The New Yorker Hitler-Watch

I am near the end of the 1930 issues of The New Yorker, and I am interested to see when Adolph Hitler begins appearing in the pages. I knew he really began consolidating his power after the depression hit Germany, but I didn't realize he was already internationally-known by October 11, 1930.

Here is a brief jokey comment in the "Of All Things" section of that issue. It marks -- as far as I know -- the first mention of Hitler in the magazine.

Hitler threatens to cut off some important German heads unless the demands of his party are met. He evidently means to set up a dictatorship of decapitalists.

Such is the style of New Yorker political commentary at the time: puns, puns, and more puns.

Anyway, it's obvious that Hitler was a visible figure to Americans at the time -- they don't even bother to mention his first name -- but I wonder what the charming fellow was up to and which demands he wanted met.

Recently...

Many things have prevented me from blogging recently, not least my own laziness and ennui. My computer's hard drive totally died after my post about the importance of backups, requiring a trip to the repair shop (and then a total update of everything to Snow Leopard which does kick ass).

This misfortune was immediately followed by a five-day heatwave. Despite my perverse resistance to installing my window air conditioner -- and therefore many nights spent sweating buckets into my sodden bedding -- I learned two things about humans and heat:

1. When people who live in an extremely HUMID area -- like those of us in Southern Ontario -- complain about 35-degree temperatures that feel like 42-degrees due to the humidity, people who live in DRY areas say -- repeatedly and disdainfully -- "Ha! It's that hot here ALL SUMMER!" To which I can only say: try going out in that heat with a wet towel wrapped around your nose and mouth.
2. When people complain about the devastating heat, a subset of other people say "Ha! In the winter you complain about the cold, now you complain about the heat! You just like complaining!" This is like saying "You complained that you were thirsty, so you'd better not complain when I throw you in the pool and drown you!" However illogical it is to complain about the weather -- since nobody you complain to can actually change it -- it is NOT illogical to complain about temperature extremes.

I only mention this because people say these things all the time, and it's tiresome.

Anyway, I'm also living with a cat who is a bit like the Tazmanian Devil, only more hyperactive and noisy. She is a fearless destroyer of bookshelves. She has learned that the best way to send me leaping out of bed in the morning is to sharpen her claws on my mattress, which I imagine her doing with a big grin on her face.

As of this morning, Muffet is forbidden from entering my bedroom. This is difficult because I haven't lived with closed doors for over ten years, and also because I don't think she'll adapt quickly or quietly to this change. Her favourite window is in my bedroom, and so is the sock drawer. I foresee many challenging nights ahead.

Third obstacle: constant pain in my shoulders. Sometimes it's barely there, and other times it feels like my biceps and shoulders are being held together by old rusty rivets made out of bubbling lava.

When I told my family doctor that I was on a three-year waiting list to see a shoulder specialist, he had a fit of furious Irish passion and booked me for a series of examinations. Yesterday a delicate lady held an ultrasound paddle to my shoulders and we viewed the inside of my pathology: wavy lines of bone and fat surrounding ominous black holes of encysted fluid.

Then I crossed the hall to get some X-rays done. It was a much more respectable operation than the last place I went to, though it ALSO had a cupboard which emitted terrifying scrabbling sounds.

Most interesting was the woman who took the X-rays. She was brusque and businesslike, but every time she prepared to take another picture she'd say "Hold your breath!" in an incongruous sing-song way, like the way you'd speak to a mischievous child. I felt weird, standing there in my lead girdle, with this extremely professional lady buzzing around who would suddenly disappear into a booth and sing out -- as though she were offering me a popsicle -- "Hold your breath!"

In other news, I have joined the board for the condo corporation, which is a story I'll tell someday. I also joined the board for the Open Ears festival. I have added "The Toronto G-20" to the list of topics which must not be discussed in friendly company. I walked past my old apartment and saw that the vegetation grew back but the junker cars remain. I read "Babbitt" by Sinclair Lewis, "Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham, and a beautiful book about undeciphered ancient scripts by Andrew Robinson. If I go on any sort of vacation this year it will hopefully be to Easter Island, because I want to see what their discos are like.

Dr. Seuss and Flit: "French Flit"

When I say repeatedly that the early New Yorker magazine didn't usually tackle serious subjects, I was obviously lying, because here is Dr. Seuss referencing the London Naval Treaty.

