The Bride Wore White–But Why?

Last updated on: June 8, 2009 at 5:55 pm By Owen Strachan

Newsweek is running a piece, “MySpace Generation Brides Go for Sexy, Not Virgin” that chronicles the sexualization of weddings and offers this concise statement of where things are: “In response, sociologists say, the sexier dresses and the handoff of pin-up pictures—which was introduced into the wedding prep about three years ago—are ways to add spark to an already-established couple’s sex life and mark the marriage as a monumental life change. “When a girl left her parents’ house to be married,... Read more

The Link 6.5.09: Teaching Writing, The Great Commission, and Church Planting

Last updated on: June 5, 2009 at 8:56 pm By Owen Strachan

1. I cannot help but again recommend the Mat Kearney song “Closer to Love” to you. So you know, it is not me who is doing the recommending, it is the musical beast inside of me. 2. What makes good writing good? Can one teach others to write? This New Yorker piece by Louis Menand asks such questions. Highly interesting. And one learns in it that Joyce Carol Oates used to write 40 pages a day. 3. Baptist 21 writer... Read more

Harvard to Endow a Gay Studies Position

Last updated on: June 4, 2009 at 7:17 pm By Owen Strachan

From the New York Times: “Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college. The visiting professorship was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, which will formally announce it at a dinner on Thursday, after Harvard’s commencement exercises. With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite... Read more

Overheated Prose Award: Wolffe on Obama in the NYT

Last updated on: June 3, 2009 at 8:36 pm By Owen Strachan

Every once in a while, you come across some prose so overheated, you can’t resist calling attention to it. This particular fare comes from a New York Times review of Michael Wolffe’s new book on Barack Obama. Don’t eat it yet–it’s too hot: “Mr. Wolffe’s portrait is familiar in its essentials, depicting a candidate who is idealistic but pragmatic, highly disciplined as a thinker and steady as his resting heart rate of 60 beats a minute — a Renegade (like... Read more

The Sad Case of John and Kate and What it Teaches Us

Last updated on: June 2, 2009 at 9:44 pm By Owen Strachan

Justin Taylor linked recently to a thoughtful piece in Christianity Today called “The Gospel and the Gosselins” that covers the reality-tv show Jon & Kate Plus Eight. I do not watch the show but am familiar with it. Here’s what the author, Julie Vermeer Elliott, has to say about the profitability of the series: “When the first few episodes revealed the earning potential of this “everyday family,” Jon & Kate Plus Eight became a brand name that was packaged and... Read more

Parents Rethinking Parenting, and Other Partially Encouraging Developments

Last updated on: June 1, 2009 at 9:34 pm By Owen Strachan

Found this material interesting on modern parenting: “But in the past few months, a second wave has taken hold — writers are moving past merely venting and are trying to gather the like-minded into a new movement. Carl Honoré is one. He calls it “slow parenting” — no more rushing around physically and metaphorically, no more racing kids from soccer to Suzuki. Lenore Skenazy is another. She calls it “free-range parenting,” a return to the days when childhood was not... Read more

The Link 5.29.09: Mat Kearney’s Music, Bill Clinton’s Life, and Marley (and Me)

Last updated on: May 29, 2009 at 9:52 pm By Owen Strachan

1. Musician Mat Kearney has a new album out, City of Black and White. Upon hearing the incredible first single, “Closer to Love”, I immediately downloaded the whole thing. It’s well worth the price. Kearney, a self-identified Christian, has made a stirring, inspiring album. For those of us who have been following him for several years now, it’s exciting to see him getting a great deal of recognition and support. 2. The New York Times magazine is running a feature on... Read more

The Harvard Happiness Study: Or, The Evasive Presence of Happiness in a Sinful World

Last updated on: May 28, 2009 at 8:57 pm By Owen Strachan

Found this engrossing article, entitled “What Makes Us Happy”, in The Atlantic. It covers the 75-year-old Harvard happiness study, one of the longest-lasting and most important of modern psychology. In it, the author, Joshua Wolf Shenk, makes this noteworthy point: “The story gets to the heart of Vaillant’s angle on the Grant Study. His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main... Read more

Shopwork in a World of Cubicles

Last updated on: May 27, 2009 at 9:27 pm By Owen Strachan

Found a great article called “The Case for Working with Your Hands” from the NYT magazine (Photo by Alec Soth for Magnum Photos). The author, Matthew Crawford, attained a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and went to work at a K Street thinktank in DC before leaving it to run his own motorcycle repair shop. The piece has much to commend it, including this suggestion: “There is good reason to suppose that responsibility has to be installed in... Read more

Newsflash: Modern Women Are Unhappy

Last updated on: May 26, 2009 at 6:46 pm By Owen Strachan

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has just penned a provocative piece called “Liberated and Unhappy” that briefly analyzes a new study entitled “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. Here’s what Douthat says about the study: “[T]he achievements of the feminist era may have delivered women to greater unhappiness. In the 1960s, when Betty Friedan diagnosed her fellow wives and daughters as the victims of “the problem with no name,” American women reported... Read more