You may have seen the cute story in the news today about the three-year-old who walked to the fire station to get help when her dad collapsed at home, saving her father’s life. Over at the Agitator, Radley Balko links to another article that, while a year old now, raises an evergreen question about teaching … Read more
If you live in Philadelphia and operate a blog, your city government wants to charge you $300 for the privilege. For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to … Read more
According to a new study by the University of Copenhagen, people with blue eyes most likely share a common ancestor who lived 6,000 to 10,000 years ago: “Originally, we all had brown eyes,” Professor Hans Eiberg of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in … Read more
Even in Texas, they’re building them smaller these days. The era of the McMansion is ending, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. Whether you call them McMansions, Starter Castles, or Faux Chateaus, these 3,000 plus square foot homes — which were often cheaply built on tiny plots of land — were in high demand across … Read more
It’s Friday! Just a few quick links this morning: Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up? One professor is pushing to have the 20s recognized “as a distinct life stage, which he calls ’emerging adulthood.’” Yet another treatment developed using adult stem cells — this time to rebuild … Read more
Despite this week’s high profile political front-runners, I’m going to have to hand the “Most Creative Use Of Bears In Recent Memory” award over to this story’s Canadians “farmers:” Police said Wednesday they were astonished to find at least 14 wild black bears guarding an illegal marijuana growing operation after a recent raid on the property in … Read more
Interesting findings from a Reuters review of 255 health-care systems in the United States: Catholic and other church-owned systems are significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance and efficiency to the communities served than investor-owned systems. . . . Catholic health systems are also significantly more likely to provide higher quality performance to the … Read more
Unless you see a practicing Catholic ObGyn, 35 is the magic age… the one you start getting one of two questions every time you visit: what you’re doing to prevent more pregnancies (because you have two kids already so you better start acting mature and stop all that baby-making nonsense!) or what you’re doing to … Read more
When two mouthpieces of the feisty right come to verbal blows, you know it’s going to be entertaining. Yesterday, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily announced that his popular site is cancelling Ann Coulter’s appearance at their “Taking America Back National Conference” in September, because of her decision to speak before a prominent gay conservative organization. “Ultimately, as … Read more
This morning, I received an email from Jim Franklin of the Boston Catholic Insider blogging team reporting that the Archdiocese of Boston has blocked access to their web site from the Archdiocesan office in Braintree, MA. Since we at InsideCatholic.com are ardent believers in both the freedom of the press and the basic right of … Read more
The last several days have brought a number of troubling technological stories floating our way, from the unsurprising consequences of earbuds on youngsters and “constant displays ” on adults to Foxconn Technologies’ recent struggles with worker suicides to the rapidly-expanding number of tech-themed entries on the Beloit College Mindset List, technology and its inexorable progress seems to be … Read more
Anne Hendershott alerted me to the post at National Review Online about the funding George Soros provides to Jim Wallis and his organization/magazine called Sojourners. Wallis is the de facto leader of the Religious Left coalition that does everything it can to aid the Democratic Party. Any pretense of Wallis to non-partisanship was completely blown … Read more
I’m reading a book I’d recommend to all parents: Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers, by child development expert Dr. Gordon Neufeld and physician Dr. Gabor Mate. The authors’ views fly in the face of many modern parenting books that focus on behavioral changes and skill-building. Neufeld and … Read more
Pakistan is suffering from its worst flooding in decades, leaving 1,500 dead and displacing many millions more. The UN says that the number of people suffering from the ongoing rains could top the the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and the earthquake in Haiti combined: They estimate that 13 million Pakistanis have been displaced … Read more
Despite my best intentions, I’ve been more absent from posting than I’d hoped. I did spend about a week in the gorgeous mountains of North Carolina, photographing my little sister’s wedding. And of course, things are always busy around the house with the kids. But more than anything, I’ve been looking for work. Yes, that’s … Read more
For fallen-away Catholics, finding your way back to the Church can be hard; for those who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest, it can be impossible — all of which makes James O’Bryan’s story all the more incredible. O’Bryan was part of a lawsuit brought against the Vatican in 2004, alleging … Read more
Did you start your morning with a little high fructose corn syrup? If not, better hurry because soon you may need to settle for that old fashioned substance called cane sugar. Sarah Gilbert has a piece in Daily Finance about the latest in the battle over high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). For a long time, manufacturers … Read more
Over the past few months, my MLB Nighttime Viewing Program of Choice has slowly migrated from ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” (my favorite sports segment for many, many years) to the upstart MLB Network’s “MLB Tonight.” Part of this migratory process is directly attributable to the “live-look-ins” and significantly greater amounts of “live baseball” MLB Tonight includes … Read more
On Friday, the FDA approved a new emergency contraceptive called “ella,” which can prevent pregnancy up to 5 days after sex. It passed with little fanfare or resistance, compared to the uproar surrounding the approval of Plan B, also known as the “morning after” pill (which is effective up to three days at most). The … Read more
Family & Life, an independent pro-life organization in Ireland, reports on the latest medical innovation involving the use of adult stem cells: a boy in Northern Ireland became the first child to undergo a successful trachea transplant. The 11-year-old underwent the operation which involved the removal of his trachea and its replacement with a donor … Read more