The Catfight Confession

      There was a time when it _wasn’t_ widely presupposed that every woman was an indestructible goddess who could trample on armies of men and scarcely notice their bones breaking under her feet. There was a time when it _wasn’t_ widely presupposed that every woman was really a lesbian at heart because men were so boring. Those two suppositions are now deeply enough entrenched in the entertainment media that, if two women in a movie are shown fighting each other now, this is highly likely to be either a titanic battle of super-Amazons, or the prelude to a lesbian sexual encounter, or both scenarios in one.

But physical fights between women were depicted in movies _even_ back when women were assumed to be heterosexual and _weren’t_ assumed to be invincible super-warriors. It follows that the early popularity of “catfights” just _might_ have had some cause _other_ than goddess-fantasies or lesbian fantasies.

What, then, was the other, earlier motivation?

Consider: if two heterosexual women who _aren’t_ clones of Xena the Warrior Princess get into an altercation serious enough to ignite their tempers, but _not_ serious enough to cause either to feel any desire to kill, maim or disfigure the other, they might get into some kind of scuffle without any bloody blades or secret fists of death. They might exchange slaps, grab each other’s shoulders in a shoving match, or even wrestle a bit. When this was SHOWN IN OLD MOVIES, the whole point was that it _wasn’t_ anywhere near to being mortal combat. And if the two women wrapped their arms around each other and rolled around thus clinching, it didn’t mean they wanted to have sex; it meant that they had an unspoken agreement not to punch, kick or strangle each other (at least not initially).

The idea of a catfight which _doesn’t_ need to be taken seriously can entertain me without the female combatants having to end up as lesbian lovers. The two women can be _sexy_ even without _having_ sex, and they can be depicted as angry without either of them being in danger of being killed by the other.

Only once in my entire life, when I was around twenty years old, have I witnessed two women-- or rather, two teenage girls-- physically fighting each other for real, in anger. The girls involved were not at all sexually attracted to each other; they appeared to be fighting over a boy. They were NOT elite-special-forces-trained supergirls ; but they seemed equally matched in strength, and they sure did want to hurt each other, though their wild mutual flailing wasn’t very efficient. The teenage onlookers were enjoying the sight, but neither of the actual fighters was having any fun. They both seemed to be crying at the same time as they fought; each was trying to hit the other, yet at the same time was trying to keep the other away. (Certainly no _hugging_ involved!) Their anger had pulled them into this, and neither girl _could_ stop.

I did not stand watching for as long as my above paragraph might seem to indicate. It’s possible to get a distinct impression of a situation in three or four seconds. I was not one bit entertained by what was happening; I was horrified. So I did what none of the stupid, yelling kids around them thought of doing.

I _stopped_ the fight. I thrust my straightened arms in between the girls, then with an outward movement of my hands, I pushed them away from each other.

Here, by the way, there was no support to be found for the invincible-goddess notion. I have never been physically big or athletic; each of those girls was close to me in size and weight; but I moved them both at the same time as easily as if they had been five-year-old children.

The fact that they _didn’t_ leap right back at each other once I  withdrew my hands tends to convince me that, once an outside force had separated them, they lost their wild rage very quickly. In the circumstances, I had no opportunity to try to reason with the girls at length; but _maybe_ they came away understanding that an adult had cared about _preventing_ them from injuring each other.

Repeat after me: Joseph took NO PLEASURE AT ALL from seeing this real-life catfight.

When I watch a pretended catfight in a movie, I know that the _actresses_ are not really hurting each other; but that’s not good enough. I can only _enjoy_ seeing the pretended catfight if I also know that the _characters_ are not being hurt in the story. A bloodless tussle that vents the characters’ emotions is like a brief glimpse of a world where there _aren’t_ any deadly feuds demanding blood. And loss of the combatants’ clothing is not necessary.

If any simulated fight between women _does_ involve “real” injury (that is, real _within_ the story), I can only enjoy it if it works like a proper good-against-evil fight between men. Thus, if Harley Quinn were so stupid as to attack Wonder Woman, I would take satisfaction from seeing Wonder Woman put Harley Quinn out for the count -- but only the _same_ satisfaction as from seeing Batman put out Joker’s lights. I would never call it a catfight,  precisely _because_ it was too serious a fight to be called that. There would be no pleasure for me in seeing Harley Quinn get the upper hand over Wonder Woman.

