First and Last in America

The other day, President Obama made this statement in reaction to the ongoing Trevon Martin saga:




While the not guilty verdict for George Zimmerman will stand, the president has more than a few salient points. Besides his own genuine experiences as described, with "a woman clutching her purse...," young African American males are, among other things, more likely to be incarcerated than matriculated in college or voc-tech, and the most impoverished and homicide-prone of all groups. There are certainly competing interpretations of this on the socio-political level, certainly when it comes to finding solutions.

But if one group is last in America, then which group is first? hint: the one that is among the least homicide-prone, absolutely the most educated, and brought up to routinely compete with and successfully beat their supposed oppressors. This manifests in their higher average incomes compared with their male peers. All of this while operating under a similar aura of oppression as the young, black male, courtesy of today's irrational, institutional feminism.

CASE IN POINT, this parody:

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult

Here, I'm talking about the young, Millennial, Caucasian American female. Long prioritized by society, she's entitled to the best of both worlds from men and society, access to the full gamut of marketplace opportunity, and still a large swath of Victorian female privileges. They can openly blame the male species for their pelvic mishaps, and do so frequently.

Well, the true price tag has arrived, folks. Hold on to your armor, white knight baby-boomer daddies:

See it here:
And down here, too:

Helen Smith.

Author, "Men on Strike."

8 Reasons Straight Men Don't Want To Get Married

It seems that fewer and fewer people in general are getting married these days, and even fewer men seem interested. Men no longer see marriage as being as important as they did even 15 years ago. "According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997--from 28 percent to 37%. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent." Why?

1. You'll lose respect. A couple of generations ago, a man wasn't considered fully adult until he was married with kids. But today, fathers are figures of fun more than figures of respect: The schlubby guy with the flowered diaper bag at the mall, or one of the endless array of buffoonish TV dads in sitcoms and commercials. In today's culture, father never knows best. It's no better in the news media. As communications professor James Macnamara reports, "by volume, 69 percent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavorable, compared with just 12 percent favorable and 19 percent neutral or balanced."

2. You'll lose out on sex. Married men have more sex than single men, on average - but much less than men who are cohabiting with their partners outside of marriage, especially as time goes on. Research even suggests that married women are more likely to gain weight than women who are cohabiting without marriage. A Men's Health article mentioned one study that followed 2,737 people for six years and found that cohabiters said they were happier and more confident than married couples and singles.

3. You'll lose friends. "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine." That's an old song, but it's true. When married, men's ties with friends from school and work tend to fade. Although both men and women lose friends after marriage, it tends to affect men's self-esteem more, perhaps because men tend to be less social in general. >

4. You'll lose space. We hear a lot about men retreating to their "man caves," but why do they retreat? Because they've lost the battle for the rest of the house. The Art of Manliness blog mourns "The Decline of Male Space," and notes that the development of suburban lifestyles, intended to bring the family together, resulted in the elimination of male spaces in the main part of the house, and the exile of men to attics, garages, basements - the least desirable part of the home. As a commenter to the post observes: "There was no sadder scene to a movie than in 'Juno' when married guy Jason Bateman realized that in his entire huge, house, he had only a large closet to keep all the stuff he loved in. That hit me like a punch in the face."

5. You could lose your kids, and your money. And they may not even be your kids. Lots of men I spoke with were keenly aware of the dangers of divorce, and worried that if they were married and it went sour, the woman might take everything, including the kids. Other men were concerned that they might wind up paying child support for kids who aren't even theirs - a very real possibility in many states. On my blog, I polled over 3200 men to ask how they would react to finding out that a child wasn't theirs after all. 32 percent said they would feel "anger and fury at the mother," 6 percent said they would feel "depression," 18 percent said "anger and depression," 2 percent said "none of the above," 32 percent said "angry at the system that forced them to pay," and only 2 percent "didn't care." One man commented that his ex-wife had taunted him with the knowledge that his 11-year old son wasn't actually his: "I was angry at the mother...I severed all ties to the boy. Some may see this as a failing. I see it as self-preservation, and to those that ask the question of whether or not the courts will make a non-biological parent pay child support, pay attention: YES THEY WILL! They see you as nothing more than a source of cash for the child. It seems that a person in these situations should be able to sue the real father for child support."

