Saturday, August 16, 2008
Why everyone’s getting Type 2
A great read on an epidemic more dangerous than AIDS.
We all know by now that type 2 diabetes is an epidemic. We’re seeing words like crisis and runaway all over the news and in the journals. Heart disease rates have been cut in half since the staggering margarine days of the 1980s, but diabetes has swiftly risen to fill that gaping void and meet the challenge of Completely Unnecessary Disease Epidemic.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The My Hero Project - Dr. Michael DeBakey
Forget these overpriced baseball players - here is a real hero.
It’s like this with Dr. DeBakey. Seventy-five years of firsts and foremosts, achievements and awards. His list of accomplishments is so utterly titanic, his resume requires an intermission, a bit of time for the reader to stretch his legs and refuel for the second half.
We’ve heard of enough people that have killed lots of people - how about someone who has saved, both directly and indirectly, whole cities worth, heck, maybe even whole countries worth!
Heart surgery for 100-year-olds
I cannot believe that one of the world’s greatest heroes was subjected to an ethics committee to determine eligibility!
Then there’s Dr. Michael DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon who died July 11 at age 99. Two years ago, DeBakey underwent an aortic-dissection repair procedure that he himself had long before devised – but only after doctors convened an ethics committee to decide whether it was appropriate.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Happy Father’s Day, Edinburgh!
This is absurd.
Tina Woolnough, 45, whose son Felix attends Edinburgh’s Blackhall primary school, said several teachers there had not allowed children to make Father’s Day cards this year.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Happy (disappearing) Father’s Day
For those who are and act like fathers, it’s your day. Sadly, there aren’t as many of you as there were before.
As we celebrate Father’s Day tomorrow, we should reflect upon a sad fact: It is now common to meet young people in our big city schools, foster-care homes and juvenile centers who do not know their dads.
via Gateway Pundit
It’s good to be Right
It seems research now proves it.
Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows
Friday, May 23, 2008
Mother, Inc.
It’s not easy being a SAHM these days, so hopefully this will encourage those that are:
A woman, renewing her driver’s license at the County Clerk ‘s office, was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.
She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
‘What I mean is, ‘ explained the recorder, ‘do you have a job or are you just a ...?’
‘Of course I have a job,’ snapped the woman. ‘I’m a Mom.’
‘We don’t list ‘Mom’ as an occupation, ‘housewife’ covers it,’ Said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, ‘Official Interrogator’ or ‘Town Registrar.’
‘What is your occupation?’ she probed.
What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out. “I’m a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.”
The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in m midair and looked up as though she had not heard right.
I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
‘Might I ask,’ said the clerk with new interest, ‘just what you do in your field?’
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, ‘I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn’t) In the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out.) I’m working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters). Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.’
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk’s voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants—ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than ‘just another Mom.’
Motherhood! What a glorious career! Especially when there’s a title on the door.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Chuck em out
Fathers are now a step closer to becoming irrelevant, at least in Britain.
Fathers were last night effectively declared an irrelevance in modern Britain.
Women don’t need to get married for financial security any more, and now they don’t need men for children.
How fast can the family unit unravel now? Not fast enough for the socialists.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Cradlerobbing
Noone with daughters can read this without getting mad, queasy, or both.
When Alison Garcia, 16, announced that she was leaving home to be with her 36-year-old lover, her parents could have been forgiven for hitting the roof.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Food banks are ridiculous
I’ve helped out in a food bank, and have to admit, points in this article have since crossed my mind.
Surprise, surprise. Did the people who run food banks never hear the expression, “Build it and they will come”?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Abortion revisited
Frum looks back at abortion in Canada, 20 years later without a law.
On January 28, Canada marks the 20th anniversary of what may be the most astounding decision in the nation&#xu2;019s legal history: R. v. Morgentaler, the case that struck down Canada&#xu2;019s abortion laws.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Bucking the nanny state
An article showing the few (albeit American) who dare buck the Swedish nanny state.
No one sees the downside more clearly than Therese Murphy and her husband, Paul.
They are bringing up their four children in the picturesque Swedish city of Gothenberg.
