I was researching Father’s Day and saw that it was Richard Nixon who made it a federal holiday:

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm–perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday. The next year, a Spokane, Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19, 1910….

In 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday at last. Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.

It seems to me that with all that fathers do for our country, it is the least that can be done. Fathers are important, just like mothers and it is unfair to pretend that they are not.

So Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.

*****

Cross-posted from Dr. Helen

Did you happen to read Jen Hatmaker’s hilarous viral blog post, “Worst End of School Year Mom Ever?” Hatmaker wrote:

“We are limping, limping across the finish line, folks. I tapped out somewhere in April and at this point, it is a miracle my kids are still even going to school. I haven’t checked homework folders in three weeks, because, well, I just can’t. Cannot. Can. Not. I can’t look at the homework in the folder. Is there homework in the folder? I don’t even know. Are other moms still looking in the homework folder? I don’t even care.”

She went on to list part of her to-do list for the end of the school year:

“The emails coming in for All Of The Things – class gift, end of year letters, luncheon signup, party supplies, awards ceremonies, pictures for the slide shows, final projects – are like a tsunami of doom. They are endless. I mean, they will never ever end. There is no end of it. I will never finish and turn it all in and get it to the (correct) Room Mom and get it all emailed and I am pretty sure the final week of school will never be over and this is the end for me.”

Oh my word! If you’ve ever wondered if you have what it takes to homeschool, reading Hatmaker’s blog post ought to at least convince you that sending your kids to school is no walk in the park, either. Or maybe you are on that hamster wheel and as you look toward another exhausting school year next fall, you wonder if your family will survive.

Looking back on our years of homeschooling, fourteen consecutive years in all, the most common thing I heard from people who found out we were homeschooling was, “I could never do that, I’m not _______ enough.” The blank was usually something like consistent or disciplined or patient. I understand completely because before we began our homeschooling journey, I was the mom who made comments like that to other parents.

I love The 40 Year Old Virgin for the same reason Shoshanna Shapiro quickly became my favorite character on Girls, not because of her personal virginphobia, but because in a world threatened with terrorism, hunger, and the pending threat of Obamacare, virginity remains one of the greatest crises of our time.

Thanks to the goddess feminist revolt of the sexy sixties, bedroom activities have risen to the top of the pops when it comes to ratings-driven conversation. As a result, virgins have become stigmatized as uncool goods. It’s no wonder, then, that pop culture-obsessed Shoshanna is neurotic enough to spend an entire season trying her best to lose her virginity so she could catch up to her “adventurous” female counterparts like Jessa who came to the states for an abortion and Hannah who has recently been diagnosed with HPV.

How did feminism come to embrace promiscuity as a form of empowerment? Is the “adventurous” woman treating her HPV really happier than the Biblical feminist who resisted the culture and waited until marriage to have sex?

My sons.

Last week, I became a father for the second time. My wife presented me with another son.

I imagine that the birth of a second child proves over time to be a unique experience. There may be no other moment in life which so profoundly demonstrates love’s abundance. When you have your first child, it feels like a pinnacle. How could you possibly love more than that? The prospect of a second child seems to the uninitiated to portend a division of that love between two objects, like the division of an estate between inheritors.

I did not need to know my new son for long before realizing that parental love does not divide. It multiplies. Everything my firstborn means to me has been duplicated.

That experience provides some insight into the boundless love of God. What my two sons evoke in me dimly reflects what each of God’s children evoke in Him. My sons thus make it easier for me to understand why God would create us in the first place, and why He would be willing to give so much — even in the face of rebellion — to offer salvation.

Four years old, my firstborn constantly reminds me of myself, modeling in his relationship with me my own relationship with God. His defiance echoes my own, as does his helpless reliance.

Like most children his age, my firstborn becomes very attached to particular objects and carts them around wherever he goes. It may be a toy helicopter or truck. Sometimes, he clings to a found coin or his favorite blanket. Whatever happens to be his MacGuffin de jour, my son frequently loses track of it, whether darting about home or traveling around town. When he loses a coveted trinket, his world comes to an end. It absolutely must be found without delay.

There is still time to head over to Amazon to place an order in time for Father’s Day delivery! I’ve linked the images below to help you out.

