Man, did the MS Society screw up big this time. After firing a 90-year-old volunteer who asked “what pronouns meant,” then doubling down on the firing, then realizing people were willing to move their donation money elsewhere, they issued a non-apology that said they had “the best of intentions.”
Plenty of people are calling for more than an apology, and I agree with them. It’s not enough to apologize. The fact that nobody was fired is always telling. Real apologies don’t contain excuses, they simply apologize and do right by the victim.
The leftist craziness that has taken over corporations and other organizations only stops when someone pushes back. Hard. Remember Target?
That drop in stock price was well understood. While Target is still a fairly woke store, it certainly has become far more restrained.
Budweiser too. And Harvard, Yale and Penn. And now the MS Society, because there are plenty of places to donate towards MS research. I guess MS Society might have to lay off some of the 118 employees that make over 100K a year, according to comments at Legal Insurrection.
Face it, the crazy left-wing folks want you to keep donating and buying their products while they wish you would die. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is. Stop donating to them. Don’t feel bad about donating to other causes. You can find better beer than Budweiser, better stores than Target, better colleges than Harvard, and better charities than MS Society. Walk away without looking back. Don’t fund the craziness.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
People are finally beginning to pay attention to declining birth rates, since it will send Social Security into a death spiral, and there are plenty of efforts in Congress to provide tax cuts to promote people having more children. These efforts are doomed to fail, because more tax dollars motivates exactly zero people to have more children.
I have five kids at home, and in honor of them today, I’ll give you the top five reasons people don’t have more kids.
Number 5: Our public schools suck
I live in a fairly nice community, and my oldest daughter goes to a high school “academy” which has a specialized track for medicine. You have to apply to get in, so you would think it would be a fairly rigorous education. Sadly, you’d be wrong. There are kids that have failed classes in multiple semesters still hanging out, and just like how not prosecuting criminals brings more crime, not punishing poor performance brings more poor performance.
The older families at our church say “Well just homeschool,” but that is NOT cheap if you use a co-op, online curriculum, or anything other than doing it yourself…which takes a lot of time. Worse still, the child-hating Democrats in my state shot down bills that let homeschoolers participate in sports or get tax credits for expenses, so you get punished socially and financially for choosing homeschool. Worse still, the price of private education has skyrocketed, so if you’re a one-income family with mom or dad at home with lots of kids (like my family is), you better be loaded with money or else it’s a non-starter.
The fact is most large families have to rely on public school, and because they suck so bad, parents spend more time than they did in the past to supervise them, which takes away time from their own activities. You either tolerate loser teachers that don’t understand history, homeschool your kids or pay out the nose for education. Not exactly desirable. And speaking of the time suck…
Number 4: Most after school activities are run by inconsiderate people with no children
My son was in rec league baseball for a while. Good fun, but he would be out at games until 9 pm some nights…on school days, when he’s in middle school. When I was growing up, 9 pm was considered late as a middle schooler. You might be awake at home, but certainly not doing regular activities.
Not anymore. I regularly have kids in activities until 9 or even 11 pm at night! Ballet dance competitions and late night sports are by far the biggest offenders, but it’s everywhere now. These involve driving at night, getting home late, and then (for you as the parent anyway) waking up early to drive the 30-60 minutes to get to work (or more if you live in a big city). Talk about wearing you down! Worse still, half of these places have no pauses for dinner, so if you have a big family with small kids, pray you can pack enough food and that your little ones aren’t tired and cranky.
I particularly hate people that plan meetings or activities over dinner or lunch…pet peeve of mine.
All of this means most of my friends with two kids can manage a grueling rec softball season, but I have to balance five kids desires against my desire to get some sort of sleep. All at the expense of any hobbies I might want. Which brings up the next point…
Number 3: Society constantly tells you to not have kids
Now, I won’t begrudge people their hobbies, just like I don’t begrudge people that make more money than me. Everyone makes choices, and having more kids is a choice. But I’d be a rich man if I had a nickel everytime someone offered me advice along the lines of “You know how birth control works right” ***insert snicker here***.