Okay, okay, the magazine HAD mentioned the treaty in the past, but only in the context of goofy wordplay or in "The Wayward Press," their semi-regular column about what OTHER periodicals were printing. Written by Guy Fawkes, this was a bitchy take-down of New York's newspapers, often criticizing inaccuracies, inconsistencies between papers, yellow journalism, or -- Fawkes' personal beef -- the misleading elevation of minor, trivial occurrences into headline-breaking NEWS!!!

So although The New Yorker never REALLY covered the London Naval Treaty, their treatment of it probably reflected the mood of the people at the time: that it was a blustery piece of diplomacy which never seemed to end and which would ultimately achieve nothing.

I particularly remember Fawkes' article about it, where he took newspapers to task for sending hordes of reporters over to London where they...sat around and did nothing. The conference was so long and clandestine that the London-based reporters would send back stories about the weather or about the niece of some minor figurehead learning to ride a horse, but the papers would trumpet this stuff as NEWS!!!!!!

Anyway, Dr. Seuss doesn't seem to be taking these issues on in his cartoon. He's just drawing funny Frenchmen. Bless him.

Not Much Has Changed in Eighty Years: Sunday Afternoon Cartoon

(From the June 14, 1930 issue of The New Yorker, by Art Young)

Newsreel Theatres

During late 1929, the Embassy Theatre in New York started a phenomenon: "The Newsreel Theatre." It was a massive hit, other theatres followed suit, and The New Yorker reporters -- though writing in their usual cynical way -- were obviously quite enchanted.

Whereas other theatres only played newsreels in between films, The Newsreel Theatre played them ALL DAY. They collected newsreels from all available sources and just kept playing them, morning and night, in ever-updated one-hour loops.

Radio had already been providing up-to-date news to listeners for several years, but this somehow struck a chord. Maybe it was the visual aspect, or the community feeling, or maybe it was the fact that it was the ONLY venue devoted entirely to news. The New Yorker, however, often mentions the simple joy of just dropping in at any time and never knowing what will come next: adventure stories, politics, opinion, debate, all put together without any logic whatsoever.

Interestingly, it wasn't long before smaller companies began shooting newsreels SPECIFICALLY for the theatres.

Anyway, in the December 28, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, here's a wonderful poem called "Recommendation" by Parke Cummings.

Shots of Mr. Hoover trouting,
Shots of weasels on an outing,
Speech by Czar of cruller-bakers,
Tricks employed by corset-makers,
Sounds of Bossy Gillis talking,
Sounds of albatrosses squawking,
Butterfly weighs sixty ounces,
Men in Denver take to flounces,
Crooning chants by Rudy Vallée,
Felines battle in an alley,
Clerk consumes, in South Dakota,
Twenty pies--his daily quota--
Kafir belles go in for blouses--
Here's to better newsreel houses.

If you're interested in learning more, Time Magazine wrote up The Newsreel Theatre here.

Lazy Blogger Flush

Just a bunch of things that don't deserve separate entries (or do but require more time and thought than I can spare at the moment).

• Every spring I am amazed at the way robins really DO go bob-bob-bobbin'.
• Speaking of the animal kingdom, yesterday was "flying ant day" here at the Muffy Household. I killed at least thirty of them as they went copulating across my front window. When you crush them, they release a very strong chemical odour which smells a lot like cotton candy.
• They have arrested two people for the murder of Tori Stafford, and the police say they're looking for her body...and yet most of the forum comments say things like "Please God let her be alright!" This makes me wonder just how carefully people read the news.
• I've been exploring the '60s lately. I read a book by Abe Peck about the underground press, and this got me wondering about the social movements of the time. In particular I wondered why Woodstock turned out so well and Altamont was a complete disaster. Having watched both "Woodstock" and "Gimme Shelter," it seems apparent that part of the trouble was having 30,000 people pressed up against a stage that was only four feet high. Another problem was a bunch of stoned and rabid fans. A third problem was a bunch of drunk bikers being expected to deal gently with people.
• So I bought "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane" and I have to say they were pretty cool. Now I'm finishing off "The Kids Are Alright," and next up is "The Doors."
• I'm seriously considering buying a condo, and if things work out during the next month or so then I really, really will. Hopefully it won't burst into flame.
• This weekend I'll be timing the "sin bin" at the season opener for our local Roller Derby teams. That's excitement!
• Next weekend I'll be at Guelph Pride's "circus" event.
• A second squirrel family has moved into the attic. They fight all the time. The ones in the northwest corner always lose.

