StumbleUpon | kevinjjones's blog posts

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Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:13:51 -0700

From Jonathan Vaughan at http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/index.php/2009/03/27/the-way-we-are-no-2/#comment-188734

My wife recently bore our fourth son. When I told various people at my workplace the news, very few of them (one, perhaps) congratulated me. The other reactions ranged from raised eyebrows to downright eye-rolling derision.

Here's the really sad part: Had I said that my wife was going to have an abortion, because she just can't handle having a fourth, the reactions would have tended to be much more respectful.

People respect death and murder more than life and prosperity. To me, it illustrates how empty and unfulfilling our culture and its entertainment really are. Instead of anticipating greatness for newborn babies (a new artist, poet, writer, builder, artisan, public servant) I suspect people anticipate the same bleak, post-modernistic exisitence they themselves have.

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/30751145/

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:15:59 -0800

Wow, just looked up the stats.

According to the CDC's 2005 Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Report 134,260 ART "cycles" were attempted in the U.S. 2005, resulting in about 39,000 births.

Apparently the cost is about $9,000 not including $2,000 to $3,000 in medication.

Regulation might be a problem because the procedure is so common. IVF advocates can put out all sorts of puff pieces about concerned infertile couples being affected.

The anti-regulation business interests and libertarians in the GOP won't help pro-lifers on this one.

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/30441420/

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:33:02 -0800

The point of multicultural justice, then, is making tradition and culture nonfunctional. If they were allowed to do their work then some systems of life would be more respected, and those who were part of them would benefit more. That wouldn't be multicultural. -Jim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/2780

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/28798956/

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 23:09:34 -0800

http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/strange_thrift/

Take a look at this, compare Catholic "stewardship" campaigns to televangelist hucksters who tempt God by encouraging improvidence.

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/28371054/

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:16:24 -0800

Rant about ArchDen and Archbishop Chaput: http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/selling-out-catholic-values-archbishop.html

Barely noteworthy, it's pretty flaky and superficial connect-the-dots work.

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/27867822/

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:05:37 -0800

Best of Kathy Shaidle, an ongoing compilation
http://www.fivefeetoffury.com

"What today's obnoxious gay brownshirts/activists who dare to think of themselves as the next Rosa Parks don't get, is that Rosa Parks just wanted to sit at the front of the bus.

She didn't try to take the wheel and drive the thing in the opposite direction." 2008-11-26

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/27244103/

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:38:00 -0800

Creepy:

And we know she means it because she chose to give birth to her youngest child even though she knew from genetic testing that it would have Down Syndrome, a severe form of mental retardation.

This fact does reveal a profoundly faith-driven outlook, because it illuminates Palin's implicit attitude toward reason and the intellect. The joy of having a child is watching it grow and develop on its way to becoming an independent adult capable of enjoying a full human life. This is why parents rejoice in every new discovery the child makes along the way--his first steps, his first words, the first time he figures out how to open up and rifle through your filing cabinets while you're trying to work (but I digress). The tragedy of giving birth to a mentally disabled child is that he will never complete this journey. He will never become an independent adult or develop a full use of the faculty that is man's essential characteristic: his reasoning mind. To knowingly choose to bring such a child into the world is evidence that the precepts of her faith take precedence over the value of the mind in Palin's view of the world.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/palins_pluck_and_pragmatism.html via http://www.dieterichfamily.us/blog/?p=276
For this writer, "Every new discovery" did not include the discovery of the worth of the mentally disabled. After waxing poetic and grandiose about man's ability to know, he turns around and writes some skeptical piffle about whether humanity is really all that worthy, and whether ethics can really be a matter for rational discovery.

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/27126987/

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:19:46 -0800

Sharp insights about the Right amid kooky but tempting speculations about Obama's college life:

What the right does when it tries to "smear" a leftist figure is to reproduce, without the aid of the Cathedral (press and universities), the mechanism that the Cathedral itself uses to excommunicate public figures.

For example, did you ever wonder why the American right ceased to exist in the 1930s - even to the extent that a Democrat, Wendell Willkie, was the Republican nominee in 1940 - and had to be reconstructed from scratch by Buckley in the '50s? Because it was completely "discredited," using these effective techniques for guiding public opinion.

So, for example, I asked earlier what would happen to McCain if he had the same kind of connections to anti-abortion terrorists that Obama has to the Weathermen. The answer is that you would never have heard of McCain. Why did the McCain team decide not to use Jeremiah Wright in this campaign? Not because it wouldn't be effective, because the Cathedral would turn up its immune system by 1000%. McCain has spent his entire political career kowtowing to these people, and of course they're destroying him as it is. But this is nothing compared to what they did to, say, George Wallace.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7958140996781104565&postID=4744686034192359389

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/24752799/

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:08:57 -0700

Look, LGBTs and Blacks are fighting over affirmative action within the DNC!

I'm not thumbing this up 'cuz of the site location, but the url is:
http://www.queerty.com/latest-dean-deposition-addresses-dncs-internal-gay-delegate-feud-20080728/

http://kevinjjones.stumbleupon.com/review/22282738/

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:02:12 -0700

"near Geneva he forced himself upon Voltaire (who could not speak English, as he had lost his teeth and was unable to pronounce the th sound)." http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/19461734.html

Avenue for phonetic change: children raised by elders whose lack of teeth affects children's perception of standard pronunciation.