Author: VD

The joys of staying home with nothing to do:

Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of “The Secrets of Happily Married Women,” says stay-at-home wives constitute a growing niche. “In the past few years, many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home,” he says. While his research is ongoing, he estimates that more than 10 percent of the 650 women he’s interviewed who choose to stay home are childless.

Daniel Buccino, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine clinical social worker and psychotherapist, says stay-at-home wives are the latest “status symbols.”

I’m of two minds about this supposed trend, or more likely, this latest media attempt to spot a trend in the making. While it’s certainly not my business how married couples choose to order their lives, while I’m very much in favor of stay-at-home mothers, and while I have in the past pointed out how the realities of the income tax and day care expenses render the net income and opportunity cost of the average working mother to be negative, I’ve also been witness to the very real downside of the completely unoccupied woman.

Now, it’s one thing if the woman is a genuine homemaker or seriously devoted to some creative endeavor such as writing or painting. My grandmother never worked after my mother got married; she was a painter and if her landscapes were largely unremarkable, they were both competent and visually attractive. She and my grandfather also maintained a garden and courtyard that bordered on the spectacular; the sheer aesthetic pleasure of visiting their house remains one of my favorite recollections. And, of course, one must remember that not all couples voluntarily elect evolutionary dead-end status; blaming the barren for their childless state is simply piling on.

But it’s another thing altogether if the wife’s idea of homemaking is “managing the help” and her real occupation is bitching about acquaintances at the local coffee shop with her similarly unoccupied friends. Anyone who has grown up in a sufficiently wealthy community will know what I mean; a group of such women gossiping away are like a poisonous swamp giving off a toxic miasma capable of polluting relationships two and three steps removed. It’s little wonder that so many of them end up divorced; there is truth in the old adage about idle hands.

I wonder, too, how many wives would be pleased to support a husband in his decision if he came home and declared that staying home and allowing her to support him was something that he wanted to do? I find it very hard to imagine any normal woman simply smiling and saying, “Why, yes, of course, darling, whatever makes you happy!” Now, the vagaries of the current economy being what they are, there will certainly be times when a couple with children will determine it to be advantageous for the family if the mother works and the father cares for the children. I certainly can’t cast any stones in this regard, as I’d always planned to marry a high-paid international model myself and had in fact made significant progress along those lines when I happened to meet this gorgeous blonde who looked like an Eddie Bauer model doing the whole look-I’m-wearing-an-Irish-sweater-and-walking-a-dog-on-a-cold-Atlantic-beach thing. As it turned out, she was actually a nanny. Whoops… and therefore in the place of a decadent life of writing jaded accounts of the existential ennui that results from living a five-star lifestyle in London, Paris, and Rome, I was forced to come up with some other means of avoiding a commute, an office and obscenely early Monday morning meetings.

The danger for married couples is that what makes an overwhelmed 25-year old woman happy and content may not necessarily do so five or ten years in the future. It’s boredom that makes the housewife desperate. Still, money isn’t even close to being the most important thing in life, so if you can afford to live a life of lehzhure instead of grinding away in pursuit of someone else’s dime, that’s great. But one must have a purpose in life; you can live very well without money or a paying job, but not without a definite reason to get up in the morning.

Or, the crack of noon, as we civilized men of letters prefer.

BKM dared to doubt:

is it possible? Vox could be proven wrong on two major predictions within a span of two months?

inconceivable!

as i remember, you were fairly emphatic that Favre would never wear the purple.

“The Jets, once the team of one of football’s most charismatic quarterbacks, now have another one. They acquired Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers late Wednesday night in a deal the Jets hope will ignite excitement for a team that struggles to remain in the headlines in the same city with the Giants and struggles for competitiveness in the same division as the New England Patriots.”
– The New York Times, 8 Aug, 2008

ProFootballTalk adds: “Adam Schefter of NFL Network reports that, if the Jets were to trade Favre to the Vikings, the Jets would owe the Packers three first-round picks.”

