November 24, 2005 by s.z.

Some Ideas for Your War On Christmas Shopping In the 2005 Christmas Book Gift Guide, National Review Online offers their yearly suggestions on what to wrap up for Grandma, little Bobby and Suzy, your boss, your mistress, Dick Cheney, etc.  And as usual, they suggest books about the history of war, books that bash liberals, and obscure "classics" that prove just how educated and cultured the people making the suggestions are.  (BTW, you can pick up all these kinds of books very cheaply in remaindered bins, at thrift stores, and in land fills, which does make them perfect gift-giving choices.) To me, the most intriguing was this book by the NRO's own Kate O'Beirne:   Not only am I giving this book to grandma, little Bobby and Suzy, etc,. but I'm also buying a copy for Baby Jesus, because I'm sure he loves this kind of thing. Here's part of the publisher's description from the Amazon.com listing: As a woman, Kate O’Beirne can say things a male commentator could never get away with. Thank heavens the Equal Rights Amendment never passed, or Kate couldn't get away with this kind of thing! In her long-awaited first book, she takes on America’s leading feminists—including Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Maureen Dowd, Kate Michelman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and even Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. She confronts them with hard evidence of how women like them have done more harm than good over the last four decades. I'm sure that uber-feminists Hillary Clinton, Maureen Dowd, Carrie Bradshaw, etc. will be properly chastened when they learn of how they've been found wanting in the "doing good" department. O’Beirne is all for women’s equality and celebrates the unprecedented opportunities they enjoy today. But she faults those feminists who believe that a hostile patriarchy reigns and that women remain its helpless victims. Their agenda is not profemale; it’s merely antimale. Women Who Make the World Worse shows how their destructive handiwork can be felt in every corner of American life, including: • fractured families and dispensable dads • offices and schools that have become battlegrounds in the gender wars • military units that put lives at risk to promote social engineering So, Kate is all for women's equality, as long as it doesn't involve women getting divorces, women having jobs, or women in the military. This is a provocative book that will appeal to anyone, male or female, who wants some old-fashioned common sense about relations between the sexes. And that's why I'm giving it to Grandma, little Billy and Suzy, baby Jesus, etc. 1:14:56 PM

Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of the holiday, here's one of my favorite pieces of advertising art from the 1940's.  It's part of a Lucky Strike ad, and the copy reads: "Be Happy -- Go Lucky" "Thanksgiving is a doleful day For turkeys and the like. But you will have a happy time If you smoke Lucky Strikes." The woman in the illustration does seem to be having a happy time, riding with wild abandon in a wheel barrel full of squash and gourds, and getting ready to kick the heck out of a turkey bystander.  I'm sure she has been smoking something . . . I hope all of you have a great holiday.  I plan to have a quiet dinner with my parents and one of my brothers, then return home to have my own Mystery Science Theater 3000 marathon.  It will include at least some of the following: Santa Claus vs. the Martians -- love that Droppo! Santa Claus (the movie that provides the theology behind the War on Christmas, since from it we learn that Satan's archenemy is Santa Claus) San Francisco International (a movie about an airport is always appropriate for this holiday, plus it has a neglected teen, a fake hippie, Tab Hunter as an evil priest, Chad Downs as a pilot with mushy wheels, and MORE!) Invasion U.S.A. (to get into the proper anti-commie spirit).  Plus, it includes the short "A Date With Your Family," which is the perfect Thanksgiving educational film. (Narrator: "The women of this family seem to feel that they owe it to the men of the family to look relaxed, rested, and attractive at dinnertime."  Mike: "So they're unsuspecting when they kill them.") And I will eat leftovers, and give the cats their special Thanksgiving dinner consisting of various cans of Fancy Feast I bought and opened in the hopes of getting Maestro (who is suffering from kidney failure and who has lost at least half of his previous body weight) to eat a little bit.  Alas, they didn't do the trick, so the others will dine on gourmet kitty food that costs, per weight, more than anything I can recall buying for my own consumption.   Sadly, Maestro isn't looking very good right now, and I don't think he will last much longer -- I only hope I can make his last days as comfortable as possible.  4:13:14 AM