La Place de la Concorde Suisse

by John McPhee

“The Swiss Army has served as a model for less languid nations. The Israeli Army is a copy of the Swiss Army. … They are a civilian army, a trained and practiced militia, ever ready to mobilize. They serve for thirty years. All six hundred and fifty thousand are prepared to be present at mobilization points and battle stations in considerably less than forty-eight hours.”

This book, written at the end of the Cold War, gives a compelling view of the Swiss military system. The pastoral views in the Alps don’t reveal that beneath those mountains are bunkers stocked with munitions caches and that the winding roads all have bridges that can be blown to pieces at a moment’s notice to thwart an attack.

The book might provoke some intriguing thoughts and conversations about forced conscription, responsibility as citizens, what some like to call “military adventurism,” and the implications of heavily armed neutrality.

Every year, I forget Mother’s Day until it’s too late.

Father’s Day I usually remember.

This evening I was driving my children to Little League and I said to my wife, “Is Father’s Day this Sunday?”

“Yep,” she said.

I forgot.

I’m sure there are people out there who are in the same boat as me. Back in the day, I’d be scrambling for a fishing lure or work shirt.

Today, though, I don’t need to go anywhere. I can buy my Dad a gift right here at the keyboard.

So, if you read this and find yourself in the same boat as me, you’re in luck, because I’m about to list off eight different gifts you can get your father for Father’s Day without leaving the keyboard.

Starting with something manly.

A Manly Book

I make bracelets with my son.

I know that doesn’t sound like a “manly” hobby, but it is.

We make them using parachute cord, or paracord.  Take a length of paracord, depending on the size of your wrist, tie a few knots, and BOOM!

Not actually my wrist.

You can buy paracord in pretty much any color you want.  You can buy buckles and use them, or you can buy flint and steel and make a firestarter survival bracelet.

Now that’s manly.

However, you can’t download the paracord.

You can’t download the buckles or the flint and steel.

But you can download the ebook Manly Crafts.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Manly Crafts?”  That’s an oxymoron.

Well, here’s the first manly craft in the book.

Take this:

A manly chunk of wood.

And turn it into this:

A Viking wooden spoon, because Viking equals manly.

Using these:

Viking “crafting tools.” Do I really need to say it? That’s manly.

The best part, aside from the time you’ll spend with your dear old dad working on the project in this book, is that the book’s less than a dollar.

There are tons of cheap ebooks out there for Father’s Day. Get your dad a couple.

While we were sleeping, President Obama and a federal court changed things quite a bit. The Guardian reports, with a lie in its lead.

The Obama administration will stop trying to limit sales of emergency contraception pills, making the morning-after pill available to women of all ages without a prescription.

“Women of all ages…” Women of age 85 aren’t going to be getting the morning-after pill. They don’t need it. Most females under age 17 are not, in the eyes of the law, women. They’re girls. They have not reached the age of consent in many states. Sexual intercourse with them can constitute statutory rape, at least. It may also constitute pedophilia.

The change that now allows girls to obtain the morning-after pill without a prescription and with no questions asked may declare open season on them by sexual predators. The point of the change was, in fact, to make it possible for girls to get this pill, not “women of all ages,” despite the fact that sexual intercourse with them in most cases is illegal. It can also be a monstrous crime, depending on the circumstances.

A 13-year-old girl who goes to the pharmacy to obtain the morning-after pill is probably the victim of a crime. She may be under threat, and walking into the pharmacy to get the pill because an adult has forced her into sex and is now forcing her to get medication that can help cover up the crime. Her parents have the right to know that their daughter is either wittingly sexually active or has been victimized. But no questions will be asked. The girl — not woman, girl — will not be asked to provide ID or any evidence of age. Her parents will probably never know.

Obama’s own decision-making on this should get no pass. He fought the court mandate in the year leading up to his re-election, only to reverse course once he was safely re-elected. Politics drives everything this president says and does. He has made the pedobear one of his administration’s mascots.

Sexual predators and those who despise the family will cheer Obama’s decision. No one in their right mind should join them.

*****

Cross-posted from the PJ Tatler

Image courtesy shutterstock /  filipw

“I think there’s another revolution coming. I’m not sure what it’s going to look like but I think it’s going to be very interesting and it’s going to unfold over the next ten years. And I think it needs to be a spiritual revolution because I think that our systems are broken. I don’t think our political system will ever work. No matter how great a man, if you cloned JFK and Abraham Lincoln and made them president it wouldn’t matter. Our system is just too corrupt and too broken.”  Rainn Wilson

Wilson goes on to say that he expects to see wild pendulum swings between Left and Right in the coming years. The only answer he sees is a spiritual revolution among the young — “like they did in the ’60s.”

