A Disturbing Lack Of Tenderness

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

I was on a very long flight the other day and, to get me through it, I had two books: the new bestseller Of "Thee I Zing" by Laura Ingraham, and a book I last read 20 years ago, "The Radetzky March" by Joseph Roth.

The former is the latest hit from one of America's most popular talk radio hosts; the latter is an Austrian novel from 1932 by a fellow who drank himself to death just before the Second World War, which, if you're planning on drinking yourself to death, is a better pretext than most. Don't worry, I'll save the Germanic alcoholic guy for a couple of paragraphs, although the two books are oddly related.

"Of Thee I Zing's" subtitle is "America's Cultural Decline From Muffin Tops To Body Shots". If you are sufficiently culturally aware to know what a "muffin top" and a "body shot" are (and incidentally, if you don't have time to master all these exciting new trends, these two can be combined into one convenient "muffin shot"), you may not think them the most pressing concerns as the Republic sinks beneath its multitrillion-dollar debt burden.

But, as Miss Ingraham says, "Even if our economic and national security challenges disappeared overnight, we'd still have to climb out of the cultural abyss into which we've tumbled."

Actually, I think I'd go a little further than the author on that. I'm a great believer that culture trumps economics. Every time the government in Athens calls up the Germans and says, okay, we've burned through the last bailout, time for the next one, Angela Merkel understands all too well that the real problem in Greece is not the Greek finances but the Greek people.

Even somnolent liberal columnists grasp this: a recent Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times was headlined "Can Greeks Become Germans?" I think we all know the answer to that. Any society eventually winds up with the finances you'd expect. So think of our culture as one almighty muffin shot, with America as a giant navel filled with the cheap tequila of our rising debt and ... no, wait, this metaphor's getting way out of hand.

These are difficult issues for social conservatives to write about. When we venture into this terrain, we're invariably dismissed as uptight squares who can't get any action. That happens to be true in my case, but Laura Ingraham has the advantage of being a "pretty girl," as disgraced Congressman Charlie Rangel made the mistake of calling her on TV the other day in an interview that went hilariously downhill thereafter. So she has a little more credibility on this turf than I would.

[pollyannaish]

Great article. And I would add to a lack of tenderness...a lack of empathy. Complete and total self involvement. The inability to see outside of ones own immediate dehumanizing need for instant gratification.

[Evad]

100% describes my ex-son-in-law

[Saltbag]

Whew! I missed the "ex" on the first pass.

 

Very good article. Mark Steyn seldom disappoints. When the parents are garbage, what hope can you have for the kids? Heck, I was headed into 7-11 just last Friday, and some woman yells to her (assuming) husband from the car, had horrible grammar, drops the F-bomb in the sentence, and then cackles. Meanwhile, there are four little kids in the backseat. You can guess my first thought, but my second thought was "Now what chance do those kids have?"

[nickydog]

eyebrows threaded? a 50-something cougar? I must live on another planet. I have no idea what those words mean.

[NCTexan]

eyebrows threaded? a 50-something cougar? I must live on another planet. I have no idea what those words mean.

Nickydog!

 

Here are three old cougars... hope these images help bring you into the new millennium.

 

 

(The last one is with its prey.)

[righteousmomma]

Nickydog, google and read Urban Dictionary definition. We don't hang out in swanky bars or nightclubs prowling for young men so we don't qualify for the title.

[nickydog]

Nickydog, google and read Urban Dictionary definition. We don't hang out in swanky bars or nightclubs prowling for young men so we don't qualify for the title.

Well thank heavens for that!

[pollyannaish]

I always thought that the absolute worst thing one could be called in life was a cougar. I found Mrs. Robinson inThe Graduate so mortifying I could barely watch the movie. Who knew that in the course of my lifetime women would be parading around boy toys with pride. I still find it mortifying to see.

 

Edited to add: I find it mortifying to see men with much younger wives too. Thanks women's lib for embracing the least attractive qualities of men as our own.