6. You'll lose in court. Men often complain that the family court legal system is stacked against them, and in fact it seems to be. Women gain custody and child support the majority of the time, as pointed out in this ABC News article: "Despite the increases in men seeking and receiving alimony, advocates warn against linking the trend to equality in the courtroom. Family court judges still tend to favor women, said Ned Holstein, the founder of Fathers & Families, a group advocating family court reform. "'Family court still gives custody overwhelmingly to mothers, child support overwhelmingly to mothers, and courts still give almony overwhelmingly to mothers and women,' he said. 'The family courts came into existence years ago in order to give things to mothers that mothers needed," he said. 'The times have changed and the courts have not.'"

7. You'll lose your freedom. At least, if you're charged with child support that you can't pay, you can be put in jail - and if you can't afford a lawyer, you don't have the right to have one appointed because, according to the Supreme Court, it's technically a civil matter, never mind the jail time. Fathers and Families found that it's the men who are jailed rather than women: "A new report concludes that between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men. Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001 to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support. Further analysis suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations."

8. Single life is better than ever. While the value of marriage to men has declined, the quality of single life has improved. Single men were once looked on with suspicion, passed over for promotion for important jobs, which usually valued "stable family men," and often subjected to social opprobrium. It was hard to have a love life that wasn't aimed at marriage, and premarital sex was risky and frowned upon. Now, no one looks askance at the single lifestyle, dating is easy, and employers probably prefer employees with no conflicting family responsibilities. Plus, video games, cable TV, and the Internet provide entertainment that didn't used to be available. Is this good for society? Probably not, as falling birth rates and increasing single-motherhood demonstrate. But people respond to incentives. If you want more men to marry, it needs to be a more attractive proposition.

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Get off your high horses, you Catholo-New Feminists. And most other self-described "feminists" as well. And Victorian traditionalists. Return to the living wage of the bygone era if you truly want your daughters to be well "taken care of," for starters. DISCLAIMER: I don't agree with every point that every author makes. I do not accept cohabitation.

The "Vortex" of Catholic Neoconservtives

In recent days, revelations emerged that Pope Francis spoke of a Vatican underworld that involves an actively homosexual clerical network. This video was produced by Michael Voris, who leads the ChurchMilitant.tv online media network.





Voris hesitates with this until the end of the broadcast, but then finally starts naming, well, institutions and entities that shill for the modern Petrine establishment at all costs. They are the usual suspects: EWTN (and apparently its prissy, effeminate news director), its weekly paper, the National Catholic Register, and various low-rated radio outlets, such as Ave Maria Radio, founded by former tycoon Tom Monahan.

You see, they are all fanatical clericalists. These are folks and institutions who do little more than simply identify with the clerical power establishment, like the American Bishops Conference, to establish their supposed sanctity. They act like a bunch of latter-day Pharisee concubines, and little else.

It's very simple: there's a difference between the Faith and its truths, and those who operate the Church. Many of those who lead the Church are faithful, though Scripture warns of being like the Pharisees, who represented the pinnacle of the religious establishment.

It's interesting how Voris mentions men's and women's conferences, that took place in March, as having been venues for certain speakers trashing him and defending the gay priest underworld as being largely non-existent. No doubt, such conferences promote the "New Feminism," which is bent on advancing a hybrid of Victorian-sounding pieties about women, combined with tightly-defined gender roles (50s style), and Andrea Dworkin-sounding condemnations of men's sexuality, all rolled together. On the sexuality front, it's really only men who do the sinning in what is now the post-sexual revolution era, as younger women are constantly "being objectified."

It's all about innate hypocrisy built upon other hypocrisies. Of course, "we'll lose the culture war if we go against other 'faithful.'" NEWSFLASH: They've already been lost.