A more salty friend of mine once, in a group conversation, replied with “I do, and I know your wife does too!”, which was the most alpha-male verbal throat chop I’d seen in a while. But I digress.
It’s already hard enough to find alone time with your spouse as a Catholic who follows the Marquette Method. It sucks having doctors push birth control on you every. single. visit. It’s even more fun to have them tell you that NFP doesn’t work and that you’re stupid for doing it (their words, not mine). And it’s rare to have anyone respond to “I have five living kids” with “Wow, what a beautiful family,” when the more common response is one of disdain. Speaking of disdain…
Number 2: Companies making having kids hard
Car seats used to be thin. Now they are thrones. And you can’t fit three across without making a sacrifice to the car seat goddess. It’s so bad that it is a form of birth control. And before you chime in about “safety ratings,” I looked up the safety ratings of these thrones, and I found the changes between seats to be similar to how professors change chapters in a book to force students to buy new books. The ratings are getting a whole lot better compared to the real estate they consume.
Unless you can explain how adding 5 pounds of side force to an already high rating significantly affects the safety rating, I’m going to always say that car seat manufacturers hate large families. I’ve done the math, it doesn’t add up.
Try eating out now…even McDonalds (which I don’t visit) is expensive. Now multiply it by 7. Try finding a home with enough bedrooms and fighting off investors to buy it, and definitely don’t tell your friends that your kids have to share a bedroom, because you’ll get looked at like some sort of monster. Or try fighting the little old lady HOA President that drives around your neighborhood and issues you tickets for your kids bikes in the front lawn.
Screw that lady…so glad I don’t live in a HOA…
Companies in general appeal to DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids), and if they do appeal to kids, they like you to have two. Anymore and you better be loaded. Which brings me to the last point…
Number 1: Society values work, not your family
If you say “I’m a homemaker” as a woman, you get looked down upon. Even if you manage five kids, which involves feeding them, balancing a checkbook, driving them everywhere, answering school emails and helping out on homework…somehow that isn’t “real work.” But you could sit in an office, drink coffee, chit chat with your office mates, and put in a whole 3 hours of work a day, and that’s “real work.”
Don’t worry though, like the Bobs, work will value you up to the point you are told your services are no longer required!
Face it, we stopped valuing stay-at-home parents a while back. We think they are lesser for picking their family over full-time paid employment.
And that’s the rub right there. When you create a toxic environment for people that have or want large families, you will get smaller families. The societal pressure permeates everything, far more than any financial incentive. Even if you got paid $20,000 a year per child, you’d be called a welfare rat for taking the money. It goes farther than even children, because when the point of getting married isn’t to raise kids, it makes it easy to simply “shack up,” which is why the current marriage rate is less than half that in 1976.
Until our society treats raising kids as a noble goal and worthy of the respect it deserves, we will continue to have declining birth rates among the majority of people that feel societal pressure.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Pope Francis is an interesting cat. Well, OK, he’s not a cat, he’s the Pope. Like most important figures, he gets misinterpreted a lot, and similar to Trump, anytime someone says “The Pope declared (insert heretical statement here) to be true!”, normally accompanied by worries about the impending apocalypse, my first reaction is always “Did you read the source documents?”
So, dear readers, let’s analyze the controversy around the Pope’s statements concerning transgender individuals. The Pope recently dined with some transgender women, which sparked a ton of news articles and controversy. If you only read headlines, you missed a lot of finer points:
One of the attendees, Claudia Salas, is a tailor and house cleaner, was the godparent to three of her nieces and nephews in her home country, Argentina. She did sex work to put the children through school.
Claudia, like many others, was impoverished and significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Father Andrea Conocchia, the pastor of the Blessed Immaculate Virgin parish in Torvaianica helped the transgender community with food and other assistance. Parish resources were stretched at the time because many people were cut off from income, so Conocchia asked for help from the cardinal who runs the pope’s charities. As well as sending money, the cardinal arranged for them to have COVID vaccinations in the Vatican and to meet the pope.
