Owlpost 8-24-13

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The Problem with the Childfree Life:

Time magazine has stirred up the social pot again, with its recent cover picturing a couple clearly reveling in “The Childfree Life.” In her cover article Lauren Sandler offers a vivid glimpse into the fast-growing world of women “having it all without having children.” She not only lets us see the statistics; she also lets us hear the voices of the women they document. The statistics themselves are dramatic: for example, about one in five American women now bear no children, compared to one in ten in the 1970s. We’re talking about remarkably quick demographic change.

The Rise and Fall of Katharine Hepburn’s Fake Accent:

“Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By,'” purrs a moon-faced Ingrid Bergman in the now-famous scene from 1942’s Casablanca. Staccato t’s and accordion-stretched a’s lend a musical flavor to Bergman’s lilt. “Early” becomes “euh-ly” and “perhaps” unfolds as “peuh-haps.'”

The grandeur and glamor in her voice, though, is a sham.

You Can Do Anything: Must Every Kids’ Movie Reinforce the Cult of Self-Esteem?

For all the chatter about the formulaic sameness of Hollywood movies, no genre in recent years has been more thematically rigid than the computer-animated children’s movie. These films have been infected with what might be called the magic-feather syndrome. As with the titular character in Walt Disney’s 1943 animated feature Dumbo, these movies revolve around anthropomorphized outcasts who must overcome the restrictions of their societies or even species to realize their impossible dreams. Almost uniformly, the protagonists’ primary liability, such as Dumbo’s giant ears, eventually turns into their greatest strength.

Enjoying John Mayer’s New Album Does Not Make You a Bad Person:

I was into John Mayer before he was big. I was into him when he was so small-time; he couldn’t even afford velvet bandanas. His guitar strings were old shoelaces. He was still a kid. He was so small. He didn’t even know what a bandana was. He was still in his mother’s uterus, banging on the walls, screaming to be let out so he could make the world sing.

Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal:

On May 31st, president Barack Obama strolled into the bright sunlight of the Rose Garden, covered from head to toe in the slime and ooze of the Benghazi and IRS scandals. In a Karl Rove-ian masterstroke, he simply pretended they weren’t there and changed the subject. The topic? Student loans. Unless Congress took action soon, he warned, the relatively low 3.4 percent interest rates on key federal student loans would double. Obama knew the Republicans would make a scene over extending the subsidized loan program, and that he could corner them into looking like obstructionist meanies out to snatch the lollipop of higher education from America’s youth. “We cannot price the middle class or folks who are willing to work hard to get into the middle class,” he said sternly, “out of a college education.”

When Mentoring Exposes Your Idol of Being Needed:

Sharing the gospel is inextricably tied to sharing other aspects of life with those we’re mentoring. Consider what the apostle Paul says: “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Biblical mentoring requires engaging the whole person for more than just a scheduled time each week or month. It includes meeting for lunch or coffee, showing up for an important event in the life of the woman you’re mentoring, inviting her to be part of your life or family, serving together, and even enjoying together the seemingly “frivolous” activities such as watching a movie or going shopping.