The Rotten Orange and the Kingslayer

May 16, 2013 By 20 Comments
kingslayer iron throne

Calah Alexander kicked off a Patheos Catholic-wide conversation about certain kinds of abstinence-only education with "Sloppy Seconds Sex-Ed" and Elizabeth Scalia has been aggregating the responses.  Calah is criticizing specifically the kind of program that sends students (especially women) the message that sex before marriage will leave them used up and worthless. When I heard it, it was glasses of water. Women (and only women, mind you; the boys got a separate talk about cherishing each … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Morality in Practice Tagged With: , 20 Comments

The Self-Inflicted Wound of the Torturer

May 9, 2013 By 14 Comments
mideval rack

In C.S. Lewis's Of Other Worlds, most of the selections in the book are critical essays, but there a few pieces of fiction included, one of which is a never completed novel that C.S. Lewis meant to write about Menelaus and Helen during and after the Trojan War.  In the excerpt below, Menelaus stops fantasizing about torturing Helen if he regains her. [H]e wouldn't torture her.  He saw that was nonsense.  Torture was all very well for getting information; it was no real use for revenge. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Morality in Practice Tagged With: 14 Comments

Pardon me, are you using that education?

April 24, 2013 By 45 Comments
rosie riveter baby

In The Guardian, Keli Goff has some harsh words for women in my demographic who become stay at home mothers. In "Female Ivy League graduates have a duty to stay in the workforce" she writes: But in the long run, degrees from competitive institutions should serve as more than modern day charm school or debutante diplomas. Sadly, it appears some women and men see them as such, simply a piece of paper to affirm that a woman is good spouse material for yet another man to use his Harvard Law degree … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Morality in Practice Tagged With: , , 45 Comments