Weekend Links 12-29-17

A sampling of interesting things I found on the internet this week:

The title of this article is pretty provocative: The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone. What's more interesting is it's written by someone who has spent the past forty years in education. (Hat tip: Acculturated)

Broadway's The Music Man celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this year and is still one of the best musicals ever made. 

As a Cubs fan, I am intrigued by this proposal: Kris Bryant as leadoff man.

There are reasons that Coke tastes better out of the fountain at McDonalds.

The curator of the U. S. Naval Academy Museum recently made a fascinating discovery: flags captured by the Navy during the 19th century.

As the calendar flips to 2018, many folks will make a New Year's resolution to read the Bible. Perhaps they will choose a plan that has them reading all of the Bible in a year. Here are three suggestions on how to read more of the Bible by intentionally reading less.

It's a safe bet that Casablanca couldn't be made today. 

Last week, sportscaster Dick Enberg died at 82 years old. His passing brought to mind an episode of Later with Bob Costas where Enberg appeared with fellow sportscaster Al Michaels to discuss their careers in sportscasting. It's an amazing interview for several reasons. First, both Michaels and Enberg say that the best sport to broadcast is baseball. Second, they both say that part of what made them great broadcasters was that they both started in radio. Finally, they were each asked to name their favorite sports moment they broadcast and then the show cuts to clips of the actual calls. They gave me chills. Take a look.

Daily Links 5-5-14

Good morning. Here are a few links to start off your week. In today's edition: failure and fostering success, things I wish I knew as a college student, the best time of day to do anything, and more.

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This is an interesting quote from Pixar Studios co-founder Ed Catmull on failure:

We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth. 

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Interesting history: how the King James Bible came about.

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This is a fascinating list: 20 things I wish I knew as a college student. I am sure that if I had known at least a few of these things I would have gotten much more from the whole college experience. (Hat tip: Aaron Armstrong)

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Once again, science proves something useful: taking notes by hand is more effective than taking notes on a computer.

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More great reading: finding the opportunity in every obstacle.

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Some useful suggestions on the best time of day to do anything.

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This is cool: a few minutes of footage from the 1919 World Series.

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Quote of the week:

Daily Links 4-22-14

Scouring the internet daily for the most fascinating and useful links. In today's edition: Free online college courses, how to prevent bacon shrinkage, photos of vintage book stores, and more.

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If you are in college or about to go into college you may want to bookmark this page from Open Culture: 1001 Free Online Courses.

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Looking for a job? Here's a list of the 50 best employers to work for in America.

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Answering life's important questions: how to prevent bacon shrinkage.

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10 ways to get the most out of your HDTV.

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A collection of vintage photographs of bookstores. (Hat tip: Book Riot)

Either/Or Bookstore, Hermosa Beach, California

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These days everyone is talking about e-readers are revolutionizing the publishing industry. But before the e-reader it was the paperback that changed the way Americans read.

Daily Links 4-21-14

Here's a fresh set of links to start off your week. In today's edition: dispelling the myths surrounding The War of the Worlds, things to remember when leaving your church, viable alternatives to 4-year college, and more.

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For years the story has been told that Orson Welles 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds caused mass hysteria throughout the country. That's not entirely true. But it's still a fascinating story. Ironically it was the media (specifically newspapers) that hyped the mass hysteria story in the days following the broadcast.

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Further proof that there is an app for everything: A new app called Doughbot will locate the closest doughnut shop to wherever you happen to be. (Hat tip: Food Riot)

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At some point over the course of your lifetime you will likely leave your church. Here's a helpful list of six things you should remember when leaving. Please note that I don't necessarily endorse leaving a church but having done it a couple of times I know from experience it's not easy.

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If you are a Gmail user like me no doubt you have been bombarded by ads. The good news is that there is an easy way to get rid of them.

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Is college for everyone? The better question is whether a four year college is the best option for you. Here is a compilation of ten alternatives to a four year college.

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It pays to go the extra mile: 11 of the best customer service stories you are likely to ever read.