We have a good news story about Catholic charities helping all people, not just Christians, that got buried by the mainstream media. And yes, that means helping sinners, not dissimilar from so many stories of Jesus reaching out to the poor and destitute, dining in their homes and calling them to a better way of life.
The Pope’s recent “rulings” on transgender individuals comes in his response to a dubia, in this case from Most Reverend José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, Brazil, who asked the following questions:
Can a transsexual be baptized?
Can a transgender person be a godparent?
Can a transgender person be a witness at a wedding?
Can two homo-affective people be parents for a child for baptism?
Can a cohabitating homo-affective person be a godparent?
Can a homo-affective cohabitating person be a witness at a wedding?
Straightforward questions. Homo-affective is the term used, which I’ll interpret as homosexual going forward.
The response is all of three pages long, and you should read the whole thing here. You can get the original Italian version here.
To the first question, the Pope starts by defining transsexual as someone who has undergone hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery. In the age of people identifying as demisexual and unicorn lattes, I think this is a good thing to do, so that we’re all talking about the same thing. The Pope says yes, you can be baptized, provided you have enough preparation. The preparation for Baptism involves (for adults) learning about the Church’s rules, going to Confession and then being Baptized, and it typically takes a year to do.
The Pope spends a large part of his response focused on the fact that if the person to be baptized does not repent of grave sin, the Baptism won’t confer sanctifying grace. The Church still considers transgender surgery a pretty big sin, and nothing in the Dubia states a transgender individual is not their birth sex. If a transgender person is baptized, they’d be unable to marry in the church or have sexual relations with another person. Essentially, they’d be called to chastity in the single life, similar to the call to chastity for individuals affected by homosexual attraction.
The point of baptism is to bring someone into the Church, and the Church is open to all, including sinners. I’m not surprised by this one bit. The Pope hasn’t said anything controversial here. The call to the transgender person, especially after surgery, would be pretty difficult, but that’s a cross that person would bear as part of their way of entering Heaven.
The response on godparents is much shorter: a transgender person can be a godparent if it won’t cause scandal or “disorientation in the educational sphere,” which I interpret to mean the child wouldn’t be confused as to whether transgender life choices are acceptable. As for wedding witnesses, lots of people can be witnesses, so its not a huge surprise to allow transgender individuals.
The Pope basically said that transgender people can enter the Church through proper preparation, can participate as godparents if not scandalous, and can witness at weddings. They can’t get married in the church, be ordained, and would likely be called to a chaste single life. That’s pretty hard, and many of them, like Claudia, come from a pretty rough background. We should be praying for their conversion.
All of us sin, in both public and private ways, but no sin is truly private. I don’t envy transgender individuals, just like I don’t envy those that struggle with pornography, alcohol, or same-sex attraction. It would be a huge challenge to go from being a transgender sex worker to becoming an upstanding baptized Catholic that must live out a single, chaste life. But the Church has done similar miracles before. St Augustine lead a scandalous life, yet he repented and became Doctor of the Church. St Mary of Egypt was a prostitute for 17 years before turning her life around. My hope is that this sanctification will hold true for transgender people as well.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, the Roman Catholic Church, or any other government agency.
Democrats have been weaponizing the abortion debate and successfully turned it into a choice of either supporting women’s rights or stripping women of those rights. Having been subjected to the advertising onslaught in Virginia, the idiots that the Republican Party put in charge of campaigning have zero response to this.
Zero.
I saw NO effective counter ads, and the ads I did see were bland, “vote for me because I’m a veteran/good person” style ads. These are fluff and filler ads that don’t sway people.
Since Republican leadership can’t figure this out, I will humbly suggest the following ads that might help reframe the abortion debate:
Play a nice slow song, showing a mother cradling her baby. Now overlay a dark figure of (insert politician here) saying “If the baby is born after an attempted abortion, we’ll place it in a bucket and consult with the mother about what to do next.” Cue to a frame saying “We can all get behind protecting mothers and stop politicians from murdering babies.”