Because the ’60s brand of teen revolution that jettisoned God and authority and traditional values worked out so well the first time around? By all means, let’s try that again! Oy.

Wilson concludes: “It’s gonna have to go to that or we’re all going to destroy each other.”

Are those our only two options?

Wilson is right that our systems are broken — or at least many of them are. Every day it seems we discover a new reason to be concerned about the government infringing on our liberties or we see a sign that our society is in a state of moral decay. Who ever imagined an America where a government agency would demand to know the contents of a group’s prayers? President Obama recently told grads at The Ohio State University to beware of the voices doing their best to “gum up the works.” The sad reality is that “the works” have been gummed up for decades and, despite the best efforts of a generation of good Americans, the gears refuse to budge. Many are frustrated with both parties and are beginning to understand, perhaps for the first time, that our nation’s problems are too immense to be solved with political — or even human — solutions alone.

How can men speak honestly about relationships and fatherhood? Easy — don’t include women in the conversation. That way, laughable irrelevancies like fairness, equality, communication, and sharing housework can be left behind and you can get down to discussing what really matters and what really works.

That’s why I’ll be participating in a panel at “BOND’s Annual Conference on Fatherhood and Men,” which is open to all men 13 and older. BOND — “Rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man.” — is the organization run by the courageous preacher and frequent “Hannity” guest Jesse Lee Peterson. I once wrote of him in a City Journal profile:

Peterson decries the transformation of the civil rights movement from a principled appeal to the American creed to a politicized shakedown of guilt-ridden whites. He condemns the government subsidies of single motherhood that have helped set loose a plague of black illegitimacy and its attendant plagues of generational poverty and crime. And he bemoans the black culture of dependency on government support that even welfare workers privately call “welfare psychosis.”

But Peterson is no metropolitan academic. Despite his quiet demeanor and delivery, his message is charged with that old-time religion. Where [Shelby] Steele views the last 40 years of civil rights activism as a complex and poisonous blend of white guilt, black opportunism, and government incompetence and corruption, Peterson sees an intentional power grab by an anti-American Left, a self-interested attempt to destroy the nation by destroying manhood and marriage, part of the ongoing and eternal struggle between the forces of Good and Evil. “You cannot control a moral people,” he tells me. “You have to keep them immoral in order to control them.”

Hit the poster for more information on the conference. And look here for the rest of my profile of this brave and important man.

****

Cross-posted from Klavan on the Culture

James Taranto at Best of the Web: “Rich Woman, Poor Man: Why do female breadwinners tend to have unhappy marriages?”:

Why are men averse to higher-income women? Perhaps because they understand that women are averse to lower-income men. Mating preferences, after all, are driven not only by attraction but by attainability. In theory all men should be attracted to supermodels; in practice few would have the confidence to ask one out.

If, as Mundy suggests, female breadwinners find it a “struggle” to remain attracted to their husbands, then avoiding such a marriage seems a wise defensive move for a man. If the evolutionary psychologists are right, it’s a relatively easy one to make, since a woman’s earning power would not exert much emotional or sexual pull on a man.

****

Cross-posted from Dr. Helen 

image courtesy shutterstock /  Andresr

Submit your questions about friendship, relationships, careers, family, or life decisions to PJMBadAdvice@gmail.com or leave a question in the comments section, and I’ll answer it in Bad Advice, PJ Lifestyle’s new advice column every Wednesday!

This week, one of my regular commenters asks for advice on his (or her) self-destructive sister. The situation is below:

Dear Bad Advice,

Please allow me to complain about my constantly-complaining sister!

Actually, I try not to buy into her mindset. The constant complainer “wins,” if you continually allow them to get under your skin.

Not only does my sister complain a lot, but she has made some very bad choices in her life: cheating on a good husband, refusing to reconcile with him, not doing anything about finding a decent job, constantly antagonizing friends and family, etc., etc. And despite all of her very bad choices, she always finds someone else to blame for her self-inflicted misery. She even blames our kind, responsible, loving parents, who did not spoil us, but who, according to her bizarre thinking, supposedly ruined her life by not preparing her for every possible situation which might arise due to her own mistakes. And if you get into a conversation with her, she will be sure to let you know this.