It's past high time to gut the house and re-built from the bottom up.

Francis: keeping it real in his early days

The papacy of Francis, Bishop of Rome, has caught many off-guard in its debut. In particular, the way he has quickly filled the papal "shoes," as exemplified by his approach to Holy Week celebrations.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Observers have noted, for example, that Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, still wears the cross he wore as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rather than the golden one customary for popes, and that he has declined to wear the papal red shoes and other fancy vestments favored by past pontiffs.

Earlier this week, the pope indicated he wouldn't move into the pontiff's gilded official quarters in the Apostolic Palace any time soon, instead planning to stay at a modest Vatican guesthouse....

In his first general audience Wednesday, Francis said that Catholics needed to "be the first to move towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, consolation and help"...That contrasted with his predecessor, who viewed the church's relationship with the secular world as largely adversarial, and responded by defending the church's fundamental beliefs and rituals.

Until Pope Francis, no pontiff had ever washed the feet of a woman or a Muslim on Holy Thursday, which marks two of the most important institutions in Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist and the priesthood...For Pope Francis, in a Holy Thursday Mass, to clean the feet of two women, including a Muslim from Serbia, left some speechless...

If Rome has a McDonald's, it won't be long until Francis will be found, with his ecclesial cadre, having a post-audience happy meal.

People look at this with raised eyebrows to say the very least. Some are thrilled with his down-to-earthness, while others are simply appalled. These 'others' include American neoconservatives, along with the return-to-all-Latin traditionalists. The former, of course, is most concerned with strengthening the authority and influence of the papal and episcopal (i.e., bishops) offices over the Church and the world. The latter fixates on reviving traditional expressions, both in papal pageantry and liturgy in general. So far, it's not going so well, as so noted.

One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, "Rorate Caeli," reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict's eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council's modernizing reforms.

"The official end of the reform of the reform — by example," ''Rorate Caeli" lamented in its report on Francis' Holy Thursday ritual.

A like-minded commentator in Francis' native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis' election with this phrase: "The Horror." Gonzalez's beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were "non-existent."

Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.

I think it's important to underscore this fact: he's a Jesuit. Jesuits, of course, are regarded, on balance, as being part of the liberal wing of the Church. Though dogmatically, that's not always true at all. Bergoglio was a no-nonsense, hard-liner among major South American prelates, especially when it came down to major doctrinal and social concerns on the national stage: abortion and contraception, preserving opposite-sex marriage, opposing euthanasia, opposing Communist liberation theology, and so on. Unlike in 90 percent of Europe, where all previous popes hailed from, abortion is ILLEGAL in Argentina. Might that owe somewhat to Bergoglio?

In the last dozen or so years, I visited a number of Jesuit order churches, from the east coast to as far as San Francisco. Four were parishes, one was a college campus church. While I am a fan of the Jesuits (yet no real liberal), and do adore the more solemn, formal liturgies, these places of worship defied category.

Compared with most other modern-day, large parishes, these churches offered distinct liturgical variety among their weekend Masses. Spanish Masses, contemporary guitar Masses, even liturgical dance Masses. But they all held, as central, a very rubric-heavy, solemn Sunday Mass with many traditional trappings (among them, incense and polyphonic music, large pipe organs with a trained choir). And I do mean beautiful and reverential, much of what would appeal to conservative-minded churchgoers. Yet, to some degree, it also appeals to what and who largely remains the Jesuit "clientele": the more affluent and educated.

The solemn masses at the Jesuit parishes were far better done, and more "high church" than at the average parish, including most supposedly conservative parishes I've been to. Better sacred music, nicer church buildings, and far better preaching.

For certain, the parishes are very social justice oriented. But there were also rosary societies, frequent Eucharistic devotions, and certainly Ignatian activities and retreats.

