"Charlie always believed that God's design for marriage and the family was absolutely amazing.... Over and over he would tell all these young people to come and find their future spouse..."

"... become wives and husbands and parents, because he wanted you all to experience what he had and still has. He wanted everyone to bring heaven into this earth through the love and joy that comes from raising a family.... My husband laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children; he showed the ultimate and true covenantal love.... I honestly have no idea what any of this means — I know that God does, but I don't — but Charlie, baby, I know you do too. So does our Lord.... The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love. But... if you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country and in this world. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.... The movement my husband built will not die.... No one will ever forget my husband's name, and I will make sure of it. It will become stronger, bolder, louder, and greater than ever...."

Said Erika Kirk last night.

"I think what you look like is a standard poodle and I love standard poodles."

A model for a perfect husband, revealed in "My cool cancer story/A year after losing my hair and self image to cancer, I put on my $5,000 prescription wig and look at myself and say, 'THERE she is.'" (WaPo video, free access).

"She rekindled the relationship at the funeral" — for his wife of 56 years — "They started spending time together.”

From "Iran-Contra figures Oliver North and Fawn Hall secretly marry 40 years after scandal: report" (NY Post).

Hall had been married Danny Sugarman, the manager of The Doors, from 1993 until his death in 2005.

"In 1973, Ms. Jong published 'Fear of Flying,' a roman-a-clef in which the young, pretty and privileged Isadora Wing leaves her husband and road trips through Europe..."

"... seeking creative and sexual fulfillment. The message was that women didn’t have to stay in unfulfilling marriages. That bigger, richer lives beckoned. That message sold more than 20 million copies and made Ms. Jong a celebrated figure. This year, that book got another kind of sequel, when Molly Jong-Fast, Ms. Jong’s only child, published a memoir called 'How to Lose Your Mother.' The book depicts Erica Jong, now suffering from dementia, as a narcissist, a drunk, a disinterested parent who was either mining Molly’s life for material or ditching her to pursue her own adventures. The memoir, like [the sequel to 'Sex and the City'], serves as a generational rebuke to the women who prioritized careers and sex and fame and fortune over family, and a warning to any mothers foolish enough to follow Ms. Jong’s bad example. For those of us who loved the originals, the rise of the reboots feels chilling...."

Writes Jennifer Weiner, the novelist, in "In ‘And Just Like That…’ a Craven Era Took Its Revenge on Youth and Hope and Fun" (NYT).

"You convince him to come marry you, move here and have babies. This is where your future should be, if you like him enough for that."

Said Leslie Aberlin, owner of a development called Aberlin Springs, to a "prospective resident, the girlfriend of a local banker."

Aberlin is quoted in "This Ohio Farm Community Is a Mecca for the ‘MAHA Mom’/In a neighborhood that appeals to people from both the right and the left, residents strive for a finely tuned state of political harmony" (NYT)(gift link).

Ms. Aberlin loves that so many “traditional wives,” as she calls stay-at-home moms, are raising their children in her community. While she brought up her two kids as a single mother, divorcing her ex-husband soon after her second baby was born, she calls herself a “boss woman by accident.” She believes women have been “sold a bag of goods” about the importance of a career, and are usually more fulfilled when they focus on their kids full time.

1. What's wrong with buying a bag of goods?  She means sold a bill of goods. With a bag of goods, you've got the goods. They're in the bag. A bill of goods is a document that merely lists the goods. You just bought the piece of paper. 

2. The real estate is real, but what about the mystique of the MAHA Mom? Buying a personal residence always comes with something intangible, the life you imagine for yourself in that house."

3. It's not a house, it's a home — Bob Dylan quote.

4. The home is never in the bag.

"In my ideal society, we would vote as households. I would ordinarily be the one to cast the vote, but I would cast the vote having discussed it with my household."