People like my sister seem to wallow in their own misery, and have a “grass-is-greener” attitude about other people’s lives, which is, of course, completely unrealistic. And, there are times when I just need to tell my sister what’s what, even though that always creates a firestorm, and there are other times when I need to break off contact for at least a while. My sister needs to take responsibility for herself, and until that happens, she will continue to inflict misery on herself and others.

- Not Into Sister’s Act

This is going to sound like bad advice, but don’t treat your sister like she’s crazy for going through some ups and downs.

My daughter just got back from Moore, Oklahoma. Along with a team from our church, she spent the last few days helping families sift through the rubble that was once their homes. They spent hours searching for the smallest pieces of their lives.

When I asked her what struck her the hardest, she told me,

Watching the families look at the debris, or the crosses in memory of the children that died. The blank look of disbelief on their faces — they’re not in there. Then when you hug them, they just drop into your arms and cry. I remember that feeling. I remembered when that was us.

So do I.

In the midst of tornado sirens five summers ago, we were summoned to a small room in the basement of a hospital. Behind closed doors, two strangers, doing their best to be kind, said to us the most horrific words I ever heard. They told us our youngest son died at the scene.

What I once knew as my home, my family, and my children — even myself  — all changed. There was no going back.

An June 2008 entry from my journal:

It is as though my life has exploded into thousands of little pieces. Daily I strive to carefully pick up another piece. What I am finding is that each piece is part of a puzzle. And I have to ask God where each piece fits.

To my surprise, the picture of my life that the pieces are forming is a much different picture than the one I knew before.

You can’t stop the storms of life from rolling in. You can, however, allow them to deepen your relationships rather than destroy them.

“Arming teachers” with guns is a subject often fraught with emotion and one that can divide communities into different “camps” — usually into the stereotypical left vs. right, NRA vs. gun-control arguments. But the issue is much more complex and nuanced and even those usually on the same side of the gun control debate disagree about whether teachers should carry guns in classrooms.

Ohio is no exception as the state grapples with school safety a year after T.J. Lane killed three classmates and paralyzed another in a shooting at Chardon High School.

“Twenty-two seconds from the time he shot the first shot until he left the school building. Twenty-two seconds.”

That’s how Superintendent Joseph Bergant described the shooting at Chardon High School. He spoke at an Ohio State Board of Education (SBE) meeting earlier this month and said that Lane fired the first shot through his backpack and killed the student next to him.

“How do you guarantee the safety of 3000 students in a school building?,” Bergant asked. “You can’t.”

The Chardon district had a comprehensive plan for what to do in the event of an active shooter. They practiced so that students, parents, and teachers knew exactly how to respond. That training included role playing — even discharging a firearm in the building — practice reunification with parents, and parents receiving text messages to make sure the notification system was operational.

Bergant said, “Teachers had more anxiety when we did the crisis drill than on the day of the shooting.”

Despite all the preparations, the shooting only ended as quickly as it did because of the heroic actions of teacher and football coach Frank Hall who risked his own life by charging Lane — while dodging bullets — and chasing him out of the building.

Metal detectors. Uniformed police officers (euphemistically called “school resource officers”), buzzer systems at the school entry, armed teachers, brave and burly football coaches, duck and cover drills. No single solution or combination of protective measures will guarantee the safety of children when there is an evil murderer bent on snuffing out human lives. Arming teachers is not “the” answer to preventing — or stopping — active shooters.

But are they one solution that could help to make kids safer? Are there legitimate safety concerns about arming teachers? And who should decide if teachers should be armed with guns in schools?

Here’s one of my favorite political jokes in honor of my wedding anniversary:

Barack Obama, John Boehner and Harry Reid are traveling on Air Force One when the jet crashes and they are all killed. Barack Obama is immediately whisked off to a plain of eternal fire. Demons tear at him with pitchforks; hellhounds rip his flesh; flames engulf him. And a mighty voice from on high thunders: “BARACK OBAMA! THIS IS YOUR DOOM!”

John Boehner finds himself in an endless waste of ice. Ice devils scratch at him; hailstones pound him; freezing cold lashes his body. And a mighty voice from on high thunders: “JOHN BOEHNER! THIS IS YOUR DOOM!”