But the more profound differences were also more subtle. Some of the Jesuit priests, though wearing the proper vestments during Mass, were otherwise in civilian clothes, not the standard clerical black outfits. Some were on a first-name basis with parishioners, or introduced themselves using a first name, sans the prefix "Father." In other words, they were less clericalist. Writes Russell Shaw:

Clericalism, however, is...a caricature. It fosters an ecclesiastical caste system in which clerics comprise the dominant elite, with lay people serving as a passive, inert mass of spear-carriers tasked with receiving clerical tutelage and doing what they're told. This upstairs-downstairs way of understanding relationships and roles in the Church extends even to the spiritual life: priests are called to be saints, lay people are called to satisfy the legalistic minimum of Christian life and scrape by into purgatory...

Of course, where I differ with Shaw is on John Paul II. No pope in modern times has done more to re-characterize and caricature the clericalist state than the great saint pontiff himself. Note the results, you know, the ones that sank the Benedict XVI papacy.

Some neoconservatives, who tend to go along with whatever the Vatican says and does on most things on the basis of authority, are catching on. Writing in the mother of all clericalist, neocon rags, The National Catholic Register, Father Roger Landry makes no bones about what Pope Francis is all about, and what's on the horizon:

One of the most urgent reforms facing him is the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy, and especially of the priesthood. The scandals of clerical sex abuse and tales of Vatican corruption have not only severely undermined the Church’s moral authority, but given the impression that living by the Church’s teachings forms freaks and moral monsters rather than saints.

In his first couple of weeks as Pope, as well as his 14 years in Buenos Aires, Francis has been charting out the trajectory of priestly reshaping...Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. In many places, this principle is given lip service, as members of the clergy drive fancy cars, frequent the finest restaurants and live in exquisite digs...Second, throughout his time as archbishop, the future Pope spoke out forcefully against priests’ living a “double-life.” When he was asked in a 2010 book-length interview, El Jesuita, about the common saying in Argentina, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in priests,” he replied, “Many of us priests do not deserve to have them believe in us.”

In Buenos Aires, if the priests found themselves in difficult circumstances, he would help them address their situation, even if it meant their deciding to leave the priesthood. What he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate, however, was priests’ living incoherent lives, because he knew how much that harms and scandalizes God’s people (blogger's note: JPII put a moratorium on men leaving the priesthood, or being laicized, expecting them to work out their double lives).

...Like the Good Shepherd, the priest must seek to be the servant, not the lord, of the rest. This is the exact opposite of the haughty clericalism that in many places has hurt many and wounded the Church.

This is very profound, coming from Father Landry, a noted grad of North American College in Rome. I guess he knows a few of his classmates well when he writes "haughty clericalism." He certainly isn't talking of the Spencer Tracy-era priests he never encountered. Believe me. For the younger ordinands who view themselves as only about sharing in divinity, as entitled to deference and comfort, this will be a shock. It WILL drive a good many of them out of the priesthood. Good riddance.

The substance of the Church is true and real. The culture of the Church can change, and change it will. These changes won't be to everyone's liking, perhaps not always to mine. But here we have a shepherd-leader who is a Vatican outsider, who will reform the curia and the hierarchy. I believe the changes are coming, and they're coming fast!

It seems that, all at once, the old order that dominated the last quarter of the 20th century, and ushered in the 2000s, has dissolved. Not only am I speaking of a papacy bent on political power (instead of tending to internal Church matters), but also a Republican Party in the U.S. bent on state, military, and corporate power.

On a man being a "stable, good provider"

This is often an opening in any discussion about marriage with the supposedly tradition-minded today. The Art of Manliness site calls it one of the "five switches" of manhood.

We’ve all heard this phrase before; it remains common even in our modern society. When someone says that a man should be a good provider, what they invariably mean is that he should have a good job that earns a steady income, one which enables him to provide food, shelter, and the nice things in life to his family.

