First Lady Targets Fat

Are you fat? Worse yet, are your kids fat? If so, Michelle Obama finds you and your family to be something of a pox on the country's image.

According to the First Lady, we need "nationwide support" to get our "kids on track" and put an end to "food deserts" (whatever they are). We are a nation of "families in isolation" unable to "make desired changes" for healthy living because we lack the proper "tools." According to Mrs. Obama, we are not only fat, we're just plain stupid!

First Lady Michelle is the latest incarnation of her husband's nanny state and she's now on the warpath to get all of us hapless and hopeless families moving. That's the name of her initiative--Let's Move. She's a veritable foghorn of dire predictions and threatening news as she blasts us for being blubbery, dumb and incompetent. However, she assures us that she and her husband's government programs are there to fill the gap.

I have trouble believing that the First Lady knows how to boil water let alone plan an entire meal, and the sight of her digging up the White House lawn in J. Crew outfits leaves me wondering how she squares farming with her fancy Princeton degree and her law background. I can't help but think Mrs. Obama curses the darkness as she watches her husband appoint one person after another as his Czars and relegates her to the vegetable patch. Once the Obamas are out of the White House, my guess is that Michelle will leave the trowel and spade on the White House lawn and will run for senator from Illinois as quickly as possible. Until then, she's out there to save us all from our big, fat stupid selves.

Penn Wants To Welcome Gays

Why is the University of Pennsylvania reaching out to its admitted applicants who are gay? Their dean of admissions says that the university wants to reach out and enroll gays in the same way that they reach out to Blacks or to students with a particular interest. "We are speaking to students on [sic] the areas that they are most interested in," says the dean. What about the students who are interested in being heterosexual? Or being Christian? What about the students who are interested in classical music or cross-country skiing?

Colleges have wooed older students, non-traditional students, Blacks, Hispanics, females, first-generation college go-ers and Native Americans (have I forgotten anyone?). Now that there are virtually no 'underserved' groups left to recruit--except white, upper-middle class teen-age boys who work hard and like sports---Penn has invented one and wants to be "pro-active" for those "who are looking for a gay-friendly campus." Will we soon have the other Ivies out-doing Penn by flying gay and lesbian high school students to their campuses for gay visit days? Will colleges send their directors of LGBT services out to high school college fairs? Will we see adjusted admissions standards for gays? Special scholarships? Certainly, gay housing accommodations are in order.

Reaching out to gays is most likely a marketing tool for Penn, but their out-reach will probably be more effective in balkanizing the university community than anything else. Celebrating diversity usually divides rather than unites. When I was at Barnard College in the 70s there was BOSS, the Barnard Organization of Soul Sisters. The Black students lived together on one floor which happened one year to be the floor directly above me. When a decidedly White, blonde student on my floor went upstairs to ask the Soul Sisters to turn down their music, the Sisters reportedly flew off the handle and gave our White sister a talking-to. I don't think I ever sat next to, talked to, rode the elevator with or made even the remotest acquaintance of a single one of the Soul Sisters during my four years at Barnard.

Penn's approach is being praised by the chairman of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Caucus of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (oh,you didn't know there was such a group?). And, a group called Campus Pride will soon "be asking the Common Application to add a sexual orientation question so that colleges can refine recruiting techniques and also consider the diversity of their applicant pools in the same way they do now based on race and ethnicity, gender, geography and academics."

In the meantime, what is a white, heterosexual college applicant to do?

Catholics and Catholic Converts

The 2010 Annuario Pontificio reports that in 2008, the year for which there appear to be the latest figures, there was a 1.7% increase in the number of Catholics worldwide, causing our number to grow to 1.66 billion baptized Catholics or 17.40% of the world's entire popluation (which stands at 6.7 billion).

While the number of bishops is up by a little over 1%, the number of priests grew by a percentage slightly less than that, and the number of women religious actually fell by almost 8%. However, as Pope Benedict has said, we don't need a lot of priests, we need good priests, and the same would most certainly apply to women religious. With orders like the Sisters of Life and the Dominican Sisters of Mary, there's no need to fret over a lack of faithful--and good--women being called to various orders.

