Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Everybody knows of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Thinking her husband lost at sea, Hester Prynne has a liaison that produces a child. Since Boston didn't have a Planned Parenthood branch in those days, she was unable to hide the evidence of her liaison. Unwilling to name her accomplice, the authorities stipulate an unusual condition to her probation: she must always wear a scarlet "A" on her gown to signify her adultery.
Most modern Americans haven't read the book, so they don't know much about the plot. One critical theme escapes even Wikipedia's summary of the novel : the thaw in Hester's relations with the community.

Read to Sparknotes' summaries of Chapters Five...

Although she is an outcast, Hester remains able to support herself due to her uncommon talent in needlework. Her taste for the beautiful infuses her embroidery, rendering her work fit to be worn by the governor despite its shameful source. Although the ornate detail of her artistry defies Puritan codes of fashion, it is in demand for burial shrouds, christening gowns, and officials’ robes. In fact, through her work, Hester touches all the major events of life except for marriage-it is deemed inappropriate for chaste brides to wear the product of Hester Prynne’s hands.
...and Thirteen:

Hester has become more active in society. She brings food to the doors of the poor, she nurses the sick, and she is a source of aid in times of trouble. She is still frequently made an object of scorn, but more people are beginning to interpret the “A” on her chest as meaning “Able” rather than “Adulterer.”Hawthorne's fictional Puritans are more tolerant than his non-readers realize. As in real life throughout history, friendly (or at least less hostile) relations often begin with commerce. Hester's needlework is rejected for the one institution that her crime blasphemed: marriage. But the community eagerly purchases her handiwork to honor their dead, their infants at christening, and their magistrates - people they regard highly, and people to whom Hester's crime was irrelevant.

In time the people accept Hester's various acts of charity. The one that really stands out is nursing the sick. Think about what is involved here: people allow Hester in their homes to spend a great deal of time with loved ones. This more than any of her other activities, philanthropic or commercial, fosters the development of personal relationships - and requires the greatest level of trust.

To the community, one serious sin doesn't make Hester completely irredeemable. (Perhaps they recall the transgressions of the Church's own Apostles. How can they totally reject an adulteress when Jesus didn't ditch Peter after the latter's denials?) Hester's scarlet letter is "A" for Adulteress, not "U" for Unmutual.

When modern Leftists claim that they are not Puritanical, in the Hawthornian sense they are often telling the truth. many Leftists will reject a person or institution totally on the basis of a single (real or perceived) transgression. The most recent example is the hand-wringing over Chik-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy's remark:

We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives."
If the people screaming rabid vengeance over these remarks were like Hawthorne's Puritans, they wouldn't boycott Cathy entirely - just on occasions that have something to do with SSM and promiscuity. (Any pro-historical-marriage stance is inherently an anti-promiscuity stance.) SSM ceremony? Playboy Magazine Collector's Club meeting? Anywhere but Chik-fil-A. Simple lunch break, or any other occasion that has absolutely nothing to do with sex? Chik-fil-A is fine.

But no. The screaming leftists are not that tolerant. Chik-fil-A is heretic.Unmutual. It must be run out of society.

Unless he's cured, of course.



Update: Some might find contradiction between my statement "Any pro-historical-marriage stance is inherently an anti-promiscuity stance" and the long tenure of polygamy. Not quite so - rational persons have always understood polygamy to be a farce. Marriage was invented to protect women and children from male promiscuity. Polygamy is a legal fiction that not only gives promiscuity the veneer of marriage, but also artificially boosts elites' "market share" of available women.

Labels: Culture, Politics

At PJ Media: 8 Ways Blacks Perpetuate Racism and the Only Way to Thwart It, by Walter Hudson, political commentator and chair of Minnesota’s North Star Tea Party Patriots. He also blogs here.

Labels: Culture, Politics

When lefties defend their policies, one the tired catchphrases they employ is "don't turn the clock back" or something to that effect. The underlying insinuation is that the policy in question has gained some benefit for the nation.


I'd like I'd like to know what was gained from the policies responsible for five fiscal years in a row of trillion-dollar deficits.

Labels: Politics

Clayton Cramer puts his new Tamron 28-200mm zoom lens to use.

Apparently, this was the fire in question.

Labels: Curiosities

Let's take a look at the entire quote, and not just the part that got the National Federation of Independent Business and a whole lot of other folks in an uproar:


If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.
Obama vastly overestimates the number of a) successful person who were taught by at least one great teacher, and b) great teachers. Please. Real life is not a Frank Capra movie.

Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.
Unfortunately, the President doesn't support the foundations that make our system great.

Somebody invested in roads and bridges.
Roads and bridges (practical ones) were built in response to existing commercial demand. Points A and B wanted to trade, so the infrastructure was built to make trade easier and faster.

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
There's the segment that raised all the fuss. It reeks of a prejudice that regards "labor" (front-line workers) as the ones who do the real work, and "management" (including proprietors, whom Obama was addressing directly) as a sort of parasite class; the tasks of dreaming up and working out the details of products and services, and planning how they will be manufactured/delivered, are viewed as something short of "real work."

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet
That myth has been around for quite a while. In a 2005 post, Tyler Cowen quoted leftwatch.com (now a dead link) on that subject:

It is interesting, given [Barbara] Ehrenreich’s view that the Internet was an innovation made possible by the government, that prior to the early 1990s almost nobody outside of governments and universities had home access to the Internet while several million had logged on to a BBS at one point or another. What caused the change? Something Ehrenreich and her left/liberal friends usually fight tooth and nail — privatization. The floodgates of the Internet came open only after key resources became privatized and companies and individuals could operate on the Internet. For much of its existence, commercial activity on the Internet had been forbidden. The removal of that barrier is primarily responsible for the Internet we have today, where both anarchists and Abercrombie and Fitch use the web to broadcast their respective messages.

Labels: Economics, Politics

And by golly, there's one listed.\

Cue Charlie Daniels.

Labels: Curiosities

Young Donny Osmond and young Janet Napolitano.

(Latter link via Ann Althouse)

Labels: Humor

See last year's post.

(Computer glitches prevented me from copying the old post to a new post, hence the shortcut.)

Labels: Blog traditions, Holidays

Gateway Pundit "Where hope finally made a comeback." Jim Hoft is a prolific political blogger. Among the starts of recent headlines are Allen West and Henry Waxman.

Riehl World View Dan Riehl reminds us what non-Republican senators are up for reelection, and offers this theory behind Dread Justice Roberts' vote,

Labels: Blogs