But interestingly:

This definition of being a provider is well-ingrained in our society and in the male psyche. In fact, when men lose a job, and thus their identity as a provider, they tend to get very anxious and depressed...Last time, we mentioned the fact that in very primitive societies, men and women provided about equal resources to their tribes; women gathered nuts and seeds, and men hunted big game. In fact, for much of human history, men and women contributed fairly equally to the family economy. The idea of the stay-at-home wife who lounged around the house while her husband toiled all day outside the home is a relatively modern conception of family life. It wasn’t until the 19th century that we saw this idea take hold in the West and even then, the working husband and stay-at-home wife dynamic was typically only available to the wealthy and middle-class. In most families, both men and women had to work in some capacity in order to keep the family afloat financially.

Of course, it all really changed mid-20th century, following the War. America had fermented itself as a superpower, and prosperity was not out of reach for anyone able-bodied and un-feeble-minded.

This month, I've redebuted with a lead feature in New Oxford Review, a Catholic monthly (or at least for 10 months, including two combined issues.) In it, I give much further elaboration on the above-mentioned point, pairing it against the modern realities of female competitiveness.

I couldn't say it in the article, but my true sentiment is this: when a younger, millennial generation gal wants a "good provider," she may as well say, "I'm a little girl, pamper me." She wants a SOLE provider to take care of her like daddy did, including listening to her pouting and tantrums. And guess what? Men -- those who stay planted in front of the latest version of X-box, with bong in hand -- aren't striking out. No, they're on strike. Only some of the wimpiest, most Moma-devoted (and I don't mean the Blessed Virgin) males seek out and put up with such nonsense.

Today's Americana mating scene works this way: she screws around with a bunch of guys (a mixture of 'dates' and boyfriends), then will fault men collectively for the "fallout" that comes with promiscuity (especially for women, many would say). Then when it's nearing time to settle down (give or take, age 30), she'll sort through the more steady, serious men like she has a million and one options to her name. He'd better have a 'steady' job and income, one in excess of hers, yet a guy who at least vaguely excites her much the way her former flames did.

The strike continues.

Monsignor John Allard's Stunning Admission

Late yesterday (Feb. 25), news broke of yet another Catholic priest in the Diocese of Providence (R.I.) being named as an accused sex abuser of minors. This is the second priest removed in as many months in Rhode Island.

Yet, a couple of things make this matter even more stunning. Monsignor John Allard was a high-ranking clergyman in Rhode Island, named a monsignor (or "chaplain to His Holiness") almost two decades ago. He spearheaded many youth outreach efforts in the state as well, settling in as the de facto spiritual figurehead in Woonsocket, a historic haven of French-Canadian Catholicism.

What else? He admitted his guilt.

For almost a decade, George Weigel, most recently the author of Evangelical Catholicism, declared that the Church in the U.S. "has cleaned house." True, the rate of allegations being discovered or newly made has dropped hugely in recent years. But consider also how the allegations that were revealed a decade ago against scores of priests had collected after many decades of Bishops sitting atop them and doing nothing.

These new allegations against two of R.I.'s local clergy each date back 25 and 30 years. And that's exactly the point: they're NOT new. Therefore, the Bishops haven't cleaned house yet.

These incidents are quite a lot for some people around this state to bite off all at once. I'm especially referring to the laypeople who looked up to Monsignor Allard as their point of contact to the divine. Usually, parishioners are stunned, while many get combatively defensive when their pastor is accused. It's as though claims against their spiritual sage is a direct assault on their own personal moral integrity, as now some are feeling the shame of looking up to such filth as a moral compass.

The easiest things to do are deny or minimize the situation. As outrageous as it is, a good number of Allard parishioners (present and former) have taken to the internet to do so. Even when he ADMITTED IT!

In general, the following are some of the bromides that "faithful Catholics" use when their favorite priest gets accused. These are NOT specific to the Allard matter itself, and are hypothetical:

"These allegations are old. It happened so long ago. Why does it matter now, since then he's done so much good."

Your grandmother's funeral that he presided over so graciously was probably so long ago, too. The infant baptisms and weddings he performed were ages ago. Suffering from sex abuse -- especially by a PRIEST -- has no comparison to other afflictions in life. So many of today's Catholics have a huge victim mentality as it is, seeing themselve as "persecuted," while having been mainstreamed into society for generations.

