So usually when I do these “from the library” posts, it’s a book on politics, but this came from the memoirs section. I Forgot to Remember is an unsettling book.  Su Meck, at the age of 22, lost her memory in a freak accident in 1988, a very Hollywood-style total amnesia (which she and/or her ghostwriter tells us is in fact extremely rare).  But unlike a Hollywood tale, she struggles for many, many years subsequent to that accident. A young... Read more

Rain poncho-clad demonstrators demanding $15-an-hour pay circled the McDonald’s with signs and chanted in Spanish, “What do we want? $15! When do we want it? Now!” and “McDonald’s, we are here.” So reports a Tribune article on a multi-city (with “dozens” of protesters in Chicago) protest for $15 pay for fast-food workers. Now, the protest was sponsored by, and funded by, the SIEU (the “funding” part is unclear, but the Tribune specifically uses the word “bankrolled” — I know that... Read more

From CNN, a Sudanese woman, the daughter of a Muslim man, has been sentenced to death for apostasy for her Christian beliefs.  No commentary, except that it makes me think that the book Crucified Again, which I picked up at the library but looked overly sensationalist, might not be. Religion of Peace?  Not so much. Read more

Remember the first season of Survivor?  Rich, Kelly, and Rudy formed an alliance and made it to the end based in no small part on the fact that the rest of the contestants played the game as individuals, without any long-term strategy, voting for the individual that they disliked most at any given point in time.  Everyone else expected their fellow players to be truthful — and even after alliances became the norm, early alliances were, it seems to me,... Read more

As linked to by instapundit.com, Penelope Trunk asks, “what does it mean to be a “full-time” mother, or to work “full time”? She cites a profile that Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook fame wrote of Beyonce, for the Time “100 most influential people” issue, gushing about her achievements in the music industry.  Then she says, But there’s exactly nothing surprising until Sheryl adds, “Beyonce does all this while being a full-time mother.”   In that little sentence, Sandberg does something very... Read more

That’s the article in today’s Tribune, a profile of childless women in their 20s who have a hard time convincing their OB-GYN to perform a tubal ligation operation on them.  The doctors are worried that these women will regret this later, not so much out of a fear of lawsuits as just a general reluctance to do something that has a potential of causing harm rather than helping their patients, in the long term. The accusation is this: In interviews... Read more

This link is from the Los Angeles Times, but it appeared in today’s (Sunday’s) Chicago Tribune. It describes the labors of Afghanistan’s child workers, though, in reality, two details were surprising:  first, the statement that about 25% of Afghanistan’s children between the ages of 6 and 17 work, is, really, when reversed, more hopeful than I would have expected:  75% of Afghanistan’s children are not employed.  (Can one say that this percentage is in school?  Probably not, as there are... Read more

This post is kind of long-winded, but I do have a point, eventually. . . I’ve mentioned before that my husband is German.  When the children were small, he tried to speak German to them so that they’d learn the language, but that was not particularly successful, so right now we send them to Saturday morning German school. Surprisingly, there are actually two options around us:  the DANK school and the Donauschwaben Society German school.  I myself took a couple... Read more

The kidnapping of over 270 Nigerian girls by the Boko Haram terrorist group, reportedly to sell them to members as “wives” (= slaves) is an appalling situation.  This is hardly the first such attack; thegatewaypundit.com reports on their attacks on villages fairly often (though the site is often a bit too sensationalist for my taste on other subjects).  But this has captured Americans’ attention enough to appear on my facebook feed multiple times. Here’s a link to a facebook posting... Read more

So a week or so ago, there was an extended discussion on a friend’s facebook page about whether it’s wholly inappropriate for grown men to pursue Star Wars fandom (rewatching the movies, reading the fanfiction novels, discussing the movies online, going to conventions, etc.) as a hobby.  Someone linked to an article which started with “Star Wars fans are weird” but basically argued that, well, Star Wars-ing and video gaming and similar activities are unproductive.  “My dad didn’t do any... Read more