Harry Reid opens his eyes and finds himself in a spacious penthouse apartment in the clouds. The furnishings are lavish. Beautiful music plays on an amazing sound system. A crystal of single malt scotch is waiting for him on the stand near his plush armchair. The door opens and in walks Kate Upton in the sheerest possible negligee. And as the gorgeous super model moves slowly toward him, a mighty voice from on high thunders: “KATE UPTON…!”

I have been married 33 years. During that time, my wife and I have had one argument and a million laughs. Without sentimentality or exaggeration, I can honestly say it has been a romance out of a fairy tale. For me, it has been a gift from God and a taste of paradise.

For my wife? Well, I can only hope she doesn’t feel like Kate Upton in the joke!

*****

Cross-posted from Klavan on the Culture

I love sushi.

It’s delicious, refreshing, appetizing — any adjective applies, really. On weekends my friends and I can often be found snacking on sushi and drinking mai tais at our favorite restaurant. I personally like nigirizushi.

What’s funny is that I used to hate the thought of it. I hadn’t tried it; the idea of consuming raw fish made me sick. But then things changed.

One day at school the dining area was offering free sushi. I tried and was immediately hooked. Now it is one of my favorite dishes.

It’s also Jiro Ono’s.

He constantly thinks of sushi — how to prepare it, serve it, reinvent it. He has since he was a young boy. It’s why he was able to ascend to the top of the international sushi industry. His restaurant is one of the few awarded three stars by the Michelin guide. In order to eat there, you have to reserve a spot a few months in advance. And bring cash — about three hundred dollars or so.

Ono was the subject of the film Jiro Dreams of Sushi which premiered in 2011. It’s currently streaming on Netflix. Throughout the film he imparts much wisdom unto the viewer. We learn, for instance, that he considers the practice of making sushi a craft — not surprising, especially since he is seen as a master. But it becomes increasingly clear that his life is one of virtue, prudence, hard work, and tradition. He honors family by passing down his sushi-making techniques to his sons, as well as his apprentices.

The film is rich, powerful, engaging, and thoughtful, and as such it has many ideas to teach its viewers that I  call “California Roll Conservatism.” As mentioned, sushi is an art — a craft — and those who enjoy it can discern the difference between a good and bad product. So, in a sense, there exists a hierarchical order in the world of sushi.

I would like to take this Asian cultural insight and combine it with traditionalist conservatism — the kind associated with some of my favorite thinkers such as Roger Scruton, Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and many others.

These are its principles: a prejudice toward the local, a respect for community and tradition, a recognition that man must be ordered toward God, the desire to pursue the permanent things, and the enjoyment of high culture.

A quick aside: Like sushi, I used to hate conservatism. This was back in high school or so. I started drifting to the right around my senior year. Everything clicked for me, however, in college:  it was when I discovered Leo Strauss, Scruton, and the meaning of the tragic in human affairs.

Here are five life lessons courtesy of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and the beginning of coming to define California Roll Conservatism.

Happy Memorial Day! Have you heard the greeting on TV or seen it on Facebook this weekend? It always bothers me when I see it because the word “memorial’ generally connotes something other than “happy” — or at least it ought to. I understand that most people who proffer the greeting do so perfectly innocently, wishing upon their friends a pleasant holiday weekend spent barbecuing or shopping for mattresses. But whenever I hear the flippant greeting, my mind goes back to the trip our family made to our local national cemetery last year on Memorial Day. We went there to visit the grave of my husband’s grandfather, Ivan Kerr, a WWII veteran who had marched across Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, and also to pay tribute to those who had paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

It was a gorgeous Ohio day with a cloudless blue sky and row upon row of grave markers decorated with small American flags, courtesy of the local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We arrived several hours after the official Memorial Day ceremony, after the crowds had dispersed. People were wandering around the cemetery, some looking like they had a purpose and others, like our family, reading the headstones and thinking about the individual lives and families and stories they represented. In the distance we heard a lone bugler playing “Taps.” There were no funerals or ceremonies going on, so we were left to wonder whether he played to honor a fallen friend or if he just played as a simple act of patriotism to pay tribute to all the fallen heroes, unknown to him, who lay beneath the tiny flags and white marble markers.

