Four out of five drug companies, er, doctors, agree
Fewer and fewer people favor spanking children, but increasing numbers of us are fine with abusing them via prescription.
Month: January 2010
Shhh
One in six children, reports the BBC, have difficulty learning to talk. In other research, exactly four out of four Woodlief children have difficulty learning when not to talk.
When is it legal for them to mix me a drink?
I suppose it’s helpful to hear some expert advice on when my children can have sleepovers and get their own mobile phones, but there’s some other milestones I have in mind, like the age when they can operate a chainsaw, when I can send them down to the basement to catch an intruding snake, and …
Of God and Baal
The great division within man is rooted not in ideology or religion or tribe, but in darkness and death, counterposed against light and life, which comes not from man but is placed within him. The line separating dark from light is the battleground of the soul, and it runs, as Solzhenitsyn said, through the heart …
Steadfast to this turn
This in memory of Peggy Rabb, who I knew only a little and a little while, but who was all kindness to me. In our first conversation we talked about things I have written and things she has written and writers we know, and she told me where she would be buried, and she spoke …
He who spares the rod . . .
. . . hates his child. Didn’t know that was in the Bible, did you? And now a new study suggests that children who are spanked as youngsters go on to be happier and more successful. I’m sure even now a phalanx of Ivy League psychologists with one medicated child a piece are lining up …
What my kids call theirs are just fine, thank you
I don’t know which is creepier, the fact that U.K. public schools are going to start teaching five year-olds the names of private body parts, or the fact that the U.K. has a “Children’s Secretary.” And given the aberrant practices of ruling politicians and Royals over the years, does anyone in the U.K. really want …
What my kids call theirs are just fine, thank you Read More »
Don’t do as I do, do as I say
This news from the BBC, about a rise in the number of pagan winter solstice celebrants in the UK, is disturbing. How could people raised in the Christian West miss the point that Christmas is about shopping until your debt rivals that of a Wall Street bank, gorging yourself for a month straight, salivating over car and …
Memo to the Nabisco Food Goliath
Dear Nabisco MegaCorporation, Once upon a time there was a delicious little cracker called Harvest Grain. This cracker didn’t ask for much, nothing, really, other than to be crispy and nutritious and delectable in Tony’s mouth. Tony and his Harvest Grains were very happy together. Sometimes Tony would spread a tasty cheese spread on his …
Be it resolved
I read once that the historian’s admiration for authority affects his assessments of civilizations past — that oppressive regimes, with their monuments to state power, will draw his eye and his imagination more readily than a nation of citizen farmers. That’s probably true for most people; we can’t help but watch the parade’s prancing exhibition of the …
