What will the French do in the Notre Dame restoration?

Last updated on: May 2, 2019 at 12:55 pm By Jane the Actuary

Answer: whatever the heck they want to do. I know that many of us outside observers, and Christians in particular, have been worrying about proposals that the French government (which indeed does own the cathedral, as it does all cathedrals and any church built before 1905, and how that impacts the restoration is anyone’s guess) transform the fire-damaged cathedral into some sort of multicultural museum or meditation space, for instance the soundly derided Rolling Stone article claiming that any rebuilding... Read more

Tellers, living wages, single parenting, and an annoying Congressional hearing

Last updated on: April 30, 2019 at 12:40 pm By Jane the Actuary

Over at Forbes, I referenced a Washington Post column claiming that it is super-inappropriate to expect that anyone can reasonably manage their financial affairs without debt because of all of the injustice in the world, and cited a congressional hearing in which Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) “grilled” (his word choice) the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, about the wages of its entry-level employees. Now, quite unrelatedly, a The Hill article on this hearing crossed my path, with more detail, and I’m... Read more

A Boy Scout Update

Last updated on: April 25, 2019 at 1:21 pm By Jane the Actuary

So I feel obliged to comment on this latest news report about the Boy Scouts, even though to some degree, it’s just not newsy, per se. From the AP, yesterday, “Boy Scouts could be hit with more sex abuse claims“: The lawyers’ ads on the internet aggressively seeking clients to file sexual abuse lawsuits give a taste of what lies ahead this year for the Boy Scouts of America: potentially the most fateful chapter in its 109-year history. Sexual abuse... Read more

A Girl Scout Update

Last updated on: April 24, 2019 at 11:09 am By Jane the Actuary

So Sunday was, of course, Easter, and that means the customary full-page ad in the paper, in this case, by Hobby Lobby: It’s a charming tradition. But, as it happened, there was another ad in the paper on Sunday: It is, I suppose, a sign of our (increasingly secular) times that no one seems to have batted an eye at the idea of promoting the creation of a new holiday on exactly the day when Christians are celebrating their holiest... Read more

Easter family update

Last updated on: April 21, 2019 at 6:22 pm By Jane the Actuary

So it’s been a nice Easter Sunday, actually. I went to Easter Vigil last night, then, while the rest of the family was at mass, spent the morning making Easter Dinner, that is, lamb, our favorite green beans recipe, zopf (a German braided bread), and a prepackaged salad plus pineapple for good measure. The lamb itself turned out to have smelled better than it tasted, because, in my efforts to have the food ready right when my oldest got back... Read more

Watching Notre Dame Burn

Last updated on: April 15, 2019 at 3:55 pm By Jane the Actuary

First, my memories. For what it’s worth, I was at Notre Dame in Paris three times. None of them were recent enough to have any uploadable photographs, though I may or may not dig into the old boxes of pictures in the basement later on. First, when I was in high school, I had a friend who was from France and lived here while here father was on an expat assignment for two years. I visited her when I was... Read more

In which things get worse (a mom-and-dad update)

Last updated on: April 13, 2019 at 11:25 am By Jane the Actuary

Admittedly, we’re not at the “put mom in a home” stage. But we are getting pressure from the retirement community staff to ramp up the home services and our plan to “fix mom” isn’t working particularly well. To recap: Mom and Dad moved to a continuing-care retirement community in January. It was known that Dad has dementia issues, though not with a formal diagnosis of a specific type of dementia and he doesn’t have the characteristics of Alzheimer’s per se,... Read more

Fixing CFM

Last updated on: April 9, 2019 at 10:58 am By Jane the Actuary

What is CFM? CFM stands for Christian Family Movement, though it’s specifically a Catholic group. I can’t find a history of the group on the CFM website, but Wikipedia has an entry which explains that they were founded in the 1940s. The idealized CFM group is a group of families at a parish who meet regularly to discuss Christian teaching and social topics, then engage in group “actions” in response. In many respects, it’s a form of “small groups” that... Read more

Can we have nice things after all? Nathan Pyle edition

Last updated on: April 8, 2019 at 7:17 pm By Jane the Actuary

Did Arthur Brooks plan for his book Love Your Enemies to be released a few short weeks before the latest Two Minutes’ Hate? Unlikely. But it’s certainly fortuitous, though it was a bit discombobulating to be reading the final chapters of Brooks’ book calling for reconciliation with political opponents while idly checking my facebook feed and learning that there’s a new hatestorm brewing against Nathan Pyle, the author of a emergingly-popular internet comic strip in which aliens talk about everyday actions,... Read more

Wheelchairgate and “can’t” vs. “won’t”

Last updated on: April 8, 2019 at 8:44 am By Jane the Actuary

So here’s the latest in the “Jane the Actuary has aging parents” saga: wheelchairgate. Dad, as it happens, now has a physical therapist coming in to the apartment. It’s not entirely clear how long this lasts before they say, “he’s not going to improve,” but so far the therapist has also switched him to a different walker (the old one was a medical-type walker that was jury-rigged to have 4 wheels rather than 2 wheels and two tennis balls) because... Read more