Show a black mother with two kids looking a little frazzled. A white lady in a suit walks up and asks if she needs help. She says yes, and the white lady recommends she abort her children in the future. Cue to a frame showing “40% of abortions are from black women. Let’s stop this racist practice. Make our politicians care about taking care of kids, not killing them.”
In the background show a woman and a man crying in a doctor’s office. Have the speaker voice say “Some couples want babies but just can’t have them. Instead of making adoption easy, politician (insert name) wants to kill off healthy babies.” Add a split screen showing another woman on a operating table crying. “Abortion creates two broken couples. We can all get behind expedited adoption laws to make them both whole again.”
This was just me daydreaming for an hour on actual, useful ads, plus a bit of time using these three scenarios when my pro-abortion friends bring up “women’s health” issues. I dated a young lady that had an abortion before I met her, and even 4 years later, she was still bothered by it.
Republican leaders lose on abortion because they refuse to roll up their sleeves and talk about the evils of abortion. Get off your stupid high horse and fight back. Talk about the genocide abortion is causing in the Black community. Push for expedited adoption rules and break the stranglehold the state bureaucracy has on adoption. Highlight the politicians that are totally cool murdering kids after birth. Yeah, its ugly, but Democrats are doing the same to you, and if you fail, millions of innocent children die, and part of that blood is on your hands.
BTW, the cute picture at the top: that’s the best Bing AI would generate. I tried to show a donkey holding a uterus, or put Planned Parenthood on the clinic, and the AI wouldn’t let me. One more sign that Satan is deeply entrenched in this debate.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Side note: The overwhelming majority of abortions (86%) are by single women, and a large chunk (nearly 40%) were from Black Americans.
As a man, my doctor never talks to me about women’s health. Maybe that’s because my doctors don’t ask me my preferred pronouns, maybe it’s because I just don’t bring it up, or maybe because we just don’t talk with married men about sex…who knows? I sure don’t.
Recently this changed a bit, because my wife asked me to accompany her on one of her doctor visits. Easy enough, I sat and mostly just listened. But while we were waiting, I noticed an interesting poster on the back of the patient room’s door.
Well, isn’t that interesting, I thought. Because my wife and I use the Marquette Method of Natural Family Planning, I already knew that the “Fertility Awareness” stats were bogus. A quick DuckDuckGo search will show the following:
The Creighton Method, over a 12 month study, was 98.8% effective at preventing pregnancy
So how do they get 88% effectiveness? Well, if you roll in a bunch of not-as-effective methods, such as temperature and calendar methods, it brings the numbers down. I confirmed this at Planned Parenthood’s website and at ContraceptionChoices.org. Interestingly, none of them referenced Creighton or Marquette. Why would that be? Wouldn’t you want to “Follow the science” and give women choices that don’t involve chemicals?
When you view the medical establishment as a bureaucracy interested in making money, this becomes a much more interesting chart. Everything in the “Works Best” and “Works Pretty Well” category requires a doctor and is covered by insurance. Why would a doctor want to prescribe the Creighton or Marquette methods when they won’t get any money or kick-back for doing so?
Conservative men, especially lawmakers, have dropped the ball here. We’ve created a medical system that promotes pumping women full of hormones and chemicals to stop pregnancy, then promotes the same system to pump them full of hormones and chemicals when they want to get pregnant, and we make insurance companies pay for it. We then have a just-as-effective option that doesn’t involve chemicals, and we allow the medical establishment that has zero interest in promoting it to demonize and dismiss NFP as something those crazy conservative kids do that doesn’t really work all that well.
For all the men reading this, your wife and daughters are reading that poster every time they go to the doctor. They are being manipulated on every visit to the doctor. I’m guessing you don’t talk to them about it because, well, you’re a guy and we’ve allowed society to say you don’t have a voice in this discussion, and that only a doctor with a self-interest in prescribing medication can talk to your daughter about this topic.