Blossom Dearie

Rest in peace, Blossom Dearie. You were hip, but not weird, and I notice you never wore a beard.

Coalition Crisis, Yarrgh

I have to admit I'm getting a real kick out of Canada's sudden "coalition crisis." It's not just that I'm hoping to see Stephen Harper get trounced, or that I believe it really IS time for Liberals and NDPs to join up and stop splitting the vote...I'm mainly excited because stuff like this doesn't HAPPEN very often in Canadian politics.

First off you've got Harper's lackey presenting a preliminary budget and an economic statement that is both ridiculous AND a punch in the progressive nose. Rather than nurse their sore noses and let Harper get away with it, the three opposition parties ganged up and utilized a totally bizarre -- but also totally legal -- parliamentary move which allows them to simply kick Harper out of power and replace him...with themselves!

As if that weren't fun enough, everybody's screaming at everybody else because this tricky maneuver requires the cooperation of the Bloc Québécois, the stinkiest party in Ottawa. Every few years it is necessary for somebody to cozy up with the Bloc, which prompts a firestorm of insults from everybody else: "Your party is in bed with the SEPARATISTS, and therefore you HATE CANADA!" What's amusing is that few people outside of the parliamentary chamber actually believe this rhetoric, especially since the people yelling those insults had no doubt cozied up to the Bloc just a year or two before. That's the case now, and it was also the case the last three times this happened.

It's hard not to view Canadian parliament as childish. They're no more cynical and immature than other governments, I'm sure, but they also tend to secretly WANT TO GET ALONG. So even when they scream and shout at each other, you know that deep down inside they hope it'll all blow over and they can all be friends.

But this time, it's like one of the babies in Parliament pushed the other babies down...and then they all pulled out GUNS! It's like, wow, you guys MEAN it this time! You really HATE each other! This is SO COOL!

I can say this with an air of amused detachment because I have no doubt that things will work out just fine. It's easy to get outraged about the microscopic elements of Canadian politics, but when I view it from a two- or three-year distance it all looks pretty much the same. That's good for unity, but bad for engagement.

I like it the way it is.

A Good Morning

We've gotten so used to instant-gratification that, when following a news story, we often expect a New Explosive Revelation at every click of the mouse. That's how I felt last night while pursuing the American election returns.

I'd click on CNN to see their somewhat unadventurous statistics, then I'd jump to MSNBC and FOX for the "out on a limb" predictions (which turned out to be correct). I'd then immediately go to Daily Kos and see which predictions they'd decided to pick up, and also get results about the house and senate races. Then I'd go to Townhall's blog and derive a certain glee from their glazed incomprehension and prophesies of conspiracy and doom...

...and by then enough time had passed for me to go back to CNN for the latest update. Repeat ad nauseum.

Sadly, after Pennsylvania was called there just weren't any big revelations until a few hours later. So I took a gravol and went to bed, and woke up this morning to a landslide Obama victory (and the defeat of most of the noxious ballot propositions). So nice to see Florida blue. In fact, every state I've ever visited ended up siding with Obama. He can thank me later for my inadvertent campaigning!

I followed this race much closer than I did the Canadian elections. Why? Because none of the leaders had a really good OR bad spark to them. I mistrust Stephen Harper, but I could only judge his opponents in varying degrees of amorphous apathy. You didn't have an Obama out there rallying the troops, and you also didn't have a Sarah Palin making a mockery of the whole situation.

RIP Richard Wright, Too

What a weekend. We lost Richard Wright as well. Now that's REALLY sad.

David Foster Wallace...

...apparently killed himself on Friday. This is awful.

I admit that I haven't much cared for his later work, and I was getting the sense that he was a one trick pony, but I figured he was working on some new novel that would blow us all away again. I guess not.

Bye, DFW.

New EP By Andy Prieboy

More interesting than Halley's Comet and nearly as rare, Andy Prieboy has quietly released a new EP.

My love and admiration for brilliant artists ranges across a pretty wide spectrum, but Prieboy is at the top of the list. I can honestly say he is my All-Time Favourite Musician.

You can preview and buy the songs on his sparse and suddenly-active website. Meanwhile, somebody has made a surprisingly engaging independent video for one of the songs, "Bands," which I suspect is from his as-yet unreleased musical "White Trash Wins Lotto."