Said the pastor Toby Sumpter, quoted in "Pete Hegseth reposts video that says women shouldn’t be allowed to vote/Progressive evangelical group says ideas shared by pastors and amplified by defense secretary are 'very disturbing'" (The Guardian)

1. What are you saying when you repost something? I post things I don't agree with all the time. Often my posting means: This is obviously a terrible idea. Or: This is weirdly interesting.

2. Sumpter's idea is weirdly interesting: He's talking about his "ideal society." I could see saying: In an ideal society, we wouldn't need voting at all. And we know what Jesus said about government.

3. How could we have voting at the "household" level without insane intrusion on everyone's privacy? Wilson doesn't seem to have thought about this since he's relying on the notion of what would "ordinarily" happen. And what would happen to the un-ordinary people? Maybe in Wilson's "ideal society," everyone is clustered into formal, officially designated families, but you can't get there from here, so it's a fantasy, for your contemplation. A weirdly interesting idea, as noted in point #1.

4. But, ooh, that terrible Hegseth!

ADDED: I've corrected the source of the quote which I'd mistakenly attributed to Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Wilson is also quoted, saying "I would like to see this nation being a Christian nation, and I would like this world to be a Christian world." And, before bringing up Sumpter, The Guardian says that Wilson "raises the idea of women not voting." That's confusing, though I should have been more careful. I've also swapped in the name Sumpter on point #2. Thanks to Aggie, in the comments, for pointing out this problem.

"Interestingly, I think there is an argument to bring back the MRS degree."

My latest: I went inside Turning Point USA's conference for conservative young women

To get a sense of what I saw, watch this video of Charlie Kirk telling a 14-year-old in braces that she should only go to college to get an "MRS degree"

Subscribe to my newsletter below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lNdIS0Ia9v

— Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) June 18, 2025

I don't think he said only.

And I don't think you can ignore the smile that broke out on that girl's face at 0:30. You can want more than one thing, and you don't have to pretend to yourself that you don't want those things that are not your career. 

"Joe Rogan Reveals Oliver Anthony’s Own Nasty Divorce Inspired New Single, 'Scornful Woman' – 'She Wants EVERYTHING.'"

Headline at Whiskey Riff, which I found after I heard Joe Rogan do the revealing and I listened to the song. You can find video of both the Joe Rogan segment and the song at that link.

... Joe shares some rather intimate details about Anthony’s seemingly pending divorce, and how it sparked this song. The “Scornful Woman” is Oliver’s wife, Tiffany, and from the side of the story we’re given, it sounds like she’s trying to take as much money as she can off him.

“He starts making millions of dollars, playing arenas. The wife divorces him. She wants everything. She wants EVERYTHING. She wants more than half. She wants all the money he’s going to be making in the future because she was with him when he was broke. It’s f***** crazy...."

It's not crazy for her to want more than half. If you are married and sharing equally, and you've gone through the poor times together — maybe you scrimped together while one of you went to medical school — then you're owed a share of the earnings that only arrive later. 

When Anthony's song “Rich Men North of Richmond" made him an overnight sensation in 2023, he and Tiffany and their 2 children were presented as the definition of happiness.

The new song says "She'll turn a warm afternoon/Into a cold, cold one."

"I divorced him 10 times the first year of our marriage, getting a lawyer and everything and 13 times the second year."

"He’d plead literally on his hands knees, 'Please forgive me, I don’t know why I did it, give me another chance.'"

Said Mara Corday, about Richard Long, quoted in "Mara Corday, Starlet of Monster Movies and Magazines, Dies at 95/She appeared in Playboy and sci-fi films in the 1950s. Later, in Clint Eastwood’s 'Sudden Impact,' she was a hostage until he uttered five famous words" (NYT).

Wow! I love this poster:

And go ahead, make my day:

"I think most men are gay in DC — either out or closeted depending on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans."

"I want to marry someone who allows me to protect feminine energy in a world that is forcing me to be a girl boss because they keep sending Steve to prison. Perhaps I have…"

Said Natalie Winters, quoted by Katy Balls in The London Times, "My night out with Trump’s young Maga crowd in Washington."