Walt Disney with three of his grandchildren at the opening of Nature’s Wonderland at Disneyland in 1960

Ask almost anybody to name the most important things in their life, and chances are family will make its way onto the list. Family – or at least the idea of it – lies at the core of most people’s existence. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God designed the family to be the catalyst for spiritual, physical, and emotional growth. The Biblical idea of family is built around mutual respect and well-defined roles. You can find plenty of advice in the Bible on how to live life within the family:

“Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Deuteronomy 5:16

“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” Proverbs 1:8

“A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish man despises his mother.” Proverbs 15:20

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Colossians 3:20

“Fathers,do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Walt Disney lived these values too. He loved his daughters and grandchildren, and his ultimate goal was to provide quality entertainment for families. He designed his theme parks to be fun for parents as well as children, and his films and television series contained elements that the entire family could enjoy.

On the next few pages we’re going to look at the value of family in some of the classics in the Disney canon. The studio released four of these films during Walt’s lifetime, and one came out four decades after his death. Enjoy!

Over at MSN, in the “Men’s Department,” an article cutely has a caption asking if a commercial portraying men as dirty, unkept imbeciles is sexist:

Television maker Samsung is taking heat over a new commercial portraying men as dirty, unkempt, flatulent couch potatoes.

In the new ad for Samsung Smart TV’s Evolution Kit called “Evolutionary Husband?” posted May 14 on YouTube, a woman daydreams about plugging in the Evolution Kit into her man, who then becomes an “evolved,” multitasking marvel – caring for the baby while simultaneously making breakfast, painting, decorating a cake and watering a plant.

Her daydream is brought to an abrupt closure by a loud emission of flatulence from said husband — who remains the same dirty, zombie-like caveman who appears to have not left the couch in several days.

“Samsung TV is an Evolutionary TV,” says the message on the ad.

The man in the commercial is acting like a woman; that is how one becomes “evolved” in our screwed-up society. The only man worth dealing with is a metro-sexual. It’s no wonder men no longer want to get married as often.

Watch video on next page.

Wired has an excellent writeup of the new Xbox One. It was just revealed to the public yesterday, but Peter Rubin got to spend some quality time with one over the last few weeks — the lucky bastard. It’s an impressive piece of hardware, like any new console should be. But here’s what I think makes it a winner:

When the 360 launched, smartphones hadn’t yet trickled out of the corporate world; Netflix was strictly a DVD delivery service; the “cloud” was something that got in the way of a suntan. (Hell, in 2005, people suntanned.) And a big part of the 360’s longevity was Microsoft’s ability not only to develop games but also to forge partnerships that took advantage of these new staples of online life. So as those deals proliferated, so did the things the Xbox 360 could do. People played Halo 3 on their Xbox, but they also watched Netflix. They bought Kinect sensors for controller-free experiences, but they also burned through seasons of Deadwood on HBO Go and caught sports highlights on an ESPN app. But all of this new functionality was built on patches and firmware updates. The 360 simply wasn’t constructed that way, so when the Xbox One was greenlit in the fall of 2011, “the decision wasn’t, ‘We need a gamebox,’” Whitten says. “It was, ‘We need a living-room experience.’” Built that way from the ground up.

This is Microsoft playing at the absolute top of its game (no pun intended). They’ve leveraged everything they’ve learned about gaming, consoles, services, and streaming, and worked them together into a single system. To call the Xbox One a mere “console” is to undersell what it is and what it does. This is an entertainment system-in-a-box, all for a few hundred dollars.

How was Microsoft able to do this, when they’ve pretty much flubbed every single other consumer device they’ve tried to build in the last few years? How did the company that build the ill-fated Zune with its infamous “Squirt” feature manage to get something so spectacularly right?

Duane Michals: “The Bogeyman” (1973)

The Shubert. The Apollo. Carnegie Hall.

So the “Snapple Theater Center” doesn’t provoke the same reverent awe as do the names of those famous New York City landmarks, but hey, a gig’s a gig, right?

Maybe Christina Crawford inherited more of her adoptive mother’s trooper spirit than she’d care to admit.

It’s so easy to imagine Joan Crawford growling, “Snapple, crapple! The show must go on!”

And so it does: the longrunning “Mommie Dearest” franchise, one angry daughter’s single claim to fame — first a blockbuster 1977 memoir, then a cult movie — is back in a rather downmarket iteration: A Conversation with Christina Crawford: Live and Onstage in Surviving Mommie Dearest.

Or rather, was. The show’s very brief run at the Snapple overlapped Mother’s Day.

After more than 30 years of telling all, what possible secrets could Christina Crawford have left to reveal about her infamous mom?