It's no surprise that most of this increase in the Catholic faithful comes not from our own shores, but from Africa, Asia and Oceania. However, there will be at least some new Catholics from the U.S. entering the flock of Peter. Many soon-to-be Catholics are now entering the final stages of their preparation for acceptance into the Catholic Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The RCIA process is a year of study and discernment for those wishing to be baptized and/or confirmed as Catholics and culminates in the Easter Vigil when those who were previously catechumens (never baptized) or candidates (already having had a Christian baptism) become full-fledged members of the Catholic Church. Or, almost full-fledged. The newly-baptized are called neophytes and all the just-initated next go through a period of Mystagogy. Earlier this week, I read that the bishops here in the U.S. called on all Catholics to welcome newcomers into the Church by giving consideration to ten different points.

Having gone through the RCIA process myself, I heartily endorse the bishops' entreaty that current Catholics should welcome the new ones. The whole RCIA process, apparently a well-intentioned attempt to mimic the induction of pagans and idol-worshipers into the 1st Century Christian church, was one I found a bit off-putting. We catechumens and candidates were often paraded about the sanctuary like so much inventory as we were put through our paces. Given the catechesis of many Catholics in the wake of Vatican II, I often felt that the entire congregation should be joining me in instruction in the faith. Instead, here we stood, making public declarations about our intentions and, most troublesome to me, being led out of Mass after the homily. This was presumably to make us yearn for the day when we would be sufficiently prepared to stay and participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist. I must admit that being denied the opportunity of sitting through the Mass never called forth a yearning in me. First of all, I had already sat through many Catholic Masses. Besides, I wasn't a pagan. I was already a Christian! Yet, each week, we stood in front of the entire congregation before filing out behind our 'teacher' who took us upstairs and out of sight.

I hope the bishops will continue to educate Catholics about the RCIA process. There is certainly a need for it. On my way home one Sunday, after again standing to face the priest and then being herded out of the Mass along with my fellow students, I ran into a neighbor and fellow congregant, a Catholic by birth, who said to me, "By the way, what are you all doing standing up there anyway?"

As the bishops explain, the journey of inquiry that the catechumens and candidates undertake is an example for all Catholics to re-discover and re-commit to the teachings of their Catholic faith. I was often gently reminded that I was providing this wonderful example whenever I ventured to whine to my RCIA leaders about traipsing around in front of the congregation. I always felt that being praised as an example to other Catholics was a bit of a mixed message. We uninitiated were not sufficiently Catholic to witness the liturgy of the Eucharist, but we were simultaneously inspiring enough to be an example of faith to others? Never made sense to me. Rather, it seems that the responsibility for instructing the many poorly-catechized Catholics in their faith is something that the hierarchy of the Church should address, which, I suppose, is what the bishops are doing with their aforementioned list.

The Sacred Meets The Profane

Oprah Winfrey recently interviewed several members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a growing order near Ann Arbor, Michigan. You can read a bit about the show here and watch one of the segments below.

I'm not an Oprah follower (no TV in our household), but I do know enough about her show to have been curious as to how the splashy, pop-culture-queen Oprah would present the Sisters. I have to admit that the segment is pretty good! After all, who among us does know much about the life of the religious? Hearing these young women explain why they left the secular world to join a religious community is eye-opening and inspirational. Yes, Oprah had to sensationalize her questions about their vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, but the Sisters' answers are so articulate and thoughtful that it's easy to overlook Oprah's media hype. Oprah devoted a lot of time to the Sisters and the show's correspondent traveled to the Michigan convent and spent some time there.

LGBT Law in the Military--Bad Law and Bad News

The matter of gays serving openly in the military lingers on as a very troubling issue. Dick Cheney is now on board with his recent remarks that, "Twenty years ago, the military were strong advocates of 'don't ask, don't tell.' I think things have changed significantly since then ... I think the society has moved on. I think it's partly a generational question. When the chiefs come forward and say, 'We think we can do it,' then it strikes me that it's -- it's time to reconsider the policy. And I think Admiral Mullen said that."

The chiefs haven't actually come forward to say that, and Mullen's comments, as already noted, were his personal opinion not his opinion about what was best for the military. As for society having 'moved on,' what evidence is there that it's been for the better?

