Last night I hosted the Tom Petty Tribute Kitchen Cleaning at my house, which made my husband hopeful (about the kitchen) and my children puzzled (about Tom Petty). I looked my son in the eyes and shook my head and said, “You’re not from the 8o’s, are you?” He affirmed that he was not. Tom Hoopes at Aleteia sums up the reason parents of a certain age have such a profound love of Tom Petty, despite the man’s flaws: “Tom Petty provided... Read more
New in JAMA: Research showing that children who view movies with gun usage in them are more likely to pick up and play with a real gun. The experiment was pretty simple: Children viewed a PG movie that either showed guns being used or had the gun-containing scenes edited out. The children were then left to play in a room full of toys, with a real but disarmed gun planted in the playroom.* After controlling for other variables, the researchers... Read more
Up at the Register this morning, I’m talking about ways to not become a person you hate being, in the aftermath of other Catholics being truly horrid: Bitterness isn’t born ex nihilo. Bitterness is the festering of a spiritual wound, and many Catholics are infected by bitterness because they have suffered real, penetrating, stinging wounds at the hands of their fellows. When you see someone being rabidly ugly, that didn’t come from nowhere. When it’s you being rabidly ugly, it often feels like “righteous... Read more
Over at the Conspiracy, I tell the story of my most spectacular teaching failure ever. I would like to be able to say that this was something that happened long, long ago when I was just starting out. No. It happened two weeks ago. I made plans for a class, and those plans turned out to be not what my students needed: About half the children were enthusiastic about games and eager to do interesting activities oriented towards developing an awareness... Read more
My editors over at the Catholic Conspiracy have succumbed to my pleading and issued a The Dogma Lives Loudly Within Me t-shirt that suits my aesthetic demands: The best link for the moment if you want one of your own is: http://www.cafepress.com/mf/110941637/the-dogma-lives_tshirt . From there you can choose a variety of size options including maternity, kids’ and baby options. The editors went with the more expensive shirts because their research indicated the quality is significantly better. To offset that, they are offering... Read more
Why is it that we think it's heroic when men choose to give their lives to save another person ... but we have doubts about whether women ought to be so heroic? Read more
From that bastion of conservatism The Washington Post comes reports of gay rights activists sending death threats to scientists at Stanford: The backlash against the study wasn’t limited to GLAAD and HRC. Kosinski wrote that he received emails telling him to kill himself and comparing his work to the Holocaust. Others on social media were no more charitable. A reader on Twitter, for example, writes: I consider myself peaceful but think researchers @michalkosinski & @simonywang should be burned alive for this. https://t.co/F2hDXXwLpJ... Read more
Up at the Register, I’m talking about why price gouging is wrong: Catholics don’t reject free market economic principles out of hand, and yet most of us instinctively understand that price gouging in a crisis is morally wrong. There are two reasons for this, and both of them are related to a fundamental respect for free markets. The first is that the economic power of capitalism is intended to serve the needs of men, not the reverse; the second is that the... Read more
The Nashville Statement is a set of 14 affirmations and denials concerning Christianity and human sexuality, composed by evangelical Protestants. There are two points on which Catholics should disagree. Read more
This weekend walking the halls of the public high school hosting my daughter’s volleyball tournament, I saw handmade signs inviting students to join the club that fights against human trafficking. I approve. This generation of high school students have particular reason to object to the buying and selling of human bodies: They are the Objectified Generation. Take a look at #43 on the annual Beloit Mindset List for the class of 2021: Having another child has always been a way... Read more
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