"You can't just presume he's guilty like that!"

Nor can you presume that, just because he's your family favorite, the accusers are liars. The record reflects a high rate of accused being found guilty, or admitting to some degree of guilt at some later point.

"Most priests are INNOCENT. This kind of publicity over one accusation makes them all look bad."

Of course most priests are not so depraved. But just consider how much the accused have moved around over the years. How many rectories they've lived in, and how many other priests they've lived with. These "innocent" priests want to save face, for themselves and the Church, and say and do very little about it. In certain respects, they are just as guilty. How many American Catholic priests have vigorously spoken out against this? Sure, some would be censured, but it's easy enough for a bishop-enabler to do so to one priest detractor, because so few others band together with him to expose this crap.

"You heathens are denigrating Christ's One, True Church! You are against us no matter what because of your secularism.

Their secularism wouldn't be so strident were it not for your hypocrisy. Another way you put it is to accuse your detractors of "casting the first stone." Christ decreed that millstones be wrapped around the necks of these perverts, as they're tossed into the ocean. How's that for throwing stones? Don't throw them, WRAP them! Otherwise, it's the Catholic Church and their pharasiac proctors who cast the initial stones, simply by always assuming the moral high ground by virtue of their Church affiliation alone. How can these Catholics EVER preach sexual morality to ANYONE, while simultaneously waving their fists in the air in favor of the lowest of deviants?

"You're not a true Catholic!"

Right now, I'd be tempted to wear that as a badge of honor.

"You know, some of us are very influential. We own businesses, hold executive positions, are fairly successful dentists, lawyers, and so on. When you accuse the priest of our lovely, prominent parish which we fund, we'll find ways to shut you up!"

Go right ahead. Just ask the attorneys among you about "anti-S.L.A.P.P." statutes, and how they can be used against you in court. That, and your businesses and lines of work can be named publicly on blogs like this one (along with your public priest deviant defences). These livlihoods will suffer for sure. No matter how "aggressive" an attorney you find yourselves, any defamation action on your behalf will fail.

"You have NO Right to say ANY of what you're saying about priests and the Church!!!"

If that's so, then you have no right to even practice your faith. You see, it's all covered under the First Amendment. Both freedom of religion (preventing government intrusion upon it) AND free speech (preventing established Church suppression of it) MUST coexist. There's simply no way to argue against Obama's impositions on the Catholic Church through the Affordable Care Act, citing Freedom of Religion, then turn around and harange people over exercising speech rights. Maybe this is why the liberals have no problem targeting Catholic institutions in particular.


As far as Allard, something remarkable happened. HE ADMITTED IT. This sets an enormous precedent in the local church. Further clerics who are accused are now under pressure to do the same, when in fact guilty. Yet, there are still the most brilliant among the holy pew rollers who flout the truth and post snide commentaries as this one:

As Jesus himself said: "Let the one without sin throw the first stone." We are "forbidden to judge" one another. I believe this is an opportunity for all of us to look within ourselves and reflect on our own lives, what we have done, what we have failed to do, our sinful thoughts and hurtful words...none of us are without fault even our leaders...This priest is stellar and has inspired the lives of many, I do not believe and will not believe that he would ever take advantage of any child. There is more to this and Satan himself is at the head of this. If this takes you away from your faith, then you never had faith at all."

Allard was known to be kind of liberal in clerical circles, so not judging was likely his teaching, never the Church's. Satan is at the head of this, alright. Drawing so many out of the Church, leaving so many like this behind in the pews to pose as "faithful." Yes, there is more: read the news release from the Bishop, the investigation into Allard is ongoing.

So stay tuned.

The Friend Zone, part three: How Sexist it is!

This "intelligent" young feminist blogger has quite a bit to say about "nice guys" and their friend zone:

"The Nice GuyTM Syndrome the phenomenon in which a self-proclaimed “nice guy” laments about how his close female friends – for whom he harbors feelings – never want to have a relationship or sex with him. “Why does she always go for the jerk?” the “nice guy” laments. “I’m such a NICE GUY!” Often in these situations, the woman has no idea what his feelings are. Other times, they know but don’t reciprocate, preferring to carry on a friendship than a relationship."

