Here’s a report from CNN today: “A transgender teen’s suicide, a mother’s anguish.” The story: a 17-year-old teenager commits suicide, and posts a suicide note blaming his parents for lack of support. Now, the first thing you’ll notice is that CNN has wholly adopted the approach that, if you announce you’re transgender, and provide a new name, their stylebook dictates that this becomes, for reporting purposes, your new name, as they use this new name in their reporting and even... Read more
(Following up on my earlier post on “hyphenism.”) You know, I have mixed feelings about Bobby Jindal. Let’s start with the name “Bobby.” He gets widely mocked for a nickname coming from The Brady Bunch but who among us, of that generation (he’s two years younger than I am), didn’t watch The Brady Bunch after school, when we were too young to know that we were supposed to be cynical and mock the show? (Remember that he, like I, is... Read more
From Chicago magazine, a feature article on the declining membership in the Catholic Church in Chicago — a decline even more severe if you keep in mind that the current influx of Mexicans is propping up the parishoner count (but not helping much in terms of support for Catholic schools and generally being more recipients than providers of aid). As usual with these sorts of articles in the secular press, the general approach is “they’d go a lot better with... Read more
Remember when Zeke Emanuel said he didn’t want to live past age 75? It was in The Atlantic back in October, and, while he didn’t advocate suicide at that age, he said that simply doesn’t want to live past that age and certainly doesn’t want any lifesaving medical treatments past that age. Some key quotes: Writing about his father, he says, after a heart attack a decade ago at age 77, Once the prototype of a hyperactive Emanuel, suddenly his walking,... Read more
This line of thinking started when a friend commented on facebook about her own friend’s complaint about The Interview that it stereotyped Koreans, and another friend joined in that his biggest gripe was the lack of Asian Americans in films, more generally. And it just seemed like an odd complaint to me. Asian Americans (that is, as defined by the census bureau) are 5% of the American population, and one suspects that, as a whole, the group is less likely... Read more
We have a few plans, but I thought I’d solicit suggestions from readers. What are your favorite charities? More interested in human needs than advocacy groups of whatever kind, and thinking of seeing who’s got a good track record with refugees fleeing ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Definitely NOT giving to the Red Cross this year, and hoping to avoid similiar organizations who have lost their way, though it’s not always easy, as the larger an organization is, the more... Read more
I just spent way, way too much time wrapping presents — which is partly an illustration of the material abundance in the Actuary household, and partly that this year we ended up with a lot of smaller presents instead of just a couple big-ticket items. Also, my husband went to bed early because he signed up to be the 4 AM link in a prayer-chain (yeah, he initially thought he would kill two birds with one stone: he was scheduled... Read more
not for elementary-age children, and certainly not for adults. I griped about the Elf on the Shelf a couple days ago, and had mentioned my own experience with my kids: the middle one figured out that Santa wasn’t real on his own, the older one was a bit too credulous and had to be told, and the youngest found out before his classmates because the aforementioned middle child was old enough to figure out Santa, but not old enough to... Read more
You’ve likely read this article, or any of the multiple similar ones, articles promoting increased immigration of skilled workers based on data such as this: On the high-skill end of the spectrum, 56 percent of engineering doctoral degrees, 51 percent of computer science doctoral degrees, and 44 percent of physics doctoral degrees were awarded in 2011 to students who were neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents. National Science Foundation data show that 163,000 foreign graduate students studied science and engineering... Read more
Here’s an excerpt from an article in City Journal on the situation in Cuba: Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8–$10 an hour. But Meliá doesn’t pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government,... Read more
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