Daily Links 4-1-14

In today's edition: advice for parents, remembering Opening Day, life lessons from Monopoly, valuing church membership, and more.

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The hardest thing about becoming a parent is the wealth of often conflicting advice you receive before (and even after) you become a parent. But this is a good summary of things that many parents would agree that they wish they knew before becoming a parent.

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A collection of Ansel Adams photographs that were discovered in the National Archives.

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Is college for everyone? In part 2 of their series at Art of Manliness, the guys sort through the pros and cons of attending a four year college. 

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Yesterday marked Opening Day in Major League Baseball for many teams. Mental Floss has a nice look back at the opening of four iconic ballparks. Below, Wrigley Field (formerly Weeghman Park) in April 1914.



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Speaking of baseball, this season marks the adoption of instant replay for disputed calls. As this study shows, the umps should be glad that teams can't use replay to argue ball and strike calls.

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This is an interesting post: 12 ways life is like a game of Monopoly. Who knew that a game could be so educational?

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With the release of Noah and Son of God it's a good time to weigh good versus bad faith-based films:

Christian parents would not let their high school children see the movie of Crime and Punishment if it were simply described to them or flashed in front of them during the previews before another film. But those same Christians do let (and encourage) their kids to read it as a novel because of the universal recognition of Dostoevsky’s masterful storytelling and the unmistakably Biblical anchor his stories were moored to. People love Dostoevsky – who never shied away from confronting humanity as it is – because what he produced was great art.

I’m not suggesting that people of faith who care about what their kids’ minds are filled with should run willy-nilly into every crowded theater to see whatever is fashionable at the time. Hardly! 

But what I am suggesting is that while we work to inspire and equip new generations of artists who share our values to boldly venture into the pop-culture fray, we must not miss opportunities to introduce our worldview into the cultural conversation.

When Christians are perceived to be hiding from the tough questions and human struggles we’re all faced with, they are dismissed and ignored (along with their message of hope). Art has the power to transcend and speak to the soul. But it must be able to meet people on their level before pointing them upward.

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Is church membership required?

This month we will be inducting new members into the most honored body the world has ever known: the church of Jesus Christ. The initiation fee for this club is so high that no human could have ever paid it; God himself had to pick up the tab. The benefits of the club never expire. The fellowship of the club is unmatched; you receive intimate access to the Lord himself (John 17:23). 

With such benefits, you'd think church membership would be held in infinitely high esteem. But for many reasons, Christians seem to think less of it than ever before. If you're one who looks upon church membership lightly, then I invite you to reconsider. 

When we hear the word membership, we immediately think of a club. A member pays dues, comes to meetings, and fulfills the obligations of a club member. When you move, or no longer have time for the club, you simply withdraw your membership and move on.
The Bible says membership is much more intimate. "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body" (Eph. 5:29-30). 

To be a church member means we are a member of Christ's body—just like your finger is a member of your body. His blood runs through us. His Spirit animates us. His will moves us. He feels our pain, cleanses us when we get dirty, nurses our wounds, and cherishes us with pride.

Leaving the church is not simply leaving a club. When you walk away, you dismember yourself from the body. Jesus and the rest of the body sorely miss you, and bleed after your departure. You cut yourself off from your only source of life and nourishment. Like an amputated hand, you will slowly bleed out, wither, and die.

Daily Links 3-7-14

Here are a few links to help start your weekend off right: the importance of inerrancy, reading with your eyes shut, more on buying your way onto the bestseller list, and more.

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Dr. Albert Mohler discusses a new book on inerrancy in an enlightening interview. Here's his take on the importance of inerrancy for a robust pulpit ministry:

It makes all the difference in the world. It may not appear at first that it necessarily would, because there are a lot of preachers in this day and age who reject the inerrancy of Scripture and still feel like they have something to say. No doubt, they still have something to say, but that’s really not the issue. The issue is: what are we able to tell people the text of Scripture is and what is its demand upon us? The question is not whether the preacher has something to say, but whether God is going to say something through the preacher and through his Word. And, if the preacher has any question whatsoever about the truth status of the Word of God, it will inevitably shift to the preaching. The shift from “I’m going to preach the Word” to “I’m going to find something in this witness worthy of my attention and preaching.”

