Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Deborah Fallows writes in the New Atlantic:
From my book in 1985:
My desires and feelings about the way I should raise children and be a mother suddenly seemed to place me at sharp, and unnecessary, odds with the women’s movement, whose campaigns to offer women the chance for stronger and more independent lives were, along with the civil rights movements, the most important social developments of my lifetime. I thought of the women’s movement as my friend, and still do; yet its positions on motherhood and child rearing made it seem as if I would be failing the movement if I took the steps I thought necessary to care for my children.
A torrent of response followed. The mailman delivered bins and bins of typed or handwritten heartfelt letters, an image that now rings as quaint compared with the barrage of easy, instant digital responses. I was embraced or vilified, quietly and publicly, more or less equally, by both sides.
:
So, that history established, you can imagine that I was very interested to time-travel and try out modern life with children. Here’s what I learned, in three parts: the sociologically interesting, the surprising, and the highly improved.
I’ve never understood this part of the feminist movement, and I don’t think I ever will: A public debate on private decisions about work-life balance. Someone says something, and suddenly every woman’s decision to take care of her household and family…or not…is held up for review and critique by all women. “The mailman delivered bins and bins”? Why? Send them to me. You won’t need a “bin” to hold my response, it will be brief, crisp and I’ll come right to the point.
Instapundit asks an intriguing question about this:
Notice that nobody ever seems to worry about whether men can “have it all?”
Our society has choices to make, about how choices are made. They can be public or private. Who gets the White House for four years: public. Keeping a doctor or health plan you like: private, or it should be, that’s what everybody keeps saying. Color of the car you buy: private. Standards it must meet to be sold: public. Whether it should be harder to convict violent felons, or easier to put them on parole: public. Whether I should buy a gun if I’m worried about violent felons: private.
The elephant in the room that no one seems to want to discuss: There is a big part of the womens’ movement that is nothing more than a big, stinky, massive mistake along these lines. A woman decides to prioritize the raising of her children a certain way, and suddenly that somehow becomes everybody else’s business. There are people who insist on it, and ironically, these seem to be the same people who insist it’s “a decision between her and her doctor, nobody else” when she considers murdering those children before they’re born. Feminism has not been without friction and contentiousness, and that’s probably because it has done very little to avoid conflict; in fact, at times it has worked to embrace it. But at no time has it been more contentious than when it sought to make private matters into public ones. That is what happens — people start arguing about stuff they shouldn’t be.
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