I'm watching Pride & Prejudice again, and I've only now noticed for the first time that the younger sisters are Carey Mulligan and Jena Malone. Adorable. I love it so when girls are just unapologetically girls.

I'm not so naive as to believe that that time, or any time in this world's history, was a golden age or a paradisical utopia (other than Paradise itself, of course). But there are so many beautiful, good, and lovely things which we've now lost.

I wonder, too, that the feminists who've spent the last half or three quarters of a century diligently destroying every vestige of gentility and chivalry under the names of patriarchy and patronization have not yet figured out that all the centuries and millennia of accumulated rules, manners, etiquette, and customs were men's way of understanding (or at least attempting to, anyway), accommodating, and protecting women. Imperfect, to be sure. But compare the behavior of antique gentlemen to the misogynistic, violent, abusive, porn-addicted rape culture of this generation of males (I will not name them men), and judge for yourself which is better. I know which I prefer; and for that I offer no apologies.