Parking in Uptown Waterloo

Personally, I'm thrilled that they're putting a small park in front of Waterloo Town Square. There are certainly other parks in the area, but none of them are adjacent to food or shopping so they have never attained "central meeting place status." I want a place where I can sit and read, surrounded by lots of other people who are socializing and eating and having a break between shopping sprees.

I can also tell you that when things get really hot in town, a park is a blessing and a parking lot a terrible curse.

But you see, the park will replace a certain number of parking spots around the shopping mall, and a lot of people are outraged by this. They say that it's hard enough to find parking in uptown Waterloo as it is, so replacing that parking lot with green space will drive people away from uptown businesses.

Now, I walk through uptown Waterloo every day so I get a pretty good sense of where people are parking. I agree that cars are constantly cruising around the entrances to Waterloo Town Square, getting frustrated because they can't find a spot...A SPOT WITHIN THIRTY FEET OF THE DOORS.

Maybe I'm just particularly able-bodied, but there is a huge free lot next to the mall -- right across Willis Way -- that is NEVER more than 1/3 full. That lot is literally a minute's walk away from Waterloo Town Square -- and by extension the rest of the uptown shops -- but most people would rather drive their cars around the entrances than walk for more than a few seconds at a stretch.

I have only recently begun driving again so perhaps I'm missing something, but I simply don't see a "parking for shoppers" problem in uptown Waterloo. There certainly seems to be a logjam of city workers who need to park in the garage adjacent to the bank -- something needs to be tweaked there during rush hour, for sure -- but if you want to park within walking distance of the shopping, YOU CAN.

I made the mistake of asking one of the nice employees in the mall when the new park would be built, and she went off on a surprising tirade about it all. Strangely, her objection was NOT to the removal of the parking spots. She said the new park would "attract all the bums, bring in more alcohol, become dangerous..."

And I was like, "the bums are already IN uptown, and the park is going to be tiny and full of businessmen on their lunch." It had never even OCCURRED to me that the park could somehow be a "safety issue," being as you'll be able to walk from one end to the other in fifteen seconds.

I can only assume that this bizarre "dangerous park" thing is a fallback complaint after somebody deflated complaint number one ("not enough parking") by monitoring the mostly-empty lot next door and presenting their results.

Sometimes I jump to conclusions without having all the facts. But until somebody can explain to me why they can't park within walking distance of uptown -- with or without the new park -- I can only assume that those folks are lazy bums who'll be surprised to learn they actually have feet.

Zsa Zsa Becomes Famous for Her Strength and Her Bum

I always knew that Zsa Zsa was destined for super-stardom, but I wasn't quite sure how until now:

News article with Zsa Zsa picture.

(I'm not sure how NowPublic works exactly, so the picture of Zsa Zsa's butt might not be the secondary image when YOU look at the page).

"The Original of Laura" by Vladimir Nabokov

Yesterday -- a gloomy, cold Monday morning -- I got the happiest surprise possible: Dimitri Nabokov has finally decided to publish his father's final, unfinished manuscript, "The Original of Laura."

Since I didn't start reading Nabokov's books until long after he'd died, I've missed the sweet anticipation of waiting for one of his books. Now -- thanks apparently to Vladimir appearing in his son's dream -- I get to enjoy the last book with the rest of the world...

...and we'll probably all think it sucks. But still!

Neil Shubin Celebrates the Fish

During the past few years American scientists have been bemoaning the lack of accessible science literature, particularly in the field of biology. And they have a right to worry about this.

While biologists and paleontologists are going off and doing important things like researching, teaching, and studying, a group of other people are engaging skilled PR to convince the American public that evolution is somehow a "theory in crisis." Creationists (often camouflaged as "Intelligent Design Theorists") ARE churning out accessible literature about their theories, basically because their theories are so empty that they don't even BOTHER spending time to research them.

I suspect that this was the real motivation behind Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" -- an attempt to quickly get an entertaining layperson's guide to evolution into the marketplace. By quietly revealing the mountain of evidence behind common descent, and by exposing the positively UNDESIGNED aspects of our bodies -- nobody would EVER deliberately build us this way, but it all makes sense if you go back and look at our fish ancestors -- Shubin fires a friendly salvo in a way that anybody can come along and appreciate.

And the book IS lots of fun. He draws on particularly bizarre aspects of our bodies to show why things sometimes go wrong -- hiccups, bed-spins, hemorrhoids -- interspersed with the "human element" of his personal thoughts while dissecting cadavers or searching for transitional fossils. His examples are clear-cut and the illustrations excellent. I've no doubt that this book will fulfill its intent as ammunition for countering the more prevalent creationist propaganda.