Thinking about it, maybe that’s why my doctor never talks to me about women’s health….
Sun Tzu talked about winning without fighting, and it looks like the medical establishment is doing just that. The poster says “Your body, your choice,” but all the “good” choices push money into the system, so do you really have choices?
Conservatives need to push for laws that require insurance companies to cover natural family planning costs, such as a fertility monitor and the cost of visits to an NFP practitioner. Sure, plenty of families can afford these costs, but not everyone can, and more importantly, it puts money into a far better solution. Planned Parenthood can muster a ton of money when doctors and your insurance company are feeding them insurance dollars, so imagine a world where NFP gets similar treatment. I like that world a lot more than our current world.
On top of that, every Catholic Church should have a rolodex of NFP practitioners. Priests should be taught about the different NFP methods and should refer their parishioners to them. They should have the occasional sermon on NFP, and it should be a topic in pre-marital counseling. You know how many priests I’ve heard talk intelligently about NFP? Zero, and that’s a problem. We need to stop being squeamish about this because when we don’t talk about it, someone else fills the void.
Stop pretending men don’t have a role in reproductive health, and stop letting the establishment lie to your face about NFP.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. BTW, Tricare covers everything but NFP as well, how about we start by changing that first?
Man, I am really confused. I thought we all followed the science, especially in the military. So when the Navy comes out and says “Female Sailors can delay notification of pregnancy to their commands for up to 20 weeks,” I thought “Man, that’s a bad idea.” Then I immediately flayed myself for saying “Man” and not “Women, people who identify as women, and birthing people.”
To provide Service Members with appropriate privacy protections in the early months of pregnancy, in accordance with reference (c), DON health care providers shall follow a presumption that they are not to disclose to a Service Member's command authorities a Service Member's pregnancy status prior to 20 weeks gestation unless this presumption is overcome by one of the notification standards listed below. In making a disclosure pursuant to the notification standards established below, Department of Defense (DoD) health care providers shall provide the minimum amount of information required to satisfy the purpose of the disclosure, consistent with applicable policy.
Normally we encourage female Sailors to report pregnancy fairly early. The reason behind this is science, because developing babies are very susceptible early on to a lot of environmental factors that are quite common in the military environment. Factors like radiation:
The effect of radiation exposure during pregnancy also depends on the gestational age of the fetus. The embryo/fetus is most susceptible to radiation during organogenesis (2 to 7 weeks gestational age) and in the first trimester. The fetus is more resistant to the radiation during the second and third trimester. Dose between 0.05 to 0.5 Gy is generally considered safe for the fetus during the second and third trimester while it is considered potentially harmful during the 1st-trimester fetus. Even though the fetus is more resistant to the radiation during the second and third trimester, a high dose of radiation (greater than 0.5 Gy or 50 rad) may result in adverse effects including miscarriage, growth reduction, IQ reduction, and severe mental retardation. Therefore, clinicians and radiologists should counsel the pregnant patient regardless of the gestational age.
Exposure to some organic solvents could increase your chances of having a miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm birth, a low birth weight baby, or a baby with a birth defect.
Both animal and human studies have found that prenatal maternal stress affects the brain and behavior of the offspring. Stressful life events, exposure to a natural disaster, and symptoms of maternal anxiety and depression increase the risk for the child having a range of emotional, behavioral and/or cognitive problems in later life. These include depression, anxiety, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and/or conduct disorders. There is an increased risk for other outcomes also, including preterm delivery and reduced telomere length, possibly indicative of an accelerated life history.
(I heard being in the military isn’t stressful though. The person that told me this was also encouraging me to buy shares in Silicon Valley Bank.)