So, yes, I remain entirely comfortable in my emphatic prediction that Favre will not wear the Purple in this or any other NFL season. And although I would have vastly preferred to see #4 instead of the continuation of The Tavaris Jackson Experiment, it’s completely appropriate that Favre never will. Here’s hoping the Vikes go after Pennington as a solid backup in case the Experiment reverts to form. A fourth-rounder for #4 with conditional boosters is an excellent deal for the Jets; I don’t think there’s any fear they’ll end up giving up the first-rounder. Given Chuckie’s predilection for collecting quarterbacks, I’m amazed that Tampa didn’t match or better the offer, but then, I haven’t been keeping track of the salary cap issues and it’s not difficult to imagine that adding a $12 million salary might have been problematic.

As for that other prediction, I’m not exactly the only one who isn’t sure that it’s as over as its said to be:

“Sen. Hillary Clinton told a gathering of supporters last week that she’s looking for a “strategy” for her delegates to have their voices heard and “respected” at the Democratic National Convention — and did not rule out the possibility of having her name placed into nomination at the convention alongside Sen. Barack Obama’s.”
– ABC News, 6 Aug 2008

Respect is just another word for never having to say surrender.

UPDATE – I see from Football Outsiders that Spacebunny’s mother must have made it to the stockholder’s meeting after all:

“Bring him back!”
– A lone woman among the shareholders

The murderess gets custody of her victim’s kids:

Mary Winkler–who shot her husband in the back and then refused to aid him or call 911 as he slowly bled to death for 20 minutes–walked away a free woman last year after serving a farcically brief “sentence” for her crimes…. Mary Winkler was granted supervised visits with her daughters last year. Now, sadly, she has gained back custody of the three girls….

It won’t surprise me in the least if one or more of those girls eventually elects to avenge her father’s murder. The situation certainly seems to cry out for that sort of remorseless Greek nemesis. And why shouldn’t the girls feel free to take justice into their own hands, when being female grants a license to kill in Tennessee?

The Mary Winkler case is one of the many reasons I reject the “equality before the law” argument that is often invoked to defend women’s suffrage and other equalitarian concepts. “Equality” simply does not exist; there is far less material evidence for equality than there is for God. In fact, there’s more material evidence for the existence of Zeus than there is for equality.

Dr. Helen says: “I have no words to describe how unfair the justice system is towards men who are slaughtered by their wives.”

This “women walk free” concept is extraordinarily short-sighted on the part of those administering the “justice” system. They are leaving the relatives of those men with no choice but to take into their own hands the retribution that is being denied by the legal system. Such avengers should be punished, of course. I suggest a just sentence would be precisely the same punishment previously meted out to the murderess.

It’s absurd, what passes for the “mainstream media” spends most of its time covering deaths, car chases, celebrities, and missing children in strange lands because they think that’s what people want them to cover. But when they get something that is both scandalously juicy and relevant to American politics, they sweep it as far under the table as they possibly can.

I’ve gotten notes that Jay Leno joked about Edwards last night, saying something to the effect of: “The National Enquirer reports that John Edwards’ mistress is receiving $15,000 a month in hush money. No word on how much the mainstream media is getting.”

No wonder newspapers are going out of business; they’re quite literally a joke.

Narrowing the range or falsifying string theory?

Scientists working on the CDF and DZero experiments at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are entering Higgs territory. On Sunday, the two groups reported at a conference in Pennsylvania that for the first time their results directly restrict the allowed mass range for the elusive Higgs boson. The results show that the CDF and DZero experiments are sensitive to Higgs signals that may show up as the two collaborations gather and analyze more data.

One of the interesting contrasts between science and atheist logic is the way the two distinctly different methods of thought regard range restriction. For the scientist, the restriction of the allowed mass ranges for the Higgs boson is interpreted as a helpful means of identifying the correct properties of the Higgs boson. While this ongoing search may eventually eliminate the possibility altogether, the basic assumption is that the boson exists and any restrictions discovered will aid them in finding it.

