Gala and Salvador Dali

One of the most cultured traits in contemporary countrywomen is their immunity from delusions that men belong anywhere in the hospital other than a waiting room during deliveries.

To this day many nurses admonish new mothers, “Never tell your husband the details of your experience. It is best for you both he consider the birth of your child as a miracle.” My only addition would be it is also best for both that he maintain a vision of his wife as goddess rather than a bloody, scarred battle veteran.

This sort of atavism outrages a modernity which is always shocked the Old World retains its old values. Alas these are the prices one must pay: madness for the artist and martyrdom for the muse.

Gloria Steinem would not be impressed. Mercifully, she is not the sort to be remembered throughout the centuries. Nor is she of the kind timelessly revered following a handful of millennia.

Thus even if one is disinclined to ladies in general, my advice for those upset over admittedly discriminatory laws in a nation literally one-half the world away is not to pass comparable legislation in their own countries. The reason I don’t criticize Russians for the way they live there is the same reason I never criticize homosexuals for the way they live here; to each his own, whether I understand it or not.

None of which is to mention the Motherland is scarcely the worst offender when it comes to postmodern lifestyles. Does it ever occur to sanctimonious pourers of vodka they have driven to those symbolic protests in petrol-powered cars?

Homosexuality is a capital offense in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran; all major oil producers. Mind you this is far from condoning the Muscovite position, but unless one is archetypically Russian himself I seriously doubt he is buying more Stoli than unleaded.

As for the personal boycott announced by a preening Obama, he clearly doesn’t understand anything about Slavs. The president can rest assured that residents of Moscow will lose no sleep having one less black man in their city.