The Navy isn’t hiding the reason behind delaying notification either. Its specifically to allow elective abortion, or as the Navy calls it, “non-covered abortion,” because the Navy does cover abortions in the event of a threat to a mother’s life, incest and rape (which it has always done, despite what every pro-death protestor will tell you). From ALNAV 017/23:
Pregnancy Termination. A Service Member considering terminating the pregnancy is encouraged to consult with a DoD health care provider or a licensed non-DoD health care provider from whom the Service Member is receiving care. The DoD health care provider will place the Service Member considering pregnancy termination in a medical temporary non-deployable status without reference to the Service Member's pregnancy status, until appropriate medical care and the necessary recovery period are complete.
Now, mind you, service members have always had the chance to abort children outside of military medical care. Planned Parenthood has certainly ensured that was an option, and while some states have banned abortion since Roe v Wade was overturned (13, according to Wikipedia), its not the majority. What has changed is Navy leadership, who decided to wade into the situation and dictate how commands would do their bidding. In ALNAV 018/23, they speak out of both sides of their mouth. On one hand, they demand Commanding Officers comply with law:
Consistent with existing law and Department policy, COs will protect the privacy of protected health information received under this policy, as they should with any other protected health information. Such health care information shall be restricted to personnel with a specific need to know; that is, access to the information must be necessary for the conduct of official duties. Personnel shall also be accountable for safeguarding this health care information consistent with existing law and Departmental policy.
Annnd on the other hand, they say “give people time off if its, you know, ILLEGAL in the state you are in:”
Approval Guidance. COs or approval authorities should grant an administrative absence to eligible Sailors and Marines when a non-covered reproductive health care need is identified by the eligible Service Member. Requests for administrative absence should be given all due consideration and should be granted to the greatest extent practicable, unless, in the CO's judgment, the Service Member's absence would impair proper execution of the military mission. If the CO denies the request, the Sailor or Marine may appeal the request to the next level of leadership.
How much you wanna guess that all appeals will be approved?
But then Navy commits the biggest woke sin of all…forgetting that we have “birthing people!”
I encourage you to visit the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center's, "Women's Health Toolbox," at https://www.med.navy.mil/Navy-Marine-Corps-Public-Health-Center/Womens-Health/ for additional information and
resources on myriad women's health issues. Additional information on these policies can also be found at
http://www.health.mil/ensuringaccesstoreproductivehealth.
10. Rest assured that the DON's work to implement the DoD's new policy is a priority. I expect cooperation from leaders across the Navy and Marine Corps to ensure appropriate input and efficient implementation of this new policy.
“I expect cooperation” really means “You will comply.” Why not just come out and say it?
This post represents the views of the author and not the views of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you enjoyed this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy or purchase one of the author’s books?
Fortunately, people are beginning to write about how they don’t simply want Republicans to win elections, they want them to, you know, actually make some conservative wins in our government. Some are also saying “Hey, you haven’t won yet,” which is very true, since actually counting the votes seems to matter more than voting itself. To truly win though, as I pointed out earlier, its not sufficient to go back to the way things were, because that’s a regressive message that is, frankly, loser speak. Republican legislators need to advance issues that matter to us beyond tax reform.
So, let’s start picking some, and let’s start with adoption.
Anyone that has tried to adopt a child knows that the process is absolutely miserable. The state will come and inspect your home, check your background and during the whole process treat you like a common criminal. They’ll point out that you don’t have enough bathrooms, or enough safety devices, or enough whatever, which pushes would-be parents to spend thousands on their homes. Then, when that’s done, it can take months to find an eligible kid, even though there are literally thousands of kids in foster care that deserve a good home.
When a friend of ours (white) adopted a young boy from Africa (black), she caught a bit of flack for not adopting someone of “her kind.” She told me it was far easier to adopt a kid from overseas than from the US, and after we talked about the struggles she went through with the local state adoption agency, it all made sense. Another friend of mine tried to adopt his wife’s daughter (she was divorced and remarried), but because he was military and moving, the local state government held that against him and kept the daughter with her dad in a substandard home.