Cheney notes that views about gays are generational. Yes, I've noticed too that there's a tolerance, even a disinterested acceptance of homosexuality among the younger generations, but that only suggests to me that relativism, secularism and gay lobbies have successfully brainwashed whole segments of our culture, including, apparently, people supposedly as distinguished and smart as Dick Cheney. Just because the kids think being gay is not a big deal doesn't make it so, and that's especially true when it comes to gays in the military, an institution about which most of us, including young people, know very little.

The Center for Military Readiness held a news conference today on the question of how gays in the military would improve military readiness. As one of their policy papers explains, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, Rep. Patrick Murphy, is sponsoring H.R. 1283, legislation that would repeal Section 654, Title 10, U.S.C. (commonly, though erroneously, known as 'don't ask, don't tell') and would "replace it with an open-ended, radical “LGBT Law” that would forbid discrimination based on “homosexuality or bisexuality, whether the orientation is real or perceived.”"

This same policy paper contains charts showing the consequences that will arise if such a law is passed--how this social engineering project places fabricated rights above the needs of the military, the potential increase in sexual harrassment to include not only male/female harrassment, but male/male and female/female harrassment as well as demands for PC diversity training just to mention a few. As the charts show, open homosexuality in the military can only lead down a black hole--"Military Reputation and Recruiting Rates Down" and "Military Culture Irrevocably Degraded."

Unfortunately, we have a president who places his liberal social ideology above the best interests of the military, along with a culture so steeped in narcissistic self-involvement that its citizens have little motivation (and perhaps now lack the ability) to consider the greater good as opposed to what's good 'for me.' The Center for Military Readiness is rightly examining the issue of gays in the military in terms of the former.

The Mount Vernon Statement

First there was the Manhattan Declaration and now there's The Mount Vernon Statement.

Over 100 conservative leaders signed the statement yesterday saying they 'recommit' themselves to the ideas of the Founding Fathers including those stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. There's nothing bad about the document, but it seems a bit redundant. After all, we already have the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and we already know that the founding principles are under attack by progressives and liberals. The statement is also kind of vague: "If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose." Which critical battles? Which purpose?

There's a preachy tone to the statement as well with: "We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles." Why? Because the conservative leaders say so? I think this is the objection of Ann Kane in her American Thinker piece. The notion of a conservative establishment is as troubling to her as that of a liberal establishment.

While there's no particular reason to compare the two, The Mount Vernon Statement lacks for me some of the punch of the Manhattan Declaration. The latter defines the culture wars in our society, draws a line in the sand and calls on Christians to defend their beliefs in the public square. I'm not sure exactly what the Mount Vernon Statement does.

Women in the Military

An article in the Times advocating women in combat units in the military prompted Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo to emphatically disagree. Rather strange that he opposes women serving in combat units, but finds the idea of gays serving openly to be acceptable. (He does acknowledge the irony.)

Catherine Ross, the female civil affairs sergeant who authored the Times article strikes that whiny, let-me-play-too tone as to why women serving alongside men in combat is no problem. After all, it wasn't a problem for her she says. When she had to share a container (hardly combat) with three male soldiers, they were, in her words, "perfect gentlemen." And if they hadn't been? I imagine that Ross would have been quick to file a sexual harrassment suit and seek redress for the wrongs committed against her person.

This article boils down to a few loosely connected thoughts on the part of a somewhat smug female who seems to place a lesser value on her innate feminine qualities and a greater value on her ability to be just like a man. Ross expresses the perverse twist of the feminist agenda which is not and never was a celebration of being female. Rather, it's an agenda fueled by women who covet entry into a man's world----but only on a woman's terms.

Far more interesting than Ross's article are the comments posted by readers of the Blackfive article. There is another set of comments here. As one reader comments:

I have an image of an interview with Navy Secretary John Lehman. I'll paraphrase: "Surely there are a few women who can run and jump and carry as much weight as men. Maybe 1 percent. But they are freaks. And we're not building a Navy on freaks." There are plenty of places for women in the military. We bring talents and a unique skill set to many different jobs. But battlefields and combat should not be on the list. I think they should interview every man who has been in combat and ask him "Would you want your daughter to experience what you experienced?" Bet I know the 99% answer.