The couple are due to have another baby before Christmas, a welcome addition for 39-year-old Therese to care for at their five-bedroom house near the waterfront.
The couple should have a perfect family life, but when the Murphys go out their neighbours look at them with curiosity.
If Therese takes her two youngest, Elise, nine, and William, five, to play in the park, it is nearly always empty.
For she and Paul, a medical salesman who was born in the U.S., are bucking the system.
Therese is a stay-at-home mother - one of a tiny number of women in Sweden who do not have a paid job.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Common sense again
Your daily dose of what you already know, but needed to hear.
A new Canadian study suggests that babies&#xu2;019 social and mental development is best when moms don&#xu2;019t return quickly back to work after a birth. This from the National Post:
Oh Goody
More good news for those that would surrender their babies to others.
The largest daycare corporation in the world &#xu2;013 often criticized for cutting care to raise profits &#xu2;013 is bringing its controversial form of big-box privatized child care to Canada.
Hope they’re close to the big box stores so their mother’s are too inconvenienced.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Mourning Marriage
The gay marriage debate is kind of a dead issue now in Canada, but not to Bill.
For some reason the weirdness of Canada&#xu2;019s enthusiastic embrace of gay marriage has stuck in my craw, and so I got warmed up by trying to write something brief about it. But the topic is so galling I failed miserably at keeping it short, and have ended up with about eight pages. I can only respond to the advice that blogs should be short by saying readers can make them as short as they wish by reading longer ones such as this in pieces, a bit each day, if desired.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Of boys and innovation
Fred is worried that not having the best man for the job could mean little or no innovation.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Hidden faces/Hidden truths
Why do all these stories have poor women with children - with nary a mention of a father? Where did these children come from? Were all of them from artificial insemination?
Each of these millions of hidden faces has a different story to tell. But the simple truth is that none of these people has enough money to eat every day or live in a decent home.
I’m tired of the most important reason for poverty being overlooked: divorced families, with either locked-out or deadbeat dads. A single family unit, with the father paying his share, would go a long way to eliminate “poverty”.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Suicides all around
I’m obviously a little more sensitive to the word these days. It’s sad that even high profile figures are trying.
Flamboyant Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens tried to kill himself by overdosing on pain medication, police said, even putting two more pills into his mouth after a friend intervened.
Sadly, those around him seem anxious to cover up the truth.
Owens was hospitalized late Tuesday because of what his publicist said was an allergic reaction to pain medicine he was taking for a broken hand. Doctors reportedly tried to induce vomiting.
Here’s another random story of someone with similar circumstances to my brother-in-law’s last week suicide.
No Time to Say Goodbye : Surviving the Suicide of A Loved One ($US orders) is one of the few suicide specific books that is worth the read.
Monday, September 25, 2006
State of the Social Union
Fred doesn’t have much good to say about today’s society.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Is daycare good for babies?
Not if the stress and aggression studies are anything to go by, says an Australian author.
Read some more common sense here.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
I Wasn’t Aborted
An interesting anti-abortion article from someone who should know - a Russian.
If Ms. readers hadn’t had so many abortions, there might be more Ms. readers. As for the rest of us, here’s a petition we could all sign: “I wasn’t aborted.”
Having narrowly escaped being aborted, I’d be the first in line.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Women are from Mars
Two stories, one here and one here, that will make sense to the average married man.
It is a common complaint for many couples. However amorous they may have been in the first few years of the relationship, after a while the passion fizzles out.
To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life.
Saturday, July 1, 2006
There goes the family
Tossing aside the central reason for marriage, procreation, will have a negative impact on the future.
Sugrue argues that reforms to Canadian marriage policy are concerned more with the advancement of adults’ emotional needs than the needs of children.
Children today are becoming more accessories than anything else in this commodity driven world.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Happy Father’s Day
Yes, Dad, you do matter.
Want to increase the odds that girls won’t be abused, boys won’t land in prison, and neighborhoods won’t be rife with crime? Make sure there is a biological or adoptive father, married to the mother of his children, in every household.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Carnal higher education
Boy, college just ain’t what it used to be.