If it didn’t involve a real kid, this would be one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Down in Texas, a 13 year old kid whose dad was too busy to remember his birthday, ordered an extra copy of daddy’s credit card and used it to live a poorly socialized 13 year old kid’s dream. He and a friend got an Xbox, a hotel … Continue reading See what happens when you work too much?
I mean that really. I hope that God has and continues to bless Peggy Noonan greatly. Because she has stood in the face of the ridiculous demagoguery which has surrounded the whole Obama-Wright debacle and spoken sense where sense has not been welcomed. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan talks about her indifference to Pastor Wright’s ranting and puts it into some perspective:
I also think that if Hillary Clinton wins because of the Wright scandal, it will leave a sad taste in the mouths of many. Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama’s stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be “one of us,” that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race. . .
I do not feel a sense of honest anger or violation at his [Jeremiah Wrights’s] remarks, in part because I don’t think his views carry deep implications for our country. I have been watching America up close for many years – if you count a bright childhood, for half a century. I have seen, heard and respected the pain of a people who were forced to come here when they did not want to and made to live in a way that no one would want to. Who could deny them their grief or anger? I have seen radicalism and extremism, too. I have seen Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers, the Black National Anthem, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan. I came to see their radicalism as, putting the morality of policy based on rage aside, essentially unhelpful and impractical. It wouldn’t work as an American movement, not long-term. Hatred plays itself out, has power in the short-term but is nonsustaining in the long. America, and this is one of its glories, has a conscience to which an appeal can be made. It may take a long time, it may take centuries, but in the end we try hard to do the right thing, and everyone knows it. Hatred is a form of energy that does not fuel this machine and cannot make it run.” Continue reading “God Bless Peggy Noonan”
So, I’m reading an article in the Chicago Tribune this morning about the whole Miley Cyrus debacle. If your hiking party left you stranded in a cave for the last week and you have been blessed not to hear about it, young Ms. Cyrus is age 15 and star of Disney’s hit show Hannah Montana. She appears in a Vanity Fair photo shoot this month … Continue reading Who’s your role model?
By now you’ve probably heard about the hardships caused by rising prices on staple food items for poor people around the world. There have been protests and riots in Haiti, Bangladesh, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Indonesia and Senegal. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Sam’s Club and Costco have also placed limits on the amount of bulk rice which can be purchased at one time.
My question is how do we respond to these sorts of problems. President Bush has announced an increase in food aid, which might help NGOs whose work feeding people in danger of starvation continue their work in the face of rising food prices. However, it is hard to see how $200 million is going to fix the problem of people who are working and who had been self-supporting a few months ago, but are now priced out of the food market. Besides, we know from long experience that while food aid may be a necessary band-aid to prevent starvation, it doesn’t provide a long term solution and tends to come with many negative unintended consequences.
My question is if America is willing to actually sacrifice for the good of people a world away? Would you support a moratorium on the import of rice for 60 days (accompanied by tax breaks to help those in the industry who would be negatively affected) to take pressure off the international rice market? Continue reading “Dinner, Food Riots and You”
I have become convinced over the last couple of years that we are facing a crisis of bad parenting in this country. By which I don’t necessarily mean the usual complaints of overly indulgent parents or abusive parents, although these can certainly be a problem. What I find particularly problematic is a lack of knowledge about normal human development and appropriate interaction with children. It’s … Continue reading This is fantastic!
Normally I trend a little towards the crunchy end of life. I make bread from scratch. I garden. I breast fed all four of my children, including my youngest who is still nursing. I wore them in slings around town. I homeschool. But there are just some places I won’t go. I don’t own a pair of sweats and only wear comfortable shoes when I’m … Continue reading Ricki Lake did something I won’t do . . .
Really, the lastest atrocity of Al Quaeda speaks for itself: Two women described as mentally disabled and strapped with remote-control explosives — and possibly used as unwitting suicide bombers — brought carnage Friday to two pet bazaars, killing at least 91 people in the deadliest day since Washington flooded the capital with extra troops last spring. . . the bombs were detonated by remote control. And … Continue reading What does evil look like?
A few minutes ago, I sat down to read an article on slate.com criticizing some column David Brooks wrote about the Duke lacrosse team scandal (don’t really care about it, but the headline writers at slate are so good, they make you want to see what an article’s about). Apparently David Brooks had been complaining about the race/class lens being used to look at the … Continue reading My brain is going to explode
Perhaps you have seen this story about an Afghani man who is facing death in Afghan government courts for converting to Christianity. I’m sorry, but I really think this is the point where we need to tell the Afghani government that either they need to join the modern world and learn to play nicely with others or we’re taking our cash and soldiers and going … Continue reading Afghan Man Facing Death for Converting to Christianity
The Upside Down World 