But Shubin isn't a fantastic writer, and the book has a hurried quality to it: occasional grammatical and word-usage errors ("jerry-rigged" keeps being used, and others have criticized the books usage of the loaded term "primitive" to describe anything pre-mammal) and often Shubin's prose sounds a bit TOO informal to my ears. Plus, no doubt due to the intended audience of total science newbies, he tends to over-explain the things the rest of us already know, and then gloss over the more technical details that we'd really enjoy reading about. The section on the Bozo family was particularly gaggy.

So basically, "Your Inner Fish" is not intended to be read by anybody who is already -- say -- avidly reading Panda's Thumb and its offshoot blogs, though it does have some interesting new twists and turns, and it CERTAINLY gives a clear (though sort of flippant) description of its subjects. If you'd like a primer on common descent and evidence for evolution, however, this book is certainly for you.

Death of the CD

I'm starting to see the signs and I'm dusting off my widow's weeds: the compact disc is in its last throes.

I'm not exactly a luddite but this still makes me sad, and it surprises me a bit. I love my CDs and I don't see anything wrong with them...though I admit that my iPod and I spend most of our time together, with the caveat that the music ON the iPod is pretty much FROM my CDs.

Will CDs go the way of vinyl, that is, disappearing for a few years and then coming back as a sort of "nostalgia," available at high prices on ebay? At first I thought so, but part of the vinyl-mania was because certain things had yet to appear on CD. CDs can simply be ripped and file-shared, so chances are there will be little pain just because you can't find a song on iTunes.

I admit I'm not a huge fan of massive file-sharing. I can't see how it doesn't impact the artists (though I'm not sad to see the big labels get shafted). I'll hold out as long as I can, and I'll continue to cherish my collection as the rest of the world moves on to "something else," and eventually I'll embrace that "something else" when I no longer have a choice.

The BusWalk Tour Gets a Boost!

This weekend's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has a nice article about the BusWalk Tour. It makes me sound a little goofy, but I suppose that I really do sound that way, and kudos to Colin Hunter for working in the "drag" variable without being too sensationalistic OR serious.

I was a bit nervous because I know how easy it is to be misquoted (through the power of editing, selective listening, selective memory, and "sexing up"), and I was afraid I'd see something out-of-context that would make me cringe. Nope! I feel no need to write an annotated version of the article.

For visitors who are curious about the tour itself (and not my vain worries about appearance and representation), click here to read all references to the tour in this blog, and rest assured that more are coming. My walkin' shoes have actually disintegrated and I hope to get some more today; maybe there'll be another trip tomorrow?

You can stay tuned and read other things, though...I think this blog is an interesting enough place to hold your attention, and it's also "work friendly." Please feel free to comment, critique, and suggest.

Thank Goodness for Missed Experiences

The collapse of this bridge inspires awe. We just don’t expect structures to behave like that. And obviously commuters don’t expect to find themselves suddenly dropping sixty feet into the Mississippi.

I was in Minneapolis in May but I never went over that bridge. This, fortunately, removes me from the ranks of the armchair pundits and prophets. If I want attention, however, I’ll have to change my story so I can become a sort of long-distance victim/expert, the “jeez, good thing I didn’t go there in JULY!” or “I drove over that thing and it seemed so UNSTABLE!” sort of person.

We haven't had a nice vicarious long-distance suffering since the last school shooting.

It's That Simple ("Marriage")

Okay, this one isn't as nasty, I can live with it. Be sure to read this post first to understand the context behind this "editorial."

Tragically, "Enshrine Marriage Canada" is no longer online. Neither is the Michael Coren column (from September 17, 2004), which was a real gem about how a lesbian couple made a "bloody sacrifice on the altar of selfishness" by deciding to have children.

Childless “Marriage” – Time To Speak Up!

Just like the first bird of spring, a U-Haul truck is cause for celebration for me. It means a new family is moving onto Maple Street! As much as I abhor change of any kind – especially in my undergarments -- I admit that I get a thrill out of meeting new people, as long as they’re not godless or poor. Meeting a new neighbour is an opportunity to share cleaning tips and recipes with folk from distant, exotic lands (sometimes as far away as Timmons!)

This week, however, the U-Haul didn’t bring new friends. It brought two people who gleefully partake in a lifestyle that no right-thinking Realerwoman can condone: the unnatural, barren social experiment of the Childless “Marriage.”

