Phyllis Schlafly

[The American Conservative, April 21, 2003]

Feminist Fantasies, by Phyllis Schlafly, Spence Publishing, 262 pages

Not every fifty-something mother of six decides to go to law school; not every one who does graduates near the top of her class. Not every woman juggles these high-octane pursuits with a syndicated column and an uphill battle against the Equal Rights Amendment. But then again, not every woman is Phyllis Schlafly. You can hear three decades of bruised feminists breathing "Amen."

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Why They Hated Pinocchio

[Touchstone, April 2003]

Why They Hated “Pinocchio”

I am the sole member of a very tiny club: as far as I can tell, I am the only reviewer in America who liked Roberto Benigno’s production of “Pinocchio.” I had sat all alone in a theater, thoroughly charmed by the production, the costumes, cinematography, and performances. And I wondered why I was alone. Later I checked a website that catalogues film reviews and did a double take. This site gives films a percentage score based on the number of positive reviews; the stylish film “The Hours,” for example, was enjoying an 88% rating. The site’s editors had not found a single review of “Pinocchio” they could classify as positive. “Pinocchio” scored a zero.

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About Face, Christian Soldiers

[Unpublished, March 2003]

I subscribe to a newsweekly magazine. One week the cover story is about Buddhists. I read the article. It is about spirituality.

Another week the cover story is about students of the Kaballah. I read the article. It is about spirituality.

Another week the cover story is about Christians. I read the article. It is about politics.

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The Oneida Experiment

[Touchstone, November 2002 — expanded version of “Free Love Didn’t Come Cheap”]

In the middle of the room there was a woodburning stove. The small iron door was open on this chilly day, and the red flames could be seen leaping within as if in time to music. For there was music, too, a marching song, and the little girls who circled the stove marched around it in time. The girls were not happy.

Each girl was holding in her arms her favorite doll. These were pretty dolls with painted faces, who usually wore fancy clothes reflecting current fashion. But today the clothes had been left in a pile, and the wax figurines were exposed, hard and bare. One by one, each girl marched up to the open door of the stove. One by one, each girl threw her doll into the “angry-looking flames.”

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Let's Have More Teen Pregnancy

[National Review Online, September 20, 2002]

Let’s Have More Teen Pregnancy

True Love Waits. Wait Training. Worth Waiting For. The slogans of teen abstinence programs reveal a basic fact of human nature: teens, sex, and waiting aren’t a natural combination.

Over the last fifty years the wait has gotten longer. In 1950, the average first-time bride was just over 20; in 1998 she was five years older, and her husband was pushing 27. If that June groom had launched into puberty at 12, he’d been waiting more than half his life.

If he *had* been waiting, that is.

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The Case Against "Youth-anasia"

Beliefnet, February 15, 2002]

 
Greta Van Susteren took a look in the mirror not long ago and didn't like what she saw. "God, how did I get to be 47?" she says she thought. So she had cosmetic surgery to tighten up the skin around her eyes. "I just did it on a whim," she told People magazine.

Leave aside the question of whether someone who whimsically has her face permanently altered can be relied on for more sober judgment about, say, Al Qaeda. The bottom line is that the deed seemed so out of character. Greta's was one of the few really authentic female faces on television. Her face was interesting because it was unattractive, and attractive because it was so interesting. It was a startlingly real face in the world of artifice, a face that could attract and pull you in.

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Liberty, Death followup

[Beliefnet, July 11, 2001] 

 The discussion in the wake of my Fourth of July column has been invigorating, and it is moving to see the high pitch of idealism on every side. There are things I wish I'd said more clearly, and side-topics I wish I'd had room to address, but limited space demands selectivity.

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Liberty, Death, or Something Else?

[Beliefnet, July 4, 2001]

Give me liberty or give me death. Or give me something else. Staying alive, but under the rule of another nation? Yeah, that sounds all right, too.

Scandalous thoughts, especially this time of year. I’m a conservative Christian, born an American, born into the idea of faith intertwined with freedom. But I’ve been thinking over something I read recently. During the Jewish rebellion against Rome in the first century, religious leaders were the last to join the cause. They worked for peace and opposed revolution because, as one historian put it, “Roman rule presented no serious threat to Jewish religion.” In other words, overthrowing an oppressive government wasn’t a requisite of the faith.

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Marketing Narnia

[Beliefnet, June 20, 2001] 

 Just hours after the New York Times hit doorsteps on the first Sunday of this month, my e‑mailbox began to fill with distraught messages. "Sit down before you read this, in case you start crying," wrote one friend, and another muttered "Poor Lewis must be turning over in his grave."

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Run-over Pocketbook

[Beliefnet, February 2, 2001]

At dawn on the last day of the year, my husband and I were walking along a rural highway in South Carolina, following a trail of broken things. I had left my pocketbook on top of the car at a gas station late the previous night, something we didn’t realize till we got to my mother-in-law’s house about 45 minutes later.

It was too dark to search then, but all night I fretted. Had it fallen off right in the gas station lot, and was someone even now using my Visa card to order a vintage Corvette? Was some fan using the cell phone to leave long messages on Ricky Martin’s answering machine? How would I ever replace all those little plastic cards, when I couldn’t even remember what half of them were for? I pictured myself spending all afternoon at the DMV, glumly waiting to pose for a new license.

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