now Roman Catholic, Thomas Howard (whose “Christ the Tiger” was all the rage at Wheaton College 44 years ago), helped me, Evangelical-turned-Calvinist, on my road to Orthodox Christianity. Sorry that’s a hard sentence, but it’s a kind of a circuitous story.
Having had my eyes opened a bit to Orthodoxy, I bought and read the obligatory Becoming Orthodox, but then (somewhat underwhelmed, though slightly more intrigued), I went to my bookshelf and pulled down a Tom Howard book that for some reason hadn’t resonated the first time I read it: Evangelical is not Enough. Howard added considerable heft to the spirtual yearning that was growing in me.
I’m not the only Orthodox who likes Howard, I’m reminded today.
6
You might, like, enjoy this, or whatever?
(HT Michael Hyatt. Linking to humorous darkness-cursers seems to be about as negative as Deacon Michael ever gets.)
7
Time magazine announces an edition for adults.
8
I saw a
homely, husky
woman, walking to work Wednesday with
a big,
pink
ribbon in her hair.
The sight made me grin for joy, boy, and write a pretentious poem.
* * * * *
Bon appetit!
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 