For me, viewing a make-believe catfight is like being IN play-fights as a child; the pleasure is dependent precisely on _knowing_ that it’s a game of sorts, not a death-duel.

This relatively gentle sense of fun has been lost by those who want to see women in movies hacking each other into gory meat with swords, and call _that_ a “catfight.”

On Memorial Day, Don't Forget What We Still Need

On this Memorial Day weekend, I remain painfully aware of one war which goes mostly unacknowledged in the establishment media: the war to destroy good men. SPECIFICALLY to destroy GOOD men.

This war can be observed wherever new-wave feminists utterly IGNORE Scimitarist men who rape women and stone the same women for BEING raped, but then the feminists yell bloody murder if a decent man opens a door for them. These shrews, to use a polite word, pretend to believe that a man being courteous to them is "really trying to keep them subjugated." In this and other ways, they seek on purpose to erode the manly spirit of the same men who would be willing to defend women against GENUINE oppressors.

Keep it up, non-ladies. Just you keep on cutting your own throats. And when you've succeeded in producing masses of timid girly-men who can't even imagine being brave soldiers, you'll actually be so stupid as to wonder how it happened that you DON'T have gallant men to defend you against REAL enslavers of women.

When modern man-haters see my words, they'll pretend to believe that I myself secretly WANT women to be enslaved. Well, I don't want them to be enslaved, and the sisters I grew up with KNOW that I don't want women to be enslaved. Neither would I say that there are no women capable of doing their own fighting. Of course there are women capable of being warriors.... but there are not, and never will be, ENOUGH combat-capable women that our country could survive without MALE soldiers.

It is not merely because of a glass ceiling imposed on women that almost all our weapon-wielding front-line wartime heroes have been men. It is in the nature of actual reality that MORE MEN THAN WOMEN have the strength and fortitude to accomplish missions on a battlefield. Americans who don't wish to commit collective national suicide would do well to get back to a nearly-forgotten concept: "might FOR right." We need all the strong AND virtuous men we can get.

A Romance Which Wasn't

Opportunities not taken can cause the bitterest of regrets. Without meaning to brag, I myself have BEEN someone else's opportunity, which she failed to take, to her own regret. I shall arbitrarily call her "Doris."

I first met Doris during one of my periods of singleness. I was in my fifties then, while she was something like thirty-five. The age difference was great enough that neither of us initially thought of the other in romantic terms; but we became friendly enough in the course of certain innocent activities that we shared.

After four or five weeks of association in the shared activity, Doris and I saw nothing of each other for about an equal span of time. Then one Saturday morning, Doris announced on Facebook that she was feeling gloomy and lonely. So I messaged her to say, "Would it cheer you up if I came over and took you out to a movie?" I wasn't thinking of it as a "date," since 95 percent of all peer-females I'd ever met had instantly and permanently sentenced me without trial to the Friendzone Gulag; but I figured that Doris and I could have a chums-pals-buddies good time.

We attended a matinee, her choice of a movie. She chose a science-fiction movie, which earned her brownie points with me. During the movie, her right hand happened to touch my left hand. No, there WAS NOT the tediously-overused "electric spark" which amateurish romance novelists endlessly insert into scenes. What there was, was coldness: not emotional coldness, but the literal coldness of someone with poor blood circulation in her hands. So I offered to warm Doris' hands in mine. Doris herself up to this point had not behaved in any sort of come-hither fashion toward me; but she was glad for the relief I gave to her genuine discomfort of cold hands.

And she willingly leaned into me until it became natural for me to slide an arm around her.

We did not kiss, but we did stay snuggled together pleasantly for the rest of the movie. It was on my mind that here was a woman with whom I had interests in common, and a woman who seemed to LIKE me genuinely. So we did not part company hastily. From the cinema, we went to walk around a popular scenic location-- one which, as it happened, I had formerly visited with my Mary before she passed away, and with my Janalee before SHE passed away. Walking here now, I held hands with Doris, and she was fine with that too. Some bypassers clearly assumed us to be a couple. After our leisurely stroll, I treated her to dinner at a good restaurant.