"Steve" = Steve Bannon. Winters works as a White House correspondent for Steve Bannon’s "War Room."

"What is the social scene like in Maga term two? '‘I think there is more of a diversity of ways that groups enter this movement, so you get a broader… For instance, Maha — it’s more the trad wife, pro-natalist people who are really into that. It all mixes. It’s a bigger tent,' says Winters. There is also a bunch of tech bros in town, but to the disappointment of some in the Maga coalition and some of the young Republicans looking for husbands, they rarely come out...."

Are women today thinking about themselves in terms of "feminine energy"?

"Large or small cancer was still cancer. Once a cell has gone haywire in your body and learned how to replicate itself in a campaign against you..."

"... can you ever feel safe? I thought about the large mass in my breast and pictured the cells marching like fire ants on a raging tour of my interior. Five days later, while I was driving, the surgeon called to tell me I did not have cancer. I had a fibroid-like mass with a jagged surface resembling cancer’s starburst shape. He had two radiologists confirm this. 'I am so very sorry,' he said. 'This was a lesson for me. Always wait for the test results.' That moment at the wheel is still perfectly preserved in my mind, the flood of relief, the blinding joy. I will die someday of something, but it probably won’t be from this. The lesson for me was that Danny was a partner for the long haul, however long or short this life might be."

Writes Beth Apone Salamon in "We Had to Break Up. He Refused. 'I love you,' I told him, 'but this is over'" (NYT).

This is a "Modern Love" column. The headline refers to the part, when she thinks she has cancer and tells her husband, whose first wife died, slowly, of breast cancer, that they have to break up because he doesn't deserve to go through the same thing twice. That's interesting. An offer he can't not refuse.

But I was more interested in the ideation about cancer. Those metaphors: a cell gone "haywire" and "fire ants on a raging tour." 

"Divorce rumors have been following the Obamas for some time.... Michelle, as a solo artist, has been out and about..."

"... particularly as she promotes her podcast... She’s also been a regular guest on fellow famous people’s shows. This month alone, she went on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang to talk about bickering with Barack over their thermostat, and on The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett, where she insisted once more that 'everyone would know' if she and Barack were breaking up. 'I’m not a martyr,' she said. 'I would be problem-solving in public: "Let me tell you what he did."'"

That's from New York Magazine, which has a sarcastic headline — "Michelle and Barack Obama Are Dating Again" — because it's pushing back on the New York Post article that's titled "Barack and Michelle Obama spotted on swanky date night in NYC as divorce rumors swirl."

Repeated insistence... sounds like protesting too much.

And is it really true that if she and Barack were breaking up she's be out in public, problem-solving, dishing on what he did? I'd like to think she would not, but it was only 5 days ago that I was blogging "Why are men's podcasts so different from women's...?" after Danica Patrick went on "The Sage Steele Show"

"I think the NYT has framed men as a problem. They're not thriving, they're not aspiring. We need to figure out what's wrong with them..."

"... maybe even empathize with them, because, after all, we do need them to function."

So I said, in the previous post. And one reason I said it was because I'd already opened a tab for a second article on the home page of the NYT today: "Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? I have many guy friends. Why don’t we hang out more?"

This is a long piece in the NYT Magazine, by Sam Graham-Felsen, and like the article discussed in the previous post, it assures us that there's nothing gay going on here: "I never had sexual feelings for Rob, but there was an intensity to our connection that can only be described as love. I thought about him all the time, and cared, deeply, about what he thought of me. We got jealous and mad at each other, and often argued like a bitter married couple — but eventually, like a successful married couple, we’d always find a way to talk things out."

Graham-Felsen has had many other close male friends — "nearly a dozen other dudes — dudes I spent thousands of accumulated hours with; dudes I shared my most shame-inducing secrets with; dudes I built incredibly intricate, ever-evolving inside jokes with; dudes I loved and needed, and who loved and needed me...." 