Since people don’t wear any form of identification to mark them as deviants, upstanding folks like myself sometimes treat them as equals before we realize what who we’re talking to. Let’s just say that I’ve been burned before. I’ll have to start being more careful, at least until we get a Conservative politician in power, one who understands the need for immediate stigmatization.

In any case I didn’t know that the Andersons were childless when I arrived at their front door, bearing pastries and wearing my best bonnet. The two of them were a bit flustered with their move but they were happy to take a break and share their sofa with me.

“Gosh,” said Mr. Anderson, “these cherry-filled things are great!”

“They’re ‘Passion Flakies,’” I replied, flattered.

“Why do you call them that?” asked Mrs. Anderson, giving the plate a curious look.

“Because they remind me of the humiliation of Christ.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Anderson. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

After this strategic injection of religion into our first meeting (“scoring points with God,” my husband likes to call it), our conversation turned to the rigors of moving, which I said was always difficult and never fails to remind me of the humiliation of Christ. “Not to say that I have ever suffered as much as he did, of course. I mean, he was scourged, and scourged, and scourged some more! But gosh, moving can be tough too!” I paused to let my “lesson of the day” sink in, then said something I assumed was inconsequential: “Fortunately we have children to help us with the chores. Two of them. Well, three, if you count the one we never talk about.”

Mr. Anderson glanced at his wife and made a nervous gesture with his Passion Flakey. Unaware of their unholy secret, I barreled on.

“I hope you two have plenty of little ones on the way…Lisa and Zipporah could use some new playmates!”

That was when Mr. Anderson dropped his bombshell. With deceptive tenderness and mock regret, he said “Actually, we can’t have children…I had a…”

“What my husband means is…”

“…an accident with a waffle iron…”

And then they were both crying on the sofa in their empty livingroom – its barrenness reflecting both the state of Mr. Anderson’s genitals…and the state of their immortal souls! They were a childless couple! And they’d had the nerve to get MARRIED!

All of us know that marriage is centered on children…this is rule number three in the “Declaration On Marriage,” a pastiche of seven marriage rules invented last week by Enshrine Marriage Canada. If you’re not going to have children, your marriage is a sham…in fact, it’s not even a marriage, it’s just the word “marriage” with quotes around it!

How dare these people defy the sanctity of marriage by breaking rule number three! And to think that I’d come over here to welcome them.

But Mr. Anderson hadn’t finished trying to indoctrinate me – have you noticed that these deviants never shut up about their misguided beliefs? Crying crocodile tears, he told me that they were pinning their hopes for children on artificial insemination. He said this as though I should APPROVE!

Far from this making a childless “marriage” alright, artificial insemination just makes it worse! As Michael Coren said, the procreative nature of marriage is paramount, and “if love is excluded from the original act” (as it is in artificial insemination), “it is likely to be discarded from the outcome.” In other words you can’t LOVE a child that you didn’t produce sexually…it’s that simple! By getting married and choosing this artificial means of producing a child, infertile couples have “made a bloody sacrifice of children’s happiness on the altar of selfishness” (Mr. Coren has such a way with words! This phrase is just CRYING OUT to be hung on the wall!)

We all know that a REAL marriage can only involve two people who are capable of having children with each other. This is one of the primary reasons why we say homosexuals can’t be married, and what’s bad for them is bad for the rest of us. But defenders of Traditional Marriage seem to forget that there is another enemy out there besides homosexuals, a group of deviants already sanctioned by our liberal society: these sterile couples! By choosing to marry, they are contributing to the destruction of Traditional Marriage, an institution which has ALWAYS required children in order to legitimize it. A marriage without children is like a Passion Flakey without the cherries: AN ABOMINATION WHICH MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!

As always, I urge true conservatives to speak up. When you meet people like the Andersons, tell them that you do not recognize their marriages as legitimate. After all, we have invented the rules for marriage and we must not allow ANYBODY to break them. I am disturbed that conservative organizations – like Enshrine Marriage – have yet to speak out against the fronts in the Marriage War which DON’T involve homosexuals. I hope this editorial wakes them up.

I’m not a coward. I stick to my guns. And if enough of us get together we might be able to start a constitutional amendment. We must write into the constitution a clause stating that marriages MUST produce children, and that those children MUST be biological descendents of BOTH parents. Otherwise it’s only a “marriage” (with quotes), and a selfish, “adult-centered” one at that!