Warning: Undefined array key "spotlight" in /home/vcid/public_html/wp-content/plugins/my-custom-functions/inc/php/functional.php(103) : eval()'d code on line 9

Warning: Undefined array key "spotlight" in /home/vcid/public_html/wp-content/plugins/my-custom-functions/inc/php/functional.php(103) : eval()'d code on line 12

Warning: Undefined array key "spotlight" in /home/vcid/public_html/wp-content/plugins/my-custom-functions/inc/php/functional.php(103) : eval()'d code on line 16
Tag:history (p. 1/1) | Vox Clamantis In Deserto

What To Call Skirts Marketed For Men?

Part of the women’s liberation movement was inventing new vocabulary which enabled women to differentiate their agenda as the pursuit of equality and not emulation. Women sought to be treated equally as men (particularly in employment) but it was also clear that they were not to be regarded as men. Employment law shifted accordingly such that if trousers were acceptable attire for men, they must also be acceptable attire for women. And since men were not required to wear stockings or heels, neither could women. As I have pointed out in other posts, these cultural strides were not reciprocated for men. While it remained acceptable for women to wear sandals to the office, I have yet to read a single employee dress code that  specifically extends such option to men. (Granted, no one wants to see most men’s feet, and most men lack fashion sensibility to select dignified sandals, but the same can be said for a number of women as well.)Continue Reading

Well-Regulated Militia & Right to Bear Arms

I have heard opponents argue that the second-amendment’s “well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state” is subsumed by the National Guard such that there is no right for citizens to organize lay-militia. Without expressing an opinion on lay-militia and para-militia groups, I’m not convinced that the subsuming approach is correct.Continue Reading

Second Amendment Restrictions

Americans might be more willing to accept gun/ammo restrictions if such were applied equally to the militarization-thirsty (and qualifiedly-immune) police. The second amendment is substantively a repudiation and protection from the one law for me, another law for thee conduct of state actors. Let them lead by example by demilitarizing themselves before they ask citizens to demilitarize. Then there would truly be no need for such gear.

Naked In Nature

As I lay there naked in the heavy dampness and slight chill with only the drizzle and the creek accompanying me in the blackness, I contemplated the existence of my earlier hominid ancestors sheltering such nights in caves. Continue Reading

On Discovering Truth

[T]ruth is best discovered by powerful statements on both sides of the question. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)


N.B. Though often attributed to Lord John Scott Eldon (1751-1838), Eldon was, in fact, quoting Bacon.

Les dangers du jour

It occurs to me that America enjoys obsessing over pathogenic dangers and maladies. Following the Al-Qaeda attack of 9/11, Americans went insane in the membrane over Anthrax. By 2003 America wrung its hands about West Nile virus. In 2009 America deployed millions of gallons of hand sanitizer in response to grave prognostications of H1N1 swine flu. In 2014 America went bonkers over Ebola.  In 2016 America obsessed over Zika. In 2020, America conked its skull on Coronavirus. America, it seems, needs new obsessions to forget its former preoccupations.

On Securing Liberty

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.Thomas Paine (1795)

Edmund Burke on Moral Duty

Two intrinsically-linked quotes from Sir Edmund Burke:

1) The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

2) Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Adam and Eve

According to the Genesis (chapter 2) account in which Eve was “extracted” from Adam, that means Adam was the biological sum of man and woman. So Adam became man simultaneously with Eve becoming woman. Man and woman were thus created simultaneously, not sequentially. Man is not preeminent over woman.

The History of Skirted Men

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594 – 1612)In the not all to distant past, men wore unbifurcated garments and while few would want to dress like Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, it is not a novel concept that men should not be confined to trousers. Little by little, journalists, sociologists, and artists are looking into the history of skirted men and sharing their findings:

Why Men Still Don’t Casually Wear . . .

In the not too distant past, European aristocratic males wore both skirt-like garments as well as high heels. (In fact, women adopted high heels from European men and made them daintily and femininely narrower.) Over time, though, the European and American industrial revolutions made bifurcated pants and flat shoes more utilitarian for daily life. Women, however, who were relegated to lives of domesticity continued with the less practical fashion. But there has always been a double standardContinue Reading