If you haven’t read Jennifer Kahn’s lengthy piece about child psychopathy in this past weekend’s NY Times Magazine, “Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?,” it’s eye-opening to say the least. Perhaps not recommended for parents of small children… Ms. Kahn profiles a few of what are officially classified as the “Callous Unemotional” or “C.U.’s”, children whose anti-social behavior includes both an inability to feel empathy and acute rage of the most calculated kind (which distinguishes them from other volatile children, who are more impulsive). It’s pretty chilling. But as gruesomely fascinating as the details are, more relevant to us…
Another Week Ends: Attachment Parenting, Sendak on Innocence, Self-Disclosure, Fraudulent Psych, Prometheus, Avengers, and Josh Hamilton
1. Why Is This Attractive Woman Breast-Feeding This Giant Child? asks Hannah Rosin over at Slate, in response to Time’s, um, eye-catching cover this past week. You know the one I’m talking about – at least you do if you’ve seen it (below). The story within, bearing the not-so-subtle title of “Are You Mom Enough?”, profiles the controversial world of radical attachment parenting and the man behind it, Dr. Bill Sears. Now I’m as big a proponent of breastfeeding as the next guy (…), so the reason I include the article here has nothing to do with developmental health or…
Celebrity / Film / Humor / Music / Psychology / Science / Suffering / Technology / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Celebrity Body Image, Depression Chemistry, the Burden of Secrecy, Fitz Allison, Ryan Gosling, Community, Game of Thrones, and Spiritualized
1. On Slate, Emily Shire asks, “Should Celebrity Body ‘Struggles’ Make Us Feel Better About Ourselves?” and her insightful little response doubles as quite the treatise on the function of Standards (of beauty etc) and how attempts to allay judgment often backfire, i.e. that the notch on the scale isn’t the issue so much as the scale itself:
Allure’s feature is only one of the latest in a long line of magazine stories about female celebrities “bravely” grappling with their “physical imperfections.” A growing number of publications are trying to pass off barely-clad celebrities strutting their stuff as an inspiring act…
America / Children / Church / Film / Food / Music / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Technology / TV / Week In Review
Another (Holy) Week Ends: Unachievement, Damsels Reviews, Gastrodad Confessions, Youth Ministry, Music Snobs, Girls and Darth Vader
1. At this point, you’ve likely seen Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek cover story on the “Crisis in Christianity”. While there’s regrettably little talk of salvation – which I’m not sure is really within the purview of such a piece – and the reference to Jefferson is a bit dubious, the overall diagnosis strikes me as sound. Sullivan’s conclusion is particularly stirring:
The crisis of Christianity is perhaps best captured in the new meaning of the word “secular.” It once meant belief in separating the spheres of faith and politics; it now means, for many, simply atheism. The ability to be faithful in…
Are Stage Mothers the New Tax Collectors? Toddlers, Tiaras and Dieting 7-Year Olds
A couple of notable new volleys in the parenting wars world. Doubtless by now you’ve heard about Dara-Lynn Weiss, the New York City mother who set off a firestorm by writing an article for Vogue detailing her, um, zealous efforts to curb her 7-year-old daughter’s eating habits. Apparently the poor girl in question was failing to “self-regulate” adequately at the preschool snack table. Weiss has been publicly reproached on every website imaginable (“I’m pretty sure Weiss just handed her daughter the road map to all her future eating disorders,” wrote one commenter on nymag.com), and it’s hard not to concur…
Art / Books / Children / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Music / Religion / Sports / Technology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Jeremy Lin, Scientism, Cosmism, Clergy Burnout, Tearjerkers, Springsteen’s Advice, 30 Rock, and Garbage Pail Kids
1. The Linsanity continues! But this time the hubbub has to do with a powerful (and unexpected) instance of off-court forgiveness. Last week, Jeremy Lin invited the ESPN employee who was fired for writing an offensive headline about Lin to lunch. Newsday spoke with the journalist in question, Anthony Federico:
Federico apologized after he was fired, calling the headline’s play on words ["chink in the armor"] “an honest mistake.” Lin said at the time that he accepted the apology and added, “You have to learn to forgive.” Apparently, he meant it. A member of Lin’s family reached out to Federico via…
America / Celebrity / Children / Church / Conferences / Death / Film / Humor / Identity / Law / Music / Relationships / Sermons / Social Science / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Willy Loman Preaches, Complicated Mourning, Extroversion Mandates, Celebrity Marriage Formulas, Dependency Dilemmas, Kontiki, Mad Men and Rowan Williams
1. A little over four weeks until our Spring Conference in NYC (4/19-21), which means that on Monday night 3/19, the “Earlybird rates” will expire ($150/couple or $100/person all-inclusive). You can’t say we didn’t warn you… If you need an extra push, earlier this week the Episcopal News Service published a generous piece about Mockingbird, which describes our past conferences in flattering terms. So pre-register today! And speaking of our little organization, in the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department, a killer Mbird headline appeared in The NY Times recently that was just too uncanny not to share, “Nazareth Defeats Christ the King in…
Addiction / Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Interviews / Literature / Music / Religion / Social Science / Suffering / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: John Carter, Obesity FAILs, Mary Karr on Suffering, Winning!, Friends with Kids, Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball and Community Returns
1. “I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials.” Thus sang Jarvis Cocker on the classic Pulp track “Dishes” (at bottom), and it now looks like he has a new contender to the throne, Tim Riggins himself, Mr. John Carter of Mars. That’s right: Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton’s first live-action feature is out this weekend, and the consensus thus far is that there’s no consensus. Some claim that it’s an overblown mess, others that it’s the sort of exceedingly fun pulp adventure that doesn’t get made anymore. But Stanton is a filmmaker that I trust over any…
