Archive for the ‘Family Issues’ Category

Rural Studies and the Death of Main Street

The small towns of America’s heartland are becoming an endangered species, argue researchers Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas in Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America—a lengthy title for a slim and troubling ethnography. In a nation where urban studies...
January 6th, 2010 | Book Reviews, Culture, Domestic Policy, Education, Family Issues, Heritage & History | Read More

Regulating Rumors: The BPA-Free Kids Act

Senator Charles Schumer cares a lot about the milk your children drink- why else would he want to make sure you to buy only the most expensive baby bottles and sippy cups on the market? I’ve written before (here and here) about the BPA controversies – now, thanks to Senator Schumer,...
November 24th, 2009 | Culture, Domestic Policy, Family Issues, Other, Politics, Science | Read More

I don’t…or do I?

“Happily unmarried” is the new catchphrase for couples who have long term monogamous relationships, often with children, but without tying the knot. This makes sense when a Christian concept of marriage no longer has any real cultural currency, and when even the social mores held over...
November 19th, 2009 | Culture, Family Issues | Read More

The Problematic Suppositions of Wired

Amy Wallace’s essay “An Epidemic of Fear,” published in this month’s issue of Wired, is both perceptive and worrying. Wired’s articles often comment on the growing debates between social groups and professional communities. This month’s feature focuses on the conflict between anti-vaccination...
November 3rd, 2009 | Culture, Family Issues, Science | Read More

Where the Heart Is: Marilynne Robinson’s Home

Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead, returns to Gilead, Iowa in her latest novel, Home (2008). Though the events of Home run concurrent with Gilead, Home stands wonderfully in its own right. The narrative voice belongs to tenderhearted Glory Boughton, thirty-eight, who has recently...
October 29th, 2009 | Art & Literature, Book Reviews, Family Issues | Read More

Taxing Tiny Tim: California Raises Taxes for Parents

In a bizarre twist that reminds one of Scrooge rather than Schwarzenegger, the state of California decided last spring to significantly reduce its dependent tax credit.  In other words, it just became even more difficult to raise future California tax payers. California parents can no longer count on...
August 25th, 2009 | Abortion, Bioethics, Culture, Economy, Family Issues, Politics | Read More

BPA: One less thing to worry about

Fear sells.  No one knows this better than advertisers, whose aggressive marketing content is unconsciously absorbed by millions of consumers who don’t – or can’t – think critically about what advertisers tell them. That’s why it’s such a shame when advertisers and...
July 27th, 2009 | Creation Care, Culture, Family Issues, Other | Read More

The Baby-Face of Bioethics

“I don’t know.” This was the advice Dr. Mark Mercurio, director of the Yale Pediatric Ethics program, gave to a room full of Yale University bioethics students in a lecture on how neonatologists should find their way through ethical quandaries. It is not that he is unqualified. Quite...
July 8th, 2009 | Bioethics, End of Life Issues, Family Issues, General Bioethics | Read More

Families Foreign and Domestic

It’s a sad thing to read the news and find it fixated on sex and death.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand the business model of the news industry and in that industry, as in many others, sex and death sell.  However, the responsibility of the news media is to keep us informed, a job that they cannot...
July 3rd, 2009 | Family Issues, Politics | Read More

An Exciting Day for the Judicial Branch

This morning dawned with the Obama administration’s announcement of his nominee for Justice Souter’s replacement.  The well-managed leaks from the West Wing made sure Sonia Sotomayor’s name was already familiar in the press, but commentators have found plenty to discuss on air anyway.  It seems...
May 27th, 2009 | Domestic Policy, Family Issues, Grand Schemes and Government, RML, Rights Reason & Religion | Read More