But he doesn't have dudes like that anymore. Is that because he's older, and his contemporaries are absorbed in family and work, or is it because American men in general "are getting significantly worse at friendship"?

"A social media trend has men surprising their friends with a call before bed. It has led to a lot of laughs, but also some deeper connections."

I'm reading "Men Are Calling Other Men to Say Good Night, and the Results Are Amazing" (NYT).

Calling, not texting. I'm thinking the only reason to make a phone call is to have something to video for social media. A phone call. Just to say good night?

Now, I'm going to read this article, but my presumption is that the NYT is involved in 2 things. First, it's what I've been collecting for many years under my tag "MSM reports what's in social media." What's happening in social media is considered news, partly because it kind of is and partly because the newspaper wants to seem decently hip to various trends. Second, I think the NYT has framed men as a problem. They're not thriving, they're not aspiring. We need to figure out what's wrong with them, maybe even empathize with them, because, after all, we do need them to function.

All right. I've read the article. It's written by a woman, Gina Cherelus, and "All of the men interviewed for this article said their female partners encouraged them to make the call."

"My hero was my father, a closeted bisexual Army major general who, in the 1990s, argued in favor of gays in the military by reminding people that they’ve always been there."

"Yes, the military vibe could be depressingly macho, but it’s also about having your buddies’ backs, no matter their gender, sexuality or race. I spoke about the subject of my new play, Claude Cahun, a French Jewish Surrealist who, with her partner, Marcel Moore, broke into a church at night during the Nazi occupation and put up a banner, reading: 'Jesus is great. But Hitler is greater. Because Jesus died for people — but people die for Hitler.' Voilà, punk!"

That's an excerpt from "Today’s Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk" by John Cameron Mitchell, the filmmaker (notably of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch").

The expression of the French Jewish Surrealist is something you can work out on your own, no? Key words: "during the Nazi occupation."

I want to focus on "closeted bisexual." Mitchell's father was married to his mother, so how does he count as closeted if he just kept quiet about who else he's sexually attracted to? That's the general practice among married people, not to speak out about your interest in anyone other than your spouse and not to do anything about it. It might be a more poignant case if the man married a woman but only felt attracted to men, but this, we're told, was a bisexual. Presumably, he was attracted to his wife. Where's the closeting in restricting your sex relations to your spouse? It's not as if heterosexuals feel free to speak out and act out about their sexual attraction to others. No one admires these adulterers for "coming out of the closet."

Anyway,  John Cameron Mitchell is reporting on his speaking tour, interacting with students. He told them: "Your homework is to stop canceling each other, find out about punk, and get laid while you’re at it.... Punk isn’t a hairstyle; it’s getting your friends together to make useful stories outside approved systems. And it’s still happening right now, all over the world." He says, "MAGA has adopted an authoritarian style of punk that disdains what Elon Musk calls our 'greatest human weakness,' empathy. But O.G. punk, while equally free of trigger warnings, is constructive and caring."

"If you cannot get married and start a family within three quarters, the company will terminate your labor contract...."

"Not responding to the call of the country, not marrying and having children, is disloyal."

Said the memo to unmarried employees of Shandong Shuntian Chemical Group, quoted in "Chinese Company to Single Workers: Get Married or Get Out/As China’s government worries about the falling birthrate, some private employers have ordered workers to do their part, or else" (NYT). 

The notice from the chemical company, which began circulating online last month, was directed at unmarried employees between the ages of 28 and 58, including divorced workers. As online ridicule grew, the company quickly backtracked. Reached by phone, a woman at its headquarters said the notice had been retracted, and that the local government had ordered the company to undergo “rectification.”...

Years ago, when the Chinese authorities wanted to limit births, they resorted to coercive measures like forced abortions and sterilizations. (The city where the chemical company is based, Linyi, was particularly notorious for such tactics.) Now that Beijing is trying to do the opposite, it is taking a softer approach, perhaps to avoid setting off large-scale resistance.