"This, apparently, is totally unacceptable to them. There are memes devoted to the dreaded “friend zone.” There are angsty chain Facebook statuses that are posted passive aggressively time and time again. One of them reads, “A woman has a close male friend. This means he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much.” Right, because no one wants to be friends with a woman unless she’s having sex with them eventually, right? The status continues to compare a woman just wanting a friendship with a man to a job interview in which the potential employer says, 'You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we’re not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic.'"

Or better yet, take the job for no pay, while hiring somebody else with lesser qualifications as your boss. That seems more like it. I will give her some kudos on the first part, though.

She elaborates that nice guys "stew bitterly in a sense of their own entitlement, waiting indignantly for something that was never promised to them." In other words, such a guy thinks he's been "robbed of his birthright" when denied the eros he desires, and relegated to being a "just a friend."

In conclusion, "If you have sincere, romantic feelings for a woman you’re friends with, be up front with her." Ditto there. As I've written in two posts below, it is quite pathetic that guys are too wimpy as not to do this. They'll self-righteously pigeonhole real men as "players" and "disrespectful toward women" for not "getting to know them first." All the while, they harbor this erotic attraction, the most pathetic among them finding a herd of women to befriend, moving from one to the next as "friends" when the last heartfelt confession was shot down by the one before.

But this blogging beauty mandates "And if she doesn’t feel the same way? Value her anyway. Be her friend," She also decries romance-seeking men in general as disrespecting of women whom they don't prioritize in their lives as platonic friends, on the basis alone of her whims and their previous interactions.

What stuck-up, misandrist thinking this is. Yes, a man has, as his birthright, the need to find a wife. That usually doesn't happen listening to the likes of this brilliant dame bemoan being "used," along with all her past "friends with benefits" mishaps. He has just as much a right to find love with the opposite sex as do you. Your late night, tear-soaked phonecalls about more boy problems (all of whom you chose, by the way) is a HUGE energy and time drain that hampers the emotional and social growth of both parties. He could be spending that time meeting women who appreciate him for all that he is.

Her argument is fallaciously predicated on the belief that since she already cares for a nice guy as a platonic friend, that he ought to sincerely reciprocate as such. While alleging that these guys only want to get laid by their attractive female friends, these women are so caring and charitable as to still be there for him as his friend. But her own anecdotes speak to the reality of this arrangement: he exists largely as her on-call, free therapeutic crying towel. Who's going to be his free shrink when the poor sap is consumed not by sexual frustration, but pure grief, whenever her tears and moments of joy surrounding her latest paramour are dumped on his lap?

Her (and many others like her) sense of entitlement to his unrequited adoration speaks to a disordered self-centerdness on the women's part. This is almost particular to many Americana Millennial females, who see themselves as perpetual victims no matter what.

Providence College: The Reality

One of the top-ranked Catholic universities in the country today is Providence College (PC). It has consistently ranked in the top five of the US News and World Report "top master's universities -- northeast" category for many years, and has received commendation among a host of other, lesser known college guides.



The institution, which is primarily undergraduate in scope, is operated by the Dominican Fathers (a.k.a. Order of Preachers Friars) Province of St. Joseph. No other higher education outfit in North America (besides a few seminaries) is affiliated exclusively with Dominican clergymen.

PC is especially unique not only for achieving top secular rankings, but a particularly notable religious one as well. In 2007, the Cardinal Newman Society, the de facto watchdog of Catholic education in America (on the basis of orthodoxy), included PC in its then-newly debuted college guide. Listed among barely two-dozen of America's "most Catholic" colleges, PC was lauded for its uniquely rigorous, freshman and sophomore Development of Western Civilization (DWC) core curriculum, an anomaly even among Catholic schools today. This particular core curriculum imitates the traditional, classical model, emphasizing the Great Books, theology, Western philosophy, and other humanities concerns. The institution was likewise lauded for its then-recently installed president, Father Brian Shanley, O.P.

