The internet offers some great alternatives to the Mainstreammedia. It's good to know that not everyone is taken in by the New York Times and National Public Radio and the pantheon of teleprompter readers. But there is a troubling noise coming from the undercarriage of the websites, programs and publications aimed at the conservative male; I think that noise might be WHINING!
We men have Shakespeare whose St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V reminds us that honor is a rare and precious thing. Polonius' brief advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet would fit nicely on an index card slipped into the wallet you give to your son as he leaves for college. Rudyard Kipling gives us "If" so we can know just how much fairness we can expect from life and "Gunga Din" in case we ever think the way someone looks or where they are from will tell us Jack Shit about who they really are. For lighter reading, we have Louis L'amour whose hundreds of stalwart protagonists face adversity and injustice with stoicism and resolute adherence to principle. We even have Robert Bly to tell us it's okay to sit around the campfire and tell your best pals that you love them (but let's just leave it at a firm handshake on Monday.)
Women have a different set of literary treasures to draw on. Their principles are reflected in such aphorisms as these: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; A girl's got a right to change her mind; All's fair in love and war. (That last one isn't as true as it was before men got together and wrote the Geneva Conventions.) Women have romance novels wherein it takes eight hundred pages for some sheltered bimbo to get her boots knocked by the stable boy. Women have Cosmopolitan magazine (written and published by women) to give them fresh insights each month to finding happiness through dieting, shopping and cosmetics. Women have Lifetime Television and it's sisters which I can't stand to watch long enough to know much more than that they have lots of ads for soap and tampons.
Women are taught to lie. Women are taught that the things they do and say when they are upset don't count. Women are taught that when they don't get what they want, any measures AT ALL can and should be used.
Guys, let's be men. Yes, we are getting pummeled in the family courts, the schools are short-changing our sons, we are being generally bad-mouthed by a vocal coven of bitter, ill-groomed hussies who spent too much time in graduate school trying to compensate for not getting asked to the prom. But quit boo hooing and suck it up and let's figure out what we are going to do about these things. We built the family courts, we built the education system and we built the media outlets where these harpies do their harping. We can hold our own if we remember who we are and what the universe expects of us. Sit down with your best pals, open the recreational beverage of your choice and decide the things you will somehow make happen. If you have need for Kleenex, you aren't doing it right.