"I used to love feeling her body, her big body, next to me in bed, the softness of it. The extra tummy and..."

"... extra booty was comforting and reassuring. I miss that. The voluptuousness, being able to lean up next to her and feel her, for lack of a better word, draping over me or onto me. That’s no longer an option.... I’ve told her: 'I don’t recognize you. I need a road map.' I think she’s become a different person."

Said one husband, quoted in "How Weight-Loss Drugs Can Upend a Marriage/Doctors warn about their physical side effects, but they can also have unexpected effects on intimacy" (NYT).

When I clicked to read this article, I assumed it was going to be about the loss of sexual desire as a side effect of the drug. I was surprised to see that it was about the loss of desire in the partner who was not the one taking the drug.

But wait, the drug-taking partner is part of the problem (which is that they haven't had sex since she started the drug). She's finding it "easier to say no" to what she doesn't want, but purports to "want to want to have sex." 

If the drug removes the desire for food, why wouldn't it also affect that other physical desire? How closely related are these desires?

"Whereas the prince you married could not be forgiven for his traditionalist entitlement/The man on the rock in the fog might be kind."

I'm reading a long cartoon in the NYT by Liana Finck, "I Quit the Patriarchy and Rescued My Marriage."

Today's the first day of the month, so I got a new infusion of gift links to hand out. That's the first one, an interesting read with charming drawings. You probably already know the things Finck seems to have realized, but she's under 40 and you're old, aren't you?

"In October 1956, Mr. Feiffer strolled into the office of The Village Voice, which had been founded the previous year, and offered to draw a regular strip for nothing."

"First titled 'Sick, Sick, Sick,' it eventually became 'Feiffer.' (He was not paid, he later wrote, until 1964.) With his signature sketchy, scribbly lines, Mr. Feiffer sought to bring to a six- or nine-panel format a level of visual simplicity and intellectual sophistication akin to what William Steig and Saul Steinberg had done with their cartoons in The New Yorker. Often devoid of backgrounds and panel borders, Mr. Feiffer’s strip focused almost exclusively on dialogue, gestures and facial expressions.... He would present a couple bickering with each other in profile, or someone in therapy, often with the speaker facing the reader.... Complacent, self-satisfied white liberals were a frequent target, and he upbraided them mercilessly.... The leotard-clad Dancer, who first appeared in 1957, was inspired by a girlfriend. She was... Mr. Feiffer wrote, 'abused and exploited by men.... but where [her male counterpart, based on himself] grew defensive and angry over the years, the Dancer retained her faith. She danced, fell, got to her feet, tripped, sailed aloft, came crashing to earth, rose stubbornly and kept dancing.'"

From "Jules Feiffer, Acerbic Cartoonist, Writer and Much Else, Dies at 95/In his long-running Village Voice comic strip and in his many plays and screenplays, he took delight in skewering politics, relationships and human nature" (NYT).

Feiffer also wrote the screenplay for "Carnal Knowledge" and the Robert Altman version of "Popeye," and his play "Little Murders" became one of my favorite movies from 1971:

"Pilloried by Democrats during his 2012 run, Romney has emerged as a strong voice for a bygone kind of politics."

Said Jake Tapper, introducing Mitt Romney on "State of the Union" yesterday.

Romney gave a long interview, and maybe you saw a clip of it, but I want to do my own edit:

ROMNEY: Donald Trump won. He won overwhelmingly. He said what he was going to do, and that's what he's doing. I mean, people are saying, oh, I don't like this appointment or this policy that he's talking about. But those are the things he said he was going to do when he ran. So you can't complain about someone who does what he said he was going to do. And I agree with him on a lot of policy fronts. I disagree with him on some things. But it's like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he's going to do and see how it works out.... 

TAPPER:  Are you worried at all about being a target for retribution, you or members of your family?

ROMNEY: No, actually, I have been pretty clean throughout my life. I'm not particularly worried about criminal investigations.