Atheist logic, on the other hand, interprets the restrictions on God’s perceived actions as evidence of His nonexistence. The fact that God does not [fill in the physical action of your choice] as was previously believed is logically extrapolated to the extreme in order to allow for the conclusion that God does not exist. But, as the Higgs hunt shows, this is not only an unscientific way of thinking, its assumptions are precisely the opposite of those made from a scientific perspective.

I’m not into political activist posery, as a general rule. But the decision to hold the Olympics in the People’s Republic of China is an appalling decision that stinks in the nostrils of every decent human being on the planet, particularly in light of the brutal oppression that has characterized the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

So, don’t look for any discussion of the Olympic Games here. This blog will be ignoring them and flying the flag of a free Tibet for the duration of this farce of an Olympics.

In which single childless women belatedly realize they’re not necessarily quite as strong and independent as they’d previously imagined:

As a single childless woman, I share the fear of my readers, above, and no amount of financial preparation for a prolonged old age calms me…. [H]aving witnessed the “new old age’’ from a front-row seat, I’m haunted by the knowledge that there is no one who will care about me in the deepest and most loving sense of the word at the end of my life. No one who will advocate for me, not simply for adequate care but for the small and arguably inessential things that can make life worth living even in compromised health.

I realize that there are some men and women who really wanted very badly to get married and have children, but were unable to do so. But, in my experience, every single unmarried man and woman I know had many opportunities to marry. In every case, they elected not to do so. That’s fine on an individual level – although not necessarily so from a societal perspective – but why should anyone feel sorry for those who are now worried about experiencing the entirely predictable consequences of leading an entirely self-focused life?

If we don’t pity those who smoke like chimneys and eventually get lung cancer, a relatively far less certain outcome, then how can we possibly be expected to concern ourselves with those who are belatedly coming to realize that choosing to rely only on yourself means that you cannot reasonably depend upon anyone else? Why should anyone care One reaps what one sows; if one does not sow, one will not reap.

FH points out an insufficiency in the physics of Fight Club:

I loved your fight club blog, just want to point out a minor science issue as I guess you probably talk about fighting a lot. F=MA tells us the force needed to achieve a given acceleration at any point in time. It doesn’t apply to the impact of a blow. The general equation that most closely applies to that is E =MV2 /2 That would say V squared if I could email in superscript.

So velocity is much more important than mass in determining the kinetic energy of a punch. Even the mass behind a blow is only partly dependent on the weight of the puncher – technique like hip and torso rotation is important to ensure a decent proportion of your body weight is behind the blow. On the other hand body weight also helps the fighter passively in absorbing energy that could otherwise result in greater pain, loss of consciousness and injury.

This makes sense, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it renders F=MA totally inapplicable. Halving the speed of a strike does reduce the impact far more than halving the effective mass of the striker. It’s vastly preferable to get tapped by a big guy than take a full-force punch from a small guy. FH is also correct about the way in which body weight helps absorb energy; some time ago I wrote about the insalubrious result of trying to go toe-to-toe with a fighter of equal strength who outweighed me by 60 pounds.

MC wants to know who would win in a battle of the WND warriors:

I notice that you and Chuck Norris have articles on World Net Daily every Monday. This got me to thinking. Since I enjoy reading both, and since you guys are both martial artists, and since you broke the rule and talked about Fight Club, who do you honestly, think would win in the octagon?

It’s funny that you should ask that; it’s a little known fact that while WorldNetDaily columns are much sought after by television talking heads, laid-off print journalists, and D-List celebrities, to actually earn a headline spot on the center strip of the home page, you have to fight for it. I earned my Monday headline spot back in 2001 with a below-the-belt crane strike that jammed Bill O’Reilly’s testicles so far up his rectum that it took five blonde Fox News reporters equipped with loofahs were to extricate them; the shame of it was such that he fled WND entirely. So, you can probably imagine how intimidated I was last year when I heard a helicopter landing outside and opened the door to see the invincible Chuck Norris his own bad self standing next to Mr. Joseph Farah, wearing the same outfit he’d worn in Enter the Dragon and making a Neo-esque “come and fight” gesture.