Well, now she’s claiming (sort of) that Joan Crawford murdered her husband Alfred Steele, the Pepsi CEO whose position the widow snatched for herself after his death.

Here’s Faye Dunaway reenacting the power grab in the aforementioned cult flick, Mommie Dearest (1981):

Last Friday, an Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi posted on Facebook a harrowing story about an eight-year-old girl in the Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan, who was sold off into marriage to a mullah in his late 50s, and who bled to death on their wedding night.

It was one of many such tragedies in a land that little notes nor long remembers such deaths. An eight-year-old girl sold into marriage and dead after a brutal sexual assault that her body could not withstand is no more noteworthy than a pack animal that collapses under a too-heavy weight. It’s time and money wasted, that’s all. Forget about it. Get another one.

Indeed, the day after Kazemi posted his account, pro-Sharia lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked a proposed Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women, which would have set criminal penalties for child marriage. Pro-Sharia legislator Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada denounced the law as un-Islamic, explaining: “Whatever is against Islamic law, we don’t even need to speak about it.”

That means that more girls like the eight year old in the Khashrood district will continue to suffer. For few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death) (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.

One by one, they all filed into the kitchen for the family meeting. My oldest hopped onto the counter. His gangly legs dangled past the knobs on the cabinet doors below. Bouncing on his toes, the youngest stretched his arms as high as he could — the universal baby language for “pick-me-up.” I automatically lifted him. He felt twice as heavy the day before. At least, it seemed like yesterday. All of a sudden, his face didn’t look like my pudgy baby with the button nose. Instead, a full-blown toddler had taken his place. As he settled into my lap, wrapped in my arms, I looked around the room at all the faces. Curiosity framed eight pairs of big, Robinson-blue eyes. We filled the entire kitchen of that old farmhouse.

“It’s time to take a vote,” I announced.

Before I could say what we were actually voting on, squeals of delight slipped out of the girls. It’s always fun when you’re little and someone counts your vote — on anything.

“Okay,” I continued. “Daddy and I want to know… who wants Mommy to have another baby?”

All hands immediately shot into the air. The little guy on my lap raised both of his, and now all the girls were giggling.

“Well then, it’s settled. Mommy’s going to have a baby.”

“When?”

“At the end of the summer.”

The entire room erupted with cheers. The big girls hugged each other, and the two boys started jumping up and down making boy-noises. The older kids narrowed their eyes and studied us. Their suspicion was plainly written all over their faces– “Wait a minute, I don’t think that’s how it works…”

Their dad shot a smile and a wink their way.

Our children were always excited about welcoming a new member. To them growing a family took nothing more than an announcement.

However, building a strong family takes more than simply adding children. It takes these three vital elements.

Subjected to criminal prosecution for homeschooling their six children, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled Germany in 2008. U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted the family asylum in 2010, only to see his decision overturned in 2012 after it was targeted directly by the Obama administration.

On Tuesday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family.

Fox News reported:

“The Obama administration is basically saying there is no right to home school anywhere,” said Michael Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “It’s an utter repudiation of parental liberty and religious liberty.”

The Justice Dept. is arguing that German law banning home schooling does not violate the family’s human rights.

“They are trying to send a family back to Germany where they would certainly lose custody of their children,” Farris told Fox News. “Our government is siding with Germany.”

“Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers,” said Mike Donnelly, HSLDA Director of International Affairs. “The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”

When news of a horrific crime like the Cleveland kidnappings and subsequent escape and rescue breaks, what follows is a media circus and 24-hour news cycle. It’s not unusual to hear reporters, in their quest to fill space and time, making vapid comments and asking extraordinarily dumb questions. We can always count on Piers “That’s Appalling” Morgan to add to the collective tomfoolery. On Friday night he asked a “man on the street” in Cleveland (in his most earnest, probing voice), “Is there a sense of collective guilt?”

Morgan was referring to all the people who certainly overlooked clues that something was terribly wrong at the house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland. How could a man keep three young women imprisoned in his home for ten years without anyone noticing? Shouldn’t the neighbors have known that something ghastly was going on there and then done something about it? Shouldn’t service workers like meter readers and mail carriers have noticed signs that this wasn’t a normal home with one resident? And perhaps most disturbing, shouldn’t police have investigated alleged calls by neighbors who reported odd things they saw at the residence?

Somebody should have done something, right?