When I took her home, I wasn't expecting this to turn into anything romantic; but Doris, despite her behavior at the movie, POINTEDLY MADE SURE not to act romantic at all. In fact, she stated out of the blue that she couldn't see having a relationship with a man as much older than she as I was. Because I hadn't been expecting any romance anyway, I was fine with her conclusion. I hugged her lightly, which was okay with her, and I drove back to Aurora. All was well, no harm had been done, it had simply been an enjoyable day for us both. As Emperor of the Friendzone, I had passed other days in a similar way with other staying-at-arm's-length female acquaintances.

In case anyone figures out who "Doris" is, let me say that I feel free to describe our semi-date because Doris DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG. There's no disgrace in going to a movie as friends and afterwards parting company as friends. But there was to be a poignant sequel to that pleasant Saturday in Colorado.

Time passed. I met, and fell for, the woman who was to become my third wife, and who was later to become my only living EX-wife when she decided that she didn't want to be married after all. But at the time I now refer to, "Number Three" did have some feelings for me. A day came when I announced on Facebook that I had found my new love; that I had a new fiancee.

Here's the poignant part. Seeing my status post, Doris -- whom I had not seen in person since that pleasant Saturday -- posted a comment: "I wish it was me!"

Say what?? Doris, you had every opportunity to have encouraged romantic interest back then! But you deliberately locked and barred that door, and NOW you regret having done so? Again, I'm not saying that Doris did anything BAD; but it's wistful and sorrowful to think of her only realizing too late that she would have enjoyed being married to me. It's been a long time since I last saw her in person. And life goes on, from task to task.

Human relationships in this downfallen world are such a minefield! The expression "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" comes to mind. As we search in the dark for love and connection, we may have cause to regret starting a given relationship, OR to regret not starting one. Some of my fellow Christians will glibly say, "God is offering exact guidance for all details at all times, so if any step in your journey is unclear, it's ALL YOUR FAULT for not listening to Him." In reality, however, God DOES NOT invariably tell us in advance what our next move should be; often, it suits Him to let us see some stage in His design only after we've already waded through it.

This being so, disappointments and missed opportunities are sure to befall us in Earthly life. Therefore, all of us need to work at being compassionate toward each other, when we see others bearing the pain of regret.

Children's Crusades a la Postmodern America

In the Old Testament, King Rehoboam the heir of Solomon wanted to be flattered, and listening to flatterers caused him only harm. In modern times, vast segments of society can be deceived with flattery all at once. Notably, political manipulators can flatter emotion-controlled minors into thinking that they’ll be heroes if they do whatever the manipulators want. Yes yes yes yes yes, this manipulation CAN originate from either end of the political spectrum; but anyone possessing one-quarter of a clue about present conditions, knows very well that it is the left which is ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH deceitful flattery of the young.

Especially when leftists remember to use the popular buzzwords like “making a difference.” Then their trickery will seem innocent.

     Who can object to building playgrounds for inner-city children? Who can object to saving dolphins from being killed by tuna-fishery operations? Who can criticize the historical founders of labor unions, who met a crying need in a time when workers had no protection against unfair bosses? Of course, no one can credibly object to those undertakings. THEREFORE, if you have something despicable in mind, you may find it useful to camouflage your despicable plan under the cover of a book for juveniles, honoring such obviously commendable activities.

This is exactly what a man called Phillip Hoose did in 1993, when he wrote a book titled “It’s Our World, Too!” His book had a reprinting in 2002, a time when hard leftists were anxious to steer America’s response to Scimitarist violence in directions which would serve the hard left. The book’s author pretended to be in awe of the innate wisdom and virtue of children and teenagers; in reality, like other hard leftists, he was EXPLOITING THE IGNORANCE AND GULLIBILITY of children and teenagers by inflating their vanity.

For instance, he praised the air-headed girl Samantha Smith, who imagined that writing a letter to Yuri Andropov would promote world peace. In concrete fact, this naïve child never made even the tiniest little dent in the ironclad authoritarian tyranny of the Soviet Union. But Mister Hoose absurdly pretended that she HAD accomplished something. He had to pretend this, because it was in his faction’s program to pretend that Communist tyranny was not in any way a cause of unrest in the world.