Addiction / Books / Humor / Music / Philosophy / Psychology / Reformation / Religion / Sports / TV / Week In Review / Year In Review
Another Year Ends: Xmas Wars, Twitter Blues, Reznor’s Recovery, Hume’s Legacy, Bad Seeds, Scrooge Syndrome, and Mbird Subscriptions
1. You can’t blame Matt Zencey for trying to put the “war on Christmas” in perspective over at The Huffington Post, recalling the 18th century Puritan campaign against the holiday. While contextually more than a little glib – apples and oranges and all that (our cultural conflict has two equally doctrinaire opponents, theirs had one, and arguments could be made for casting the pilgrims as the corollary to either). Still, the historical details are undeniably interesting:
The Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock knew how to wage war on Christmas: They banned it. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum documents in his 1997…
Seasonal Surveillance and the All-Seeing Eye of the Elf on the Shelf
Not sure where I’ve been but this is the first I’m hearing of the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon, the popular children’s book that takes the “he knows if you’ve been naughty or nice” aspect of Santa Claus to a whole new level. Essentially, parents have begun placing little elf dolls on their mantle pieces to serve as North Pole nanny-cams, an ever-present reminder that Someone is watching, weighing, waiting. Torie Bosch on Slate published a great piece exploring the Big Brother implications and obvious cognitive dissonance that such tactics might produce in otherwise proudly nurturing parents. If the whole…
Books / Christmas / Comics / Humor / Money / Music / Psychology / Religion / Social Science / Theology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Deadly Doing, Horton on Incarnation, Epic Fantasy Appeal, Schizophrenic Hope, DFW Syllabi, Nice Guys, George Harrison and Superman
1. Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish produced a stirring little meditation earlier this week which brought together two of our favorites, philosopher Michael Oakeshott and social psychologist Daniel Kahneman, under the dynamo Oakeshott-inspired title “The Deadliness of Doing.” He speaks about Oakeshott’s lifelong project of trying to recover was a way of doing things which was as unselfconscious as possible. It’s not terribly different from the dynamic described in Tullian Tchividjian’s book we reviewed earlier this week, that true spiritual progress consists in being liberated from self-reference as much as possible, i.e. becoming less fixated on the me-centered notion…
Another Week Ends: Zombied Church, The Hill and Wood, Full Eyes, Soda Bans, (The Paradox of) Dysfunctional Families, Joe Pa and Scandal Love
1) Something’s in the water at The Atlantic lately, because inspired after inspired article seems to be finding its way into the proverbial stream, including an intriguing article about tv show The Walking Dead‘s “Come-to-Jesus Moment.” As the review is aware (and mind you, if you’re not caught up on the show, spoilers), it’s certainly a dissatisfying presentation of faith’s power in crisis, but it has a lot to say about the human compulsions to lean on something in hard times, and the ease of and inevitable infidelity of that leaning becoming a leaning on one’s self. In a hellish…
Church / Comics / Film / Humor / Law / Politics / Psychology / Relationships / Religion / Testimony / Theology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Ben Franklin’s Bible, Desperate Millennials, The Costanza Key to Success, Prohibition, Zombie vs. Vampire, Whit Stillman, Craig Thompson and Rango
1. Doubtless you’ve heard, but in a true laugh-or-you’ll-cry moment, Ben Franklin’s notorious “God helps those who help themselves” motto was quoted as Scripture from quite an auspicious, or I should say audacious, pulpit this past week. This just a few weeks after the Atlanta branch of my church put forward an out-of-nowhere (or, you could argue, an if-the-shoe-fits) proposal to rehabilitate Mockingbird baddie numero uno… Let’s just say it’s been a tough few weeks for us Augustinians.
2. A wonderful profile in The NY Times of Vito Aiuto and his church, Resurrection Pres in Brooklyn. You may remember him from…
America / Gender / Law / Music / Relationships / Religion / Social Science / Technology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Marriage Markets, Foxhole Religion, Reconsidering Jobs, Breaking Bad, The Strokes, Psychopathic Day Traders, Innovation Starvation and The Muppets
1. The cover story in this month’s issue of The Atlantic is making some waves, “All The Single Ladies,” in which writer Katie Bolick looks into how the recession is effecting the “marriage market.” Something of an unintentional follow-up to yesterday’s piece on Parenthood, Bolick maintains that the explosion of male joblessness and corresponding ascent of females in pretty much all areas of conventional achievement has made it considerably more difficult for young women to find an appropriate spouse. Again, I’m not positive this isn’t simply some fashionable angle right now, but to the extent that this has to do…
America / Economics / Law / Money / Psychology / Religion / Social Science / Technology / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Achievement Freaks, St. Jobs, Luxury Disorders, Von Trier’s Obstructions, Self-Made Religion, Boardwalk Empire, and Lactivism
1. As if we needed another reminder of the frightening heights the achievement curve has reached in recent years, James Atlas attempted to trace the cultural and economic forces contributing to the ‘excellence glut’ in his NY Times op-ed last week, “Meet the New Super People.” Atlas seems less interested in the psychological (and spiritual!) fallout of what he calls the “achievement freak” phenomenon, and more interested in the increasingly egregious disparities this trend is already creating in our country/the world, questioning where it could all possibly be heading:
It’s a select group to begin with, but even so, there doesn’t…
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Rutger-Jan Heijmen: *Conan's...