Chuck’s Chun Kuk Do was unbelievably strong, but his flexibility has waned with the years and so the lightning-fast sokuto intended for my solar plexus only grazed my left shin. Even so, the speed of it forced me to switch from an aggressive Tiger stance to a more defensive Nekko-achi, from which I snapped a front kick that would have crushed his jaw had he not slashed down with a patented Shigawire Mustache block that severed two of my toes. Screaming in pain and fury, I leaped backward while throwing a defensive maegeri that didn’t make contact, but blinded him with a spray of blood. While Chuck rubbed at his face to clear his vision, I took advantage of his momentary blindness to attack again and broke several of his ribs with a skipping left sokuto that left a bloody footprint on his white gi.

Chuck doubled over and I stepped forward to throw a right-left combination to his head that would have finished him, but the movement turned out to be a ruse. Just as I threw the right hook, he caught my wrist, twisted his body and threw me over his shoulder, slamming me into the pavement in front of my garage. I was stunned, naturally, and my shoulder was dislocated, but I managed to roll away before he drove his heel down into my throat. Still, I was in a very precarious position and had all but given up hope of keeping the hawk on Monday’s front page. Fortunately for me, the disturbance of the air caused by my violent passage through it had slightly ruffled Joseph Farah’s exquisitely coiffed mane, so Mr. Farah immediately called time, declared the match a draw, and told us to sort it out amongst ourselves while he flipped open his solid gold satellite phone and arranged for an emergency styling right there in the driveway.

His personal hair stylist arrived in minutes, but of course it takes time and care to retouch such a detailed work of art, so after Chuck finished bandaging his ribs and Spacebunny reattached my toes with a stapler, Chuck and I realized there was only one reasonable solution for two mighty martial artists like ourselves. We borrowed Mr. Farah’s copter, flew to Ellen Ratner’s house and beat the hell out of her and her two cats.

With apologies to Neal Stephenson, who did it first and did it better.

Res pops up long enough to fire off a question:

I noticed your post about the new book. Congratulations! I hope it does well. I was just wondering, what criteria, if any do you use when deciding to use your real name on a book or other publication?

If it’s fiction, I usually use my given name. If it’s non-fiction, I usually use my pen name. This tends to keep things more or less in order.

Rachel Lucas gives up political blogging:

The main reason people will feel compelled to lie about you or insult you in general is because they actively dislike you. The best way to make people actively dislike you is to publish your political opinions on the internet.

I don’t blame her in the least, although it will be a pity to lose her acerbic take on the madness of the Magic Negro and lunacies of the Left, especially given the prospects for a Democratic victory in November. The extent of my lack of concern for what people think of me and my opinions borders on the conceptual limits of human idiocy, and yet, I have to admit that there are occasionally times when I wonder why I am putting up with yet another ignorant cretin spouting yet more predictable nonsense under the mistaken assumption that he is saying something original.

Then, of course, I remember that my cruelty requires an artistic outlet and instead of being annoyed, I find myself feeling grateful that these masochistic little flies should insist on gracing my humble parlor with their presence despite it being littered with the drained husks of their predecessors. But not everyone is a predator at heart and it is unfortunate that the web Miss Lucas happens to spin is so attractive to so many unappealing intellectual insects.

I don’t know how long I’ll continue this blog, but I tend to find myself invigorated by all the lies and the cheap shots. Perhaps, as some of my friends have suggested, I feed too much on the Dark Side of the Force, but when I see blatantly untrue things being posted about me or ludicrous things being added to my biography on Wikipedia, it just gives me the motivation to work that much harder.

UPDATE – We’re NUMBER 24! It seems someone thinks VP is the 24th most influential liberty-oriented blog on the Internet. Given the fact that this blog averages less than 5,000 daily readers, this tends to support my theory that America is simply not slavering after its missing freedom.

In case you’re interested, I’ll be doing an hour-long interview today from 4-5 EST with Jerry Hughes. There is an online stream to his show, Straight Talk, if you’d like to listen. I believe we’ll be discussing TIA.