In the movie “All About Eve,” Bette Davis wonders aloud what is going on in the “feverish little brain” of wannabe career usurper Ann Baxter. Last week, I also wondered what goes on in a number of feverish little brains, courtesy of people who exhibit a combination of cluelessness and self-absorption that would be truly disturbing in a better world. Unfortunately in this world, it’s business – or is that brainless – as usual.

We begin with the latest cause du jour, as in the kidnapping of 276 girls by a radical Islamic sect known as the Boko Haram. For many feverish little brains who ought to know better, the Boko Haram’s latest atrocity is somewhat surprising. I say latest because a piece I wrote for Front Page Magazine details another atrocity committed by this same bunch of thugs, who killed more than 100 people in the states of Borno and Yobe. The piece contains a warning by former AFRICOM commander Gen. Carter F. Ham, who notes that Boko Haram is forming a “loose partnership” with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab, a Somali-based terror group that killed 70 people at the World Cup soccer matches in Uganda in 2010. Ham characterized the development as one that "would be the most dangerous thing to happen not only to the Africans, but to us as well.“

That piece was published Nov. 7 – 2011.

Thus, at least as far as those who ought to know better go, we are dealing with selective outrage. Of course it is the kind of selective outrage perfectly attuned to progressive sensibilities in that it represents a "war on women” that has ginned up media and celebrity-driven coverage of this “startling” turn of events. Unfortunately, the only thing clearer than that outrage is the utter impotency that accompanies it. That impotency is personified by First Lady Michelle Obama, who like so many of her fellow progressives, believes that posing somberly and holding up a sign with the Twitter hashtag, “#BringBackOurGirls” amounts to something other than flaccid self-indulgence.

Not that her husband is much better. The most powerful man in the world wakes up every day and thinks about the “young girls in Nigeria.” What does he do about the young girls in Nigeria? The Commander-in-Chief has dispatched a contingent of seven military and State Department officials who will join 50 security experts already stationed in the country. Thus, all of fifty seven Americans are spearheading the fight against hundreds of heavily-armed and ruthless killers.

Apparently SEAL Team 6 or the equivalent is unavailable.

Ironically, the same progressives who might be getting an inkling of what the real war on women in this world is all about, were more than willing to censor someone who might have filled them in on all the details about which they remain willfully clueless. I am referring to Ayaan Ali Hirsi and the recision of her honorary degree at Brandeis University. In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, Ali, who unlike so many of her detractors, has actually walked the walk of radical Islam’s war against women – clitoridectomy included – wonders aloud how to explain that war “to baffled Westerners, who these days seem more eager to smear the critics of jihadism as ‘Islamophobes’ than to stand up for women’s most basic rights?”

Memo to Ms. Ali: save your breath. An ideology whose core value consists of feel-good symbolism, coupled with a situational inconsistency that enables one to take positions diametrically opposed to each other as the next occasion arises, isn’t worth an iota of your time and energy.

That goes double for the equally clueless Hollywood celebrities whose latest indignation is also related to their Johnny-come-lately understanding of Sharia Law. Led by former "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, they have manned the picket lines, boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air, because their owner, the Sultan of Brunei, ratcheted up a stricter version of Sharia beginning April 30. The latest clampdown includes stoning adulterers and gays to death.

Leno rallied his fellow travelers. “This is 2014, not 1814,” he told the crowd, adding that this controversy was far more serious than the tidal wave of outrage directed at LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his racist rants. “I mean, we get so upset when a team owner says something inappropriate,” Leno declared. “Here are people being killed, stoned to death …. It’s just a matter of priorities, that’s what it is.”

The Wall Street Journal reveals what those priorities really are:

“The participation of Hollywood’s A-list in the boycott has been painful because the (Beverly Hills) hotel has long been a see-and-be-seen spot to eat, sleep and fundraise. The hotel’s Polo Lounge restaurant is one of this city’s prime power-lunch spots. One event earlier this year attracted stars including Will Smith and Sandra Bullock.”

