Emily Wilson of the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania begins her review of books that span “three millennia of motherhood” with a charming distillation of Philip Dey Eastman’s classic story for “beginning readers,” Are You My Mother?:
Are You My Mother? starts with a mother bird who realizes that her egg is about to hatch. Being a good, responsible mother, she flies off to get the hatchling something to eat when he emerges. In the meantime, the baby bird pops out of the egg, falls “down, down, down!” from the nest, and finds himself alone in the world, unable to fly or fend for himself. But he can walk, and he decides to look for his mother. Unfortunately, and comically, he does not know what she looks like. So he walks right past her, though the reader sees her, busily engaged on tugging up a nice fat worm. He encounters a series of animals and other objects, and asks each of them in turn, “Are you my mother?”. Finally, a huge power shovel – which, being the largest, seems like the most likely maternal candidate of all – lets out a scary-sounding “SNOOOORT!”, and lifts the baby “up, up, up!”. The illusion is shattered: the baby realizes, “You are not my mother! You are a big scary SNORT!”. But, in yet another thrilling reversal of fortune, the Snort drops the bird back into its own nest. Just then, the mother bird comes home. She asks, “Do you know who I am?”, and the baby bird says, “Yes!”. He knows she is his mother because she is not any of the other creatures he has encountered. He therefore knows that she is a bird, and she is his mother.
One of Wilson’s poignant insights:
“There is a deeply rooted idea in our culture that mothers, far more than fathers, are responsible not just for picking up the toys and changing the nappies, but also for how the child turns out in the end, for good or ill.”
Ms. Wilson’s conclusion:
“Mothers are all different, because they are all human. The good enough mother is one who gives her child what it needs to grow up. The good enough child is one who manages to grow up, and in doing so, is able to recognize her mother’s humanity.”
Whereas American media has shed mostly darkness on the “apparently” mysterious motivation behind the ruthless, savage, April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon—a Chechen leader offered some valuable insights about these homegrown terrorists:
[The] Tsarnaevs … were raised in the United States, and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America.
The man makes a profound point. Here, and not in Chechnya, did the Tsarnaevs receive a liberal, lax, progressive education, emphasizing the wicked ways of the West and the righteousness of its “victims.” It is here in America that these invertebrates matured into aggrieved ignoramuses.
“If we Americans cannot even agree on what is right and wrong and moral and immoral, how do we stay together in one national family?,” prodded Patrick J. Buchanan, in a recent column.
“A common faith and moral code once held this country together. But if we no longer stand on the same moral ground, after we have made a conscious decision to become the most racially, ethnically, culturally diverse people on earth, what in the world holds us together?
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights? How can they, when we bitterly disagree on what they say?”
As Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam discovered, reluctantly, diversity in fact immiserates. The greater the diversity in a county or country, the more distrustful and depressed are its inhabitants.
America’s practically pornographic rituals of public grief—what are they if not a neurotic symptom of this disconnect? A diverse and distrusting people, lacking in a shared national DNA, are thrust together by the crisis of the day. In the absence of any core value over which to unite, we Americans meet on the only common ground we share: the graveyard. We come together to bury or remember our dead. We unite to grieve over tragedy and misfortune that have befallen us for no other reason than that we exist in the same space in time. ….”
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…public intellectuals … thought nothing of delivering South Africa into the hands of professed radical Marxist terrorists. Any one suggesting such folly to the wise Margaret Thatcher risked taking a handbagging. The Iron Lady ventured that grooming the ANC as South Africa’s government-in-waiting was tantamount to ‘living in cloud-cuckoo land.’
Tell me that fools are not attempting to redefine, à la postmodernism, the very definition of news. And why not? Academics have similarly broken down the ancient concept of the intellectual discipline.
“Intellectual disciplines,” historian Keith Windschuttle has written, “were founded in ancient Greece and gained considerable impetus from the work of Aristotle who identified and organized a range of subjects into orderly bodies of learning. … The history of Western knowledge shows the decisive importance of the structuring of disciplines. This structuring allowed the West to benefit from two key innovations: the systematization of research methods, which produced an accretion of consistent findings; and the organization of effective teaching, which permitted a large and accumulating body of knowledge to be transmitted from one generation to the next.” (The Killing of History, Keith Windschuttle, Encounter, pp. 247-250)
Failing to lead the news with coverage of Mrs. Thatcher’s passing is in-itself big news.
UPDATE I: MSNBC’s odious Martin Bashir, a Briton, is dismembering Thatcher. His correspondent’s source of analysis: Meryl Creep’s depiction in “The Iron Lady.”