In 2006, Father Shanley forced the annual V-Day, or Vagina Monologues production to leave the campus. This was in spite of fairly widespread faculty and student dissent. PC had been among three-dozen or so Catholic colleges (of some 220 in the US) to harbor the annual man-bashing, obscene spectacle, a supposed celebration of female sexuality and protest against man vs. woman violence. That same year, a notorious sociology professor, who had been exposed by the student newspaper for engaging female undergraduates in lewd speech during classes over many years, was abruptly "retired."

I wrote about these and other serious irregularities for a feature on PC in the October 2004 edition of New Oxford Review. This article was largely written in reaction to the continued praise heaped upon PC by the right wing Intercollegiate Studies Institute's College Guide.

A number of folks have requested that I write an update on the College, given some seemingly positive developments (at least from the traditional Catholic perspective) in more recent times. Consider also that the Dominican's St. Joseph Province, and the loosely-affiliated Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are both among the more conservative Catholic religious communities in the US today, the latter of which has become far more involved with the campus.

Unfortunately, the update is not a positive one. The Newman Guide has obviously booted PC off of its select "recommended colleges" list.

Among other matters, are perhaps the student body subculture themes embodied in this serious viewer warning candid camera spoof, live from the PC quad, seen below:



How's that for some religious conversion? Let me tell you, that little scene is TAME for what happens at PC. For several years, Providence College has ranked as one of America's top party schools, listing as #3 in "most beer drinkers" and #1 in "most hard liquor drinkers." PC has long hosted an on-campus watering hole as well. In common parlance, this is f'ing extreme...

Recently, the TFP Student Action, another conservative activist group focused on higher education, listed Providence College as among the 52 percent of American Catholic colleges and universities that hosts a "pro-homosexual club." If I recall, this "SHEPHERD" group goes back about nine years. If 52 percent of Catholic colleges have such a club, then 48 percent do not. Yet, somehow PC has been able to finagle its way onto the highly recommended lists of two of the most conservative-leaning college guides in the last several years, in spite of its true substantive nature.

As for academics: The most recent major to be added to the undergraduate roster is Women's Studies. Previously, it was an interdiciplinary minor. Then, having been severely henpecked by the campus-based feminists in the face of expelling V-Day from college grounds (over its outward obscenities), Father Shanley has been looking for ways to make it up to them. Women's Studies is one of the most politicized majors in existence, bent on inculcating radical feminism into the minds of students.

The new core curriculum has some interesting features as well: "DWC is four semesters of 4‐hours each in the new Core as opposed to 4 semesters of 5‐hours each in the former Core." Now, there's "One Core‐designated diversity course. Students will demonstrate proficiency in diversity, understood as either cross‐cultural or involving diversity within the American context."

Rather than emphasizing didactic tradition, it's now about "diversity." I'm not going to be the one to insist on ecclesial purity and total orthopraxy for Providence College. If it's anyone's job, it's the job of the alumni to do so. Notwithstanding, the issue here is as much as it was eight years ago: truth in advertising.
I've known many PC students and alumni over the years. Quite a number of them are rather bright and ambitious. Then there are others -- of the religious element -- who've insisted upon my self-censorship, mainly because the school is an outfit of the venerable Dominican Order. That is simply low-brow clericalism if I've ever heard it. These certain theology students and grads need to know that PC is NOT a seminary, and most students are not there for theology training. Nontheless, if Catholic values were of such high priority for the instutution, they would be conveyed across the disciplines. Not just by the few Dominicans who still teach courses on Thomas Aquinas.

2013 UPDATE: Apparently, PC's best-known and renowned conservative Catholic professor has some issues with the campus's administration as well.

Rather than delivering another sermon on the state of Catholic higher education (as I think what you've noted above stands on its own), I will say this: PC is yet another Rhode Island institution gone wrong. There are many today, including state agencies, hospitals, other universities, and yes, other religious entities.