First, some pictures: At Badlands National Park, at sunrise: Buffalo at sunrise (own work) and at sunset: We had some more but these were my two favorites from our road trip with the two key destinations being Custer State Park and Badlands National Park, and yes, the buffalo is scratching his back on the sign. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that it took as long as it did, for the kids to be almost all out of the house, for... Read more
IQ tests are designed to measure raw intelligence, irrespective of educational level or age. Hypothetically, a score of 100 is meant to indicate an intelligence that’s precisely the average. You’d think that the United States, given our economic strength, would have an above-average IQ; turns out, that’s not the case, as studies indicate an average of 97 or 98, significantly lower than Japan’s 106.48 or 105 or South Korea’s 102 or 106. And, yes, these international comparisons are controversial, but... Read more
Two weeks ago, Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich gave the opening prayer at the Democratic National Convention. It was in one respect, quite fitting, since it was held in Chicago, but at the same time, it merits asking whether his decision was wholly appropriate, or, rather, whether the contents of the prayer was appropriate. And, no, I’m not upset that Cupich didn’t make any mention of Jesus. Instead, well — on the one hand, party conventions are a part of our democratic... Read more
“Housing shortage” is a term that conventionally pops up with reference to historical events such as a war or natural disaster destroying housing, or in the past, communist countries putting people on decade-long waitlists because housing was centrally planned, or in rare instances, a particular town or region suddenly becoming jobs-rich, such as parts of North Dakota recently due to the oil boom there. How can America have a housing shortage, in general, when none of these conditions apply? How... Read more
By now everyone has read about the controversial Olympic Opening Ceremony scene last week, so I’m not going to provide the full details here, but I nonetheless Have Thoughts About It. Yes, it was definitely a reference to the Last Supper, though it was a dynamic scene rather than a still image, so that it shifted from “Last Supper” to “Greek Gods” to “catwalk.” But participants in the scene perceived of what they were doing as exactly this, with the... Read more
So JD Vance’s criticism of childless women, or crazy cat ladies, went viral over the past week, with various pundits claiming this was disqualifying in the election for Vice President. His claim, quite simply, was that childless women were less able to think about the long-term future, than mothers whose perspective was influenced by their concern with their children. Will those childless women, and the child-ful women who support their literal or figurative sisters, rise up in support of Kamala... Read more
A term I just coined, of course. But the Catholic Church has, for millennia, in fact, believed that to pray is to do something good for others, not just a form of personal entertainment such as reading a novel, nor a means to an end like taking classes to get a promotion. That belief has been fundamental to the very idea of monastic life. Yes, monks “saved civilization” through the scriptoria, and in American history actual cloistered religious life was... Read more
Dad has passed. Mom has dementia. At this point it is severe enough that she says only a few words, but it’s been quite a while since she has been able to say particularly much and even longer still since she has been able to tell us much about the past. And this means there are questions about my childhood I will never know the answer to. Exhibit 1: my childhood bedspread. Yes, what you see here is a bedspread... Read more
More stellar reporting from the Tribune: in a photo spread about a multicultural event, students at Bartlett High School are pictured holding a Palestinian flag as well as two signs, one reading “in our hundreds, in our millions, we are all Palestinian,” and the other, “From the River to the Sea” as well as Arabic text which, according to the students’ change.org petition, translates to “Palestine is Arab.” Upon discovering this, school staff paused distribution of the yearbook in order... Read more
Yes, I still subscribe to the Chicago Tribune, though I switched to the digital only option a while back, and I read the paper digitally relatively infrequently, but one opinion piece caught my eye from a bit over a week ago: “Why isn’t the SAT being translated into other languages?” by Gina Caneva, a librarian at East Leyden High School, in Franklin Park, a suburb a few miles west of Chicago, whose previous work experience includes 8 years as a... Read more
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