These sad cases point to a problem: a deep-state bureaucracy of adoption workers that have an interest in making sure the system is difficult and expensive. When over a half a million children are in need of a family, this is entirely unnecessary, yet I haven’t heard one politician actually try to fix the issue.
A winning strategy would look like what President Trump did to the VA. He cleaned house and began firing underperforming staff, then set about reforming the way VA claims were handled. He created a White House hotline for VA claims that has proven successful at clamping down on the filthy bureaucrats that drag out the process and cost veterans thousands of dollars in lost payments. While the VA isn’t perfect, its far better than it was a few years ago.
We need the same for adoption. Republicans should put a cap on the cost of adoption. Would-be parents shouldn’t spend thousands to give a kid a loving home and a far better chance at life. How is it we’re paying foster parents while charging would-be parents and then more often than not denying them a child? Isn’t that theft? Isn’t that redistribution of wealth in another form? One might even argue its a form of modern day slavery.
How about “6 months to a good home” as a motto? Republicans won big when they pushed legislation that made concealed carry permits a shall-issue permit, instead of letting local sheriffs deny otherwise lawful Americans the right to protect themselves. If a would-be set of parents has a good home, it should take no more than 6 months to place a kid identified as a good match. Period. Six months from “We would love to give Johnny a home” to “Johnny is now in our home.”
Not only would this begin to save our children that need a good home, it would also provide a counter to abortion. Making it easier to adopt begins chipping away at the argument that you’re destroying someone’s life with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s a compassionate way to help women that somehow became pregnant and cannot, for whatever reason, support their child. Rather than lecture women on whether they should accept the consequences of their actions (always a losing formula), adoption gives a far better option of preserving life while avoiding the lecture.
This also pushes back on assaults on the family. While so-called elitist liberals talk about forcing people to give up their kids, its not enough to just say “That’s a bad idea.” One has to come to the table with something better and, here’s the kicker, actually do something about it.
So get onboard Republicans. Give the wonderful people that are trying to adopt children and make this world a bit better for a deserving kid a voice in your election run and some help against the towering bureaucracy that has been denying homes to children for a very long time.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.
Make today a positive day. Don’t bother reading the news, or browsing social media. Enjoy Christmas for what it is: a time to spend with family and friends. All that bad news and fighting social media posts will be there tomorrow for you to scroll through and waste your time on.
Plenty of people will want you to spend your holiday in fear. Fear for the future, and whether you’ll leave a better place for future generations. Or fear about the present, and between inflation and the latest Wu-Flu variant, there is plenty to stoke fear over. Or even fear of the past, judging past actions out of context in order to shame us about crimes we never committed ourselves.
Don’t give in to that fear. Celebrate Our Lord’s birth today. Call your friends and wish them a Merry Christmas. Gather with family and friends. Cook up a tasty feast. Push off any fears until tomorrow…they will still be there, like fears always tend to be. Positive feelings are the first to leave under the fire of those that think they know better. Resist those urges today and enjoy the holiday.
While these views don’t represent the views of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency (obviously, since most agencies want you to cower in fear today or submit to a battery of tests to just enjoy it with friends), it does represent my views and hopes for you today. Please accept my wishes of Merry Christmas to you and your family today.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7
This is the post I had planned to go up at datechguyblog.com on Monday before everything crashed and burned.
Today I’m launching a Catholic Devotional aid that I mentioned a few days ago on the site called The Indulgence Calendar.
Many people going to Mass weekly and even many who go daily are aware that these indulgences are available and quite a few might already be doing prayers and devotions that carry an indulgences but because they are not declaring their desire and/or intention to earn these indulgences they are not obtained.
The idea is that if you are a daily mass person you can make it a point to earn an indulgence each day for a different departed soul (or multiple souls if you earn multiple indulgences). A weekly mass person can earn indulgences for at least one person a week or if a family unit goes they can cover some of the daily folk that they might miss.
On a local level my goal is to earn an indulgence for every person who has ever died in my parish, particularly those who have been dead for a while and have been forgotten. If you decide to adopt this idea as your own for your own community you can do the same.