As I said, disciplinary breakdown.
Of course, many of Thatcher’s moves I‘d oppose, however it is undeniable that she was perhaps the only true great female leader other than old Golda Meir. I cannot think of a woman with a Thatcher-like intellect in international politics. Golda didn’t have that intellect, but she was quite the character. Both were nothing like today’s whiny, idiot fems.
UPDATE II: Don’t bother searching the articles penned by the presstitutes in the UK and the US, about Baroness Thatcher. Her remarkable oratory they call simple—to these cretins plain-spoken reason is counter-intuitive and hence, simplistic. The so-called 10 best quotes from Mrs. Thatcher’s are really stupid things said about her by her intellectual inferiors in Labor.
Here is Mrs. Thatcher displaying that incisive intellect of hers:
“…What the honorable member is saying is that he would rather the poorer were poorer, provided the rich were less rich.”
Watch the above bit of parliamentary flyting as only the British can do, and tell me the woman was not brilliant. Even her opponent delights in her retort.
“I detest every one of her domestic policies,” the Member tells the PM. To which she replies without flinching, in that crisp beautiful English:
“The honorable gentleman knows that I have the same contempt for his socialist policies as the people of East Europe who’ve experienced it have.”
On the famous U-Turn:
“For those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catch phrase the U-Turn, I have only one thing to say: ‘You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.'”
The exchange below with the pompous Peter Mansbridge of CBC is particularly relevant to the empty talk about “compromise” infesting current debates:
What perturbs Peter Mansbridge, a Canadian institution in his own right—a stuffy, ossified, yet rather able lefty journo—is what he calls “the uncompromising style of Thatcherism.” A liberal doesn’t like a debate about substance, for it demands intellectual argument. Rather, the liberal is compelled to make silly points about style for those allow for an emotional approach (“Baroness, you make me feel bad; you hurt my self-esteem”).
Mrs. Thatcher offers up a gorgeous metaphor for the pursuit of truth: “When you’re starting a journey over the seas, you steer by stars that are always the same in the heavens. If you haven’t any stars to steer by, then it’s a pretty nondescript journey. …consensus doesn’t seem to be a very good star to steer by.”
Exquisite.
And Mrs. Thatcher’s coup de grâce: “Why are you so interested in compromise and consensus? Why are you not interested in having clear objectives; and having been elected on clear objectives, knowing full-well that the difficulties would emerge first and the benefits later?”
You’d expect pinko Jada Pinkett (actress) to be a stalwart opponent of free markets and to praise a communist. Ditto Eva Longoria (actress). Freedoms such as Thomas Jefferson espoused engage the rational mind. Marxism such as these females espouse engages the uterus; it requires a menstrual cycle. No more. This Jada Pinkett and Eva Longoria possess. For the rest, these women are not working with much.
Coughing up furballs over Hollywood pea-brains like Pinkett and Longoria is plain silly. The real issue: why are these deeply silly people treated as if they’re capable of sound judgement? They take themselves seriously because America at large takes them seriously.
GREG GUTFELD: “So, last week, we saw Robert Redford crawl up the butt of the Weather Underground, bona fide terrorists who killed innocent people.”
Now, it’s Jada Pinkett, who’s gone pinko, showing her new flick on Angela Davies, the commie who tried to help a murderer flee form jail. Her boyfriend George Jackson had committed five armed robberies before killing a guard. He also wanted to poison the water system of Chicago. Great guy.
In 1970, his brother Jonathan entered a courthouse armed with shotgun that Davis had bought. That gun blew a judge’s head off.
So whatever became of Davis? Surprise. He was awarded a faculty job and a salary far beyond a prison guard’s widow. How funny is that left-wing academics mock law abiding folks with guns, yet somehow always embrace armed radicals who want to destroy America?
I guess one is cool and the other isn’t, which is why Jada is hawking her flick, “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.” How objective was she when covering her subject?
Here Jada describing Davis, quote, “She never apologized for her politics or her association and she always looked fabulous doing it.”
So, look fab and have the right politics and Hollywood bends over. What dirt bags. Thankfully, though, Jada strongly condemns bullying.
Yes, bullying, the go-to issue for celebrities who cannot condemn deadly behavior. I guess being called names is far worse than getting your head shot off. So hurray for Hollywood, a place where terrorists get tribute and Charlton Heston gets humiliated. Hollywood, it’s how we speak to the world and we’re telling the world that we suck.
