So I pulled out my catechism — that is, the Catechism of the Catholic Church — for a definition. There isn’t a single definition as in a glossary. But the key items are unity, that is, the two becoming “one flesh” with mutual self-giving; indissolubility; and openness to fertility. To contract a marriage also requires free consent. My understanding — though it’s not spelled out — is that if one of the two never really was open to children or... Read more

So I didn’t actually finish this book, but it sat on the bookshelf for too long after checking it out from the library and now it has to go back tomorrow. The bottom line of the book is that communists — both actual KGB spies and just communist sympathizers — penetrated the highest reaches of the US government, especially during FDR’s presidency. What’s more, American politicians and American media ridiculed those who tried to expose them. Basically, McCarthy was right... Read more

(Look, I wrote this up while proctoring an actuarial exam without internet access.) We all know that having children outside of marriage is not new — what’s changed is, first, its prevalence, and, second, its acceptance. We’re told that, when blacks were slaves, and children were raised communally by the grandmothers too old to work in the fields, and marriages weren’t legally recognized and could be split up by the slaveholder in any case, having children “out of wedlock” was... Read more

That’s what I’d like to say to Amanda Marcotte, writing in Slate’s Double X blog about the fact that insurance companies are now required to charge men and women the same rates for health insurance. Here’s the key paragraph: Under the ACA, the individual market is being set up to look like the kind of insurance that you get through an employer, as Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine explains. So whether you are using a health exchange or you... Read more

The Tribune, in it’s Plan of Chicago series, editorialized on Sunday about the fundamental problem of children growing up without a father.  It should be common sense, but the editorial spends its time citing studies that demonstrate the significant disadvantages faced by children of single parents, needing to justify itself in the face of the risk of “offending those who think that pointing out the perils of single-parent households amounts to blaming the victims, or that noting the value of... Read more

The latest article making the rounds of my small world concerns the future of doctoral students:  “Finding Life After Academia — and Not Feeling Bad About It.” The article features Ph.D.s or Ph.D. candidates in the humanities who have left the academic world (in which they were generally still searching for a job, or in one case dissatisfied with the job they had found) in order to make their way in the business world, or in nonprofit or government employment, and it... Read more

This story, “Food stamps put Rhode Island town on monthly boom-and-bust cycle” appeared in the Washington Post a while back, and a reader, Jim, linked to it in a comment on my prior post on food stamps.  I had read it before, and was disturbed by the “binge-buying” on the first of the month, but now I want to look at it more closely in terms of the couple that’s being profiled: They’re young — she’s 21, his age is... Read more

Beginning today, the temporary increase in food stamp benefits ends, causing recipients to see “cuts” in their benefits.  (“Cuts” in quotes because of this game that politicians play about what’s temporary vs. permanent.)  And CNN is profiling families who will face hardship — or, should I say, “hardship.” The first family receives $800 a month.  The head of the household is 55, and disabled on account of emphysema (due, the story says, to a lifetime of bartending in smoke-filled rooms,... Read more

That’s one of the top links at cnn.com today, bringing one, oddly, to a “small business”-categorized report that hookers, er, sorry, sex workers are flocking to Obamacare.  The article profiles a “sex worker” (actual activities unspecified) who calls herself “Siouxsie Q” who’s happy to be buying health insurance.  Like any self-employed individual, she didn’t have health insurance from her employer and, the article tells us, prior to Obamacare, “she and her partner recently reviewed their healthcare options and found that a... Read more

You know, I used to think of myself as a “crafty” sort of person — back when I was a kid and crafts meant needlepoint and sewing.  Now sewing is obsolete, when the fabric costs more than the completed piece of clothing, and the crafts of the 2010s are scrapbooking and jewelry-making, neither of which suit me (I don’t have the eye for, or interest in, scrapbooking, and the only jewelry I wear is my wedding ring), but once a year... Read more