Each day on the calendar looks like this:
I will be making such calendars available each month. The one for June which is being used by WQPH 89.3 FM is here and below. For those unsure of the rules on earning an indulgence the 2nd page of the Calendar has the complete norms on indulgences I am repeating it here for those who which to have them handy online:
Indulgence Norms and notes
Communion on the day of an indulgence. This can be applied to any amount of indulgences that day.
Confession within 20 days of the day of an indulgence. Applies to all indulgences during that period
Prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father (an Our Father, Hail Mary or any appropriate prayer) once per day of indulgence.
To earn an indulgence you must be in a state of grace (no unconfessed mortal sin) at the time of the indulgenced act.
Indulgences can only be applied to the dead or to the person earning the indulgence. They can not be applied to any other living person.
For a PLENARY indulgence you must have NO attachment to sin. If such an attachment exists the indulgence earned is only partial.
A plenary indulgence can only be earned one a day (expect if death is imminent), there is no limits to partial indulgences daily.
An indulgence attached to a feast day is still valid if the feast day is transferred lawfully.
A specific day’s indulgence requiring a visit to a particular church or oratory can be made from noon the previous day to midnight on the actual day.
No unbaptized person nor any Christian who is currently under the penalty of excommunication may earn an indulgence.
You must ACTIVELY seek and or state your intention to obtain an indulgence for the act or prayer that carries it to be valid.
Prayers & Acts that carry an indulgence (Partial list) All indulgences partial unless BOLD UNDERLINED
Prayers
The Actiones Nostras, Act of faith hope and Love, Any Devout Mental Prayer, Adsumus, Adoro te Devote, Prayer to St. Joseph, Prayer of Thanksgiving, The Angelus, Domine Deus Omnipotens, Spiritual Communion, The Apostles Creed, Angels Dei, The Niceane Creed, The office for the dead, Any approved Litanies, Psalm 130, Iesu Dulcissime Redemptor, Ave Maria Stella, Maria Mater Gratiae, Exaudi Nos, O Sacrum Convivium, Prayer for the Pope, Prayer for the Dead, Psalm 51, Sub tuum praesidium, Prayer for Benefactors, Angel of God Prayer, Te Deum, Public Novenas for Pentecost Christmas or the Feast or the Immaculate Conception, Tantum Ergo, Prayer for Vocations, The Sign of the Cross, Sancta Maria Succurre Miseris, The Magnificat, Vista Quaesumus Domine, Act of Contrition (expect during Sacramental Confession), Prayer to St Michael, Chaplet of St Michael, Come Holy Spirit, Prayer before a CrucifixPlenary if done after communion Friday in Lent, Five decades of the Rosary Plenary if done in a family, religious community or Pious association, The Stations of the Cross Moving from Station to Station (unless physically unable to do so)
Actionsthat carry an indulgence
Making a Pious invocation raising your mind to god while performing the duties of life
Devoting yourself or your goods in compassionate service to your brothers in need
Voluntarily abstaining from something that is licit & pleasing in the spirit of penitence
Adoration of the blessed Sacrament Plenary if done for a half hour or more
Reading the scriptures Plenary if done for a half hour or more
Teaching Christian Doctrine
Visiting a church on All Souls day (Nov 2)
Going on a religious retreat for 3 or more days
Use a blessed religious object Plenary if blessed by a Pope & used on the Feast of Sts Peter & Paul
Visiting a Parish Church on the Feast day of its Saint(s) or on Aug 2nd (say Our Father & Creed)
Attending the 1st Mass of a newly ordained priest or his jubilee mass (25th 50th or 60th anniversary)
Visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead (Plenary if done from Nov 1st through Nov 8th)
Praying for the dead is not only a spiritual work of mercy but spiritual exercise of this type tend to fortify one’s own soul so I would encourage you to disseminate this far and wide,
Perhaps that’s why everything crashed and burned on my primary site the day this was supposed to go up.
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