In other words, now that a celeb playground has become part of the Islamist equation, a bunch of sleepwalking A-listers have temporarily snapped out of their self-induced coma. It is a coma amplified by the reality that Sharia Law has been part of the equation, not just in Brunei, but virtually every Muslim country in the world long before April 30. People with something other than feverish little brains know that. On the other hand, some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet are apparently able to muster up their indignation only when their power-lunches are threatened.

As bad as all of the above people behaved, the hands down winner of last week’s feverish little brain competition is one Emily Letts, an abortion counselor at Cherry Hill Women’s Center in New Jersey. Ms. Letts decided to do the world a favor and film her own abortion, explaining her motivation for doing so in an essay.

“I had never been political about abortion rights before, but the idea of helping women through an abortion and supporting them and reassuring them that they are still wonderful and beautiful resonated deeply with me,” Letts gushes. And despite terminating her own pregnancy, the former professional actress still refers to herself as a “birth junkie.”

She cuts to the chase. “I found out I was pregnant in November,” she reveals. “I had been working at the clinic for about a year. It was my first pregnancy, and, full disclosure, I hadn’t been using any kind of birth control, which is crazy, I know. I’m a sex educator, and I love talking about birth control. Before this experience, hormonal birth control scared me because of complications I’d heard about from friends – gaining weight, depression, etc. So I tracked my ovulation cycle, and I didn’t have any long-term partners. I thought I was OK. But, you know, things happen. I wound up pregnant.”

Sorry, Emily, but no one “winds up” pregnant. Pregnant is what happens when one engages in unprotected sex with what in this case appears to be an undetermined number of casual partners. Partners who, despite your concerns about hormonal birth control, weren’t required to wear a condom.

Incredibly, Letts professes surprise regarding the most natural of consequences. “On a whim, I took a test, and it came up two pink lines. The moment when a woman looks down and sees those two pink lines and she’s not expecting to see them, it’s like time implodes and explodes simultaneously,” she says. “You’re caught in this tornado that just sucks out all the breath in your lungs.”  She continues. “Once I caught my breath, I knew immediately I was going to have an abortion. I knew I wasn’t ready to take care of a child. The guy wasn’t involved in my decision.”

Her description of the filming is surreal. “I remember breathing and humming through it like I was giving birth,” she writes. “I know that sounds weird, but to me, this was as birth-like as it could be. It will always be a special memory for me.” So is the aftermath. “Still, every time I watch the video, I love it. I love how positive it is. I think that there are just no positive abortion stories on video for everyone to see. But mine is.”

Two things come to mind. The first regards the astounding level of denial and self-indulgence that turns the termination of a life into something to be celebrated. Letts rationalizes her feelings by characterizing herself as a crusader against the guilt that society “breeds” in women who decide to have abortions. Thus Letts is grateful that “I can share my story and inspire other women to stop the guilt.”

The second thought regards the equally astounding level of irresponsibility. “I do feel a little irresponsible and embarrassed about not using birth control,” she says. A “little” irresponsibility and embarrassment might be associated with something like forgetting to lock the door when you leave the house. An unwanted pregnancy leading to abortion? Not so much.

Yet I always think about such casual dismissals of abortion whenever I hear the ultimate rationalization for it, aka “it’s a woman’s right to choose.” Fair enough. But why is it that a woman’s right to choose calculatingly ignores the first and most important choice of all, as in the choice not to have unprotected sex if one is not willing to live with the consequences?

For years people like myself and others have wondered what the ultimate destination is for a society that treasures trivial symbolism over genuine substance, embraces selective outrage and intellectual dishonesty, and has virtually eliminated guilt, shame and personal responsibility as mitigating behavioral factors. If a Twitter hashtag “war” against Islamist thugs, a boycott of hotel power-lunches, or celebrating one’s abortion with a video posted on the Internet are any indication, the feverish little brains among us have an inordinate amount of influence. I would like to think Oscar Wilde was wrong when he said, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without a civilization in between.”

But maybe he wasn’t.

© 2014 The Patriot Post