AMERICA was required to be the cause of injustice and violence.

Which brings us to the most shamelessly America-bashing item in the book: the chapter titled “The Children’s Statue For Peace.”

Already in 1993, kids were woefully uninformed about what the Second World War had been about. This ignorance has not been remedied since. The ONLY thing about World War Two that you can find out from Hoose’s book is that those mean, hateful Americans dropped an evil atomic bomb on Hiroshima, resulting in deaths of children.

The chapter dwells on how American schoolkids did such heroic world-saving projects as turning an empty missile nosecone into a flower planter, and of course campaigning for the statue the chapter is named for. Whoop-dee-doo. Lots and lots of chatter about how “war is bad”-- without one thought for the truth about WHO STARTED the war under discussion.

To get at the truth, we need to go back to history which is even farther outside the knowledge of clueless children who are manipulated by hard-leftist adults. FORTY YEARS BEFORE Hiroshima was nuked, Imperial Japan was already starting its unprovoked aggression against essentially everyone it could reach in Asia and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Chinese, Koreans, and other Eastern ethnicities who came under the Japanese heel were not merely governed by Japan, but forced to surrender their whole cultures to the supremacy of Japanese culture.  Now, leftists will manage to find it in their hearts to condemn the way the United States did the same thing to Native Americans; but NOT A PEEP will you hear, from any dedicated totalitarian I’ve met, about what Japan did.

Because Japan is not the target that hard leftists want to discredit and subvert.

AFTER Pearl Harbor was attacked (one of those trivial details Mister Hoose considers irrelevant), Japanese-Americans in the United States were interned in camps. Various other leftist authors have made this out to be one of the world’s grand-champion injustices. But those who weep and wail about the admittedly-harsh ordeal of the Nisei usually don’t care squat about how Japanese soldiers used swords and bayonets to butcher Chinese infants FOR FUN. They don’t care squat about the many thousands of girls from Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere who were forcibly pressed into service as “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers to rape. And they don’t care squat about the way Allied prisoners of war were worked to death as slave labor.

(Since writing this critique, I’ve learned that someone in San Francisco FINALLY DID create a memorial for the “comfort women;” but it sure was a long time coming, and it has yet to receive anything close to the tireless publicity given to those EEEEEEE-vil racist Americans nuking Hiroshima.)

Mister Hoose, in his “Statue For Peace” chapter, didn’t care squat about the Japanese having started World War Two (they were in the aggression game before Adolf Hitler graduated high school); one hundred percent of his indignation was aimed at the United States for being so mean and hateful as to WIN the war.

In this chapter, Hoose claimed that it was only some people’s opinion that the A-bombs shortened the war and caused a net reduction in total deaths. Well, what he labeled as only opinion, I have as fact from the testimony of a JAPANESE war veteran. Kuwahara Yasuo (whose name would be given the other way around for the American readership), was a fighter pilot in World War Two. Afterward, he wrote an autobiography titled “Kamikaze,” which I read while I was in grade school. Contrary to the claims of America-bashers that Japan was already trying to surrender, Kuwahara reports from direct knowledge that before Hiroshima, Japan intended to keep fighting to the last drop of blood. So yes, the A-bombs did reduce the final total of deaths.

I can also call a witness regarding the cultural genocide practiced by Imperial Japan: the Newbery Medal winner Linda Sue Park. Extremely well versed in her Korean heritage, she knows all about Koreans being forced, for instance, to assume Japanese names. She wrote a novel, “When My Name Was Keoko,” to help young readers understand how it was.

I conclude with one of those truths which are so screamingly obvious that hard leftists can confidently rely on people not to think about them. Phillip Hoose WAS NOT ARRESTED for publishing his book which used the standard Blame America First method. How do you suppose he would have fared if, living in the old Soviet Union, he had tried publishing a book which criticized THAT regime?

If you sincerely want to promote international peace, you just might do well to consider the significance of governments which don’t allow criticism. If totalitarian rulers are willing to persecute their own people for any act of dissent, then if they achieve "peace" on their  own terms, do you think those rulers will be MORE kindly and fair to US?