1. Watch groups: Christians in Turkey face suppression, exploitation
The Hyde Amendment has saved an estimated 2.4 million lives since 1976. These lives aren’t abstractions—they’re real people that we live and work alongside each day. They have gone on to have families and children of their own, faced trials and challenges, and achieved victories small and large in their homes and their communities.
These lives are more than a statistic. Each and every one of these 2.4 million individuals has immeasurable worth and dignity. The Hyde Amendment saved roughly 60,000 lives in 2019 alone, and about 30,000 through the first half of 2020.
If congressional Democrats have their way and the Hyde Amendment is no longer incorporated in annual appropriations bills—which DeLauro and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said will be the case—thousands of unborn boys and girls will pay the price.
3. This is well done:
4.
9 December 1942 | Dutch Jewish girl Florence Vigevino was born in The Hague.
In February 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz with her mother Mietje. They were murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. pic.twitter.com/52Dz3zShuF
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 9, 2020
5. Pope Francis December 9 General Audience
And, brothers and sisters, we know that God will respond. There is no prayer in the Book of Psalms that raises a lament that remains unheard. God alway answers: maybe today, tomorrow, but he always answers, in one way or another. He always answers. The Bible repeats it countless times: God listens to the cry of those who invoke Him. Even our reluctant questions, those that remain in the depths of our heart, that we are ashamed to express: the Father listens to them and wishes to give us the Holy Spirit, which inspires every prayer and transforms everything.
6. The Washington Post: Congress shines light on Georgetown’s CCP-linked foreign funding
In 2016, Georgetown inaugurated a new “Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues,” supported by a $10 million gift from a Thai corporation with extensive links not just to China but to the specific CCP organizations that manage overseas influence operations. Georgetown officials insist the grant from the Spring Breeze Foundation, which is financed by Bangkok-based CP Group, does not constrain the program’s academic independence, although they declined to make the contract public.
7.
“Diseases desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.” https://t.co/3HiPkY26SL— Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) (@KSPrior) December 9, 2020
8. Matthew Hennessey: No More Bishop Nice Guy
It’s an unfortunate reality that some Christians only attend services twice a year even when there’s no pandemic on. This year that minimal connection is in danger of being severed.
America’s religious leaders should hear alarm bells. In our aggressively secular world, it doesn’t take much to break the habit of regular worship. Communities of faith can’t survive without children.
The shuttering of churches in the spring caused untold pastoral damage. Thousands suffered and died alone, without the comfort of a bedside spiritual adviser or a priest to administer the sacraments. The departed went to eternal rest without the funeral masses and family gatherings that are so important to mark the passage of a life. When restrictions were lifted, sign-up sheets and parking-lot services did little to bring the faithful back.
We are told lives have been saved by keeping the churches half-empty. Do we know how many souls have been lost?
9. Julia Marcus: The Danger of Assuming That Family Time Is Dispensable
Public-health messaging and policies during the pandemic have acknowledged that trips to grocery stores and pharmacies are essential, while grossly underestimating the strong need people feel to be close to one another. Lecturing showed its limits in late November: While millions heeded the recommendation to stay home, millions of others did not.
…
Instead of yelling even louder about Christmas than about Thanksgiving, government officials, health professionals, and ordinary Americans alike might try this: Stop all the chastising. Remember that the public is fraying. And consider the possibility that when huge numbers of people indicate through their actions that seeing loved ones in person is nonnegotiable, they need practical ways to reduce risk that go beyond “Just say no.”
10. Willis Krumholz: States and Congress Can Act to Fix Large Working-Class Marriage Penalties
These penalties hit working men who are looking to get married the hardest. Working-class men earning between $30,000 and $60,000 per year suffer from reduced marriageability because, while they make good money in a vacuum, they are less competitive as a marital partner when measured against welfare. This is especially the case for men earning below the eligibility threshold for welfare. When men earn more than $80,000 per year, they become very marriageable, since their income is more than enough to compensate for any lost benefits, and their income is at the point where one spouse can become a part or full-time child care provider.
The solution to this problem is twofold. First, end the income eligibility test that counts the biological father but doesn’t count the income of the live-in boyfriend. Second, follow the lead of the tax code and increase the eligibility threshold for married couples, which accounts for the fact that two adults in a home can be, and today usually are, breadwinners.
11. How should cities and towns adapt in order to thrive in 2021? We asked 9 leading thinkers.
Quint Studer: Communities have gone through a traumatic experience. Not only have local businesses taken a huge hit, people had to learn to work in a different way, educate their kids in a different way, and cope with social isolation. Everything about our way of life has changed. That’s why I feel the most critical adaptation will be dealing with the “reentry.” Even if a vaccine is available, communities will be coming out of a time of fear, grief, and even anger. People have felt powerless for a long time. A good part of the population will be showing signs of extended stress and, in some cases, trauma.
It’s natural to want to focus on getting local economies and schools back on track, and there may be the expectation that citizens will “just move on.” But trauma takes time to heal. Helping people shore up their mental and emotional health will be a big part of coming back stronger as a community.
12. 94-year-old jazz pianist plays piano for first time in years since his stroke
“Yeeeaah!” Lee grins, as their duet on Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘After You’ve Gone’ ends.
A second video from Morrison, in which the duo play ‘The Nearness of You’, is captioned: “This is what friends are for… I am so grateful to my old mates Julian and Don for all the lessons learnt over the years… life is music.”
13. Leonard Sax: Pandemic Parenting: Lessons Learned
…Adolescents during the pandemic were actually less likely to report symptoms of depression compared with a comparable cross-section of adolescents two years previously, before the pandemic. What’s going on?
…
The lessons are clear. Use the social-distancing restrictions imposed by the pandemic as a mechanism to bring your family closer together. You may have to be distanced from others, but you can spend more time face-to-face doing family things together. That could be a hike outdoors, or a board game, or just a leisurely supper together. Don’t let your kid hole up in their bedroom with their screens, no matter what the New York Times might advise.
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“Good writers whom we have never known in the flesh—writers from times and places other than our own—can also somehow become true friends in some sense.”
–from a Mera Flaumenhaft essay about ‘Charlotte’s Web’https://t.co/rwNdgDE3kQ
(h/t @KateHavard, @stjohnscollege) pic.twitter.com/hNWZRoAf7i
— Adam Keiper (@AdamKeiper) December 9, 2020
A document reviewed by the Daily provides details about the Marriage Pact.
“Based on your values, the Marriage Pact algorithmically ‘interviews’ all other participants at Tufts on your behalf to find the best person with whom you could make a marriage pact,” the document reads.
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Emily Lai: “I think the Marriage Pact came to Tufts at a very important and useful time because with the new COVID rules coming out … everyone’s being isolated in their dorms or some, even in quarantine,” she said. “Everyone’s just been feeling a little lonely to some extent and missing social interaction and human connection, whether that’s in person or digitally.”
16. Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield: Waiting for a Covid test is more than just standing in line. It’s an act of mercy.
17. An hour-long conversation with my friend Fr. Roger J. Landry about Fulton J. Sheen and these coronavirus times on this, the 41st anniversary of Sheen’s death — it was an event of the Sheen Center for Culture and Thought. We talked a lot about hope and truth and God. I did forget to point out the one thing the three of us have in common besides being human Catholics who spent significant time in New York: the middle initial J. And so there we are. I promise the rest of the conversation is much more interesting — and helpful.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/seventeen-things-that-caught-my-eye-today-christians-in-turkey-abortion-more/