Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to this article about the ridiculously poor life expectancy of men at a particular housing estate in South Wales.  His link quoted the line, “You have to get your pleasures where you can.”  That’s telling; what do people expect in a culture where the very concept of manliness has been rendered anathema?

I found this passage telling as well:

Victoria Winckler, of the Bevan Foundation think tank in the South Wales Valleys, said the life expectancy data should shock the authorities into action.

She said: “Although healthy living is very important, itâ s not the only answer.

“Eating well and exercising still does not give you enough money to go out occasionally or heat your home.

“It doesn’t give you a job with a sense of purpose and well-being.

Give, give, give — yes, by all means, let’s “shock the authorities into action.”  Here’s a thought:  it’s the authorities who are responsible for this abomination.  Authorities who’ve so thoroughly obliterated the notion of earning your way, creating your own opportunities, embracing and relishing the challenges of being a man, that the “men” they rule are nothing but self-destructive children — older than the ones in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, but the same nonetheless, because they’ve been prevented from growing up by an illegitimate, destructive nonsense of an “enlightened” modern culture.  Miss Winckler, you can “give” them all you like — but that won’t change a damn thing.

God bless America.  So far, anyway…