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The SAT is about to go through some pretty dramatic changes. The big news is that the essay requirement will disappear. Also the fact that they are willing to partner with Khan Academy to provide free prep materials is pretty big news, too.

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Reading with your eyes shut: a collection of audiobooks for kids. I would also add the following titles to this list: A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (read by Tim Curry), The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer (read by Nathaniel Parker) and Framed by Frank Cottrel Boyce (read by Jason Hughes).

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Good news for bloggers: Getty Images is allowing their library of photographs to be used for free.

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This is interesting: why highly successful people crave mistakes.

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As if I didn't have enough things on the Internet to waste my time on: a website that allows you to virtually play the best golf courses in the world for free.



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Homeschooling for higher education: a proposal that makes a whole lot of sense (Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)

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A review of the new Roku streaming stick. I don't know how well this works but I love my Roku.

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Following up on yesterday's story, five reasons that it's wrong to buy your way onto the bestseller list. Some good food for thought here.

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Growing up in North Carolina as a Tar Heel fan and as a student at UNC, Dean Smith was a hero to Tar Heels everywhere. His basketball teams were a joy to watch for many reasons. Sadly, Coach Smith is battling dementia. This article at ESPN provides some insight into what life is like these days for the man folks called Coach.

Daily Links 2-26-14

In today's post: a father's advice to his daughter, Opening Day should be a national holiday, how to choose a college major, and more.

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A dad of three has some wise words for his daughters about truth and beauty. (Hat tip: Acculturated)

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14 fun facts you may not know about The Brady Bunch.

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Dave Barry has launched a campaign for men to reclaim their manly skills. While this is funny it's a little serious at the same time.

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Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith has launched an online petition to have Opening Day declared a national holiday. That is a brilliant idea.

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Reflections on the Gettysburg Address:

Lincoln made three great points. He reminded us who we had resolved to be at our founding, invoking the ideals that fostered our revolution. He then mourned with all Americans that the cost of preserving the union that cherished these ideals had been so great. He concluded it was the task of the living to honor the dead by a renewed and continuing devotion to “the new birth of freedom” they had given their lives for. It was as though he was saying, “We must get it right, and never cease trying. What has happened here must never be repeated.”

And so we must keep faith with the compact that Lincoln invoked on a battlefield in Pennsylvania. We must keep the memory of that event and what emerged from it alive and ever present to our minds.

“In the midst of the continual movement that agitates a democratic community,” Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote, “the tie that unites one generation to another is relaxed or broken. . . .” This is a great danger, and surely one that Lincoln recognized in the context of the lessons of Gettysburg.

How do we strengthen the ties that bind? We can do it by reading Lincoln’s words. Sometimes, we can also do it by acting on them.

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Is it worth the money to go to college? Part of the answer to that question lies in what a student decides upon as a major. Here's a handy cost benefit guide to help a student select their major.

Daily Links 1-30-14

In this morning's edition: a softer prosperity gospel, should you go to college, why Christians should create, and more.

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Dealing with the problem of the prosperity gospel: In some instances it's easy to spot a prosperity gospel preacher. But there is also a more subtle form of the prosperity gospel that is sometimes a little more difficult to spot. A good rule of thumb is that if anything is being preached other than Scripture it should be cause for concern. This guide of nine marks of a prosperity gospel church can help discern whether a church is in error. Finally, here's a good way to figure out if you're reading a book by a prosperity gospel preacher.

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What's wrong with higher education? It's a matter of trust. The key question is whether college can deliver on what it promises to students. Increasingly, that answer is no. That begs the question of whether a student should go to college at all. Matt Walsh argues that college isn't for everyone and that (at least in  his case) he was better off not going to college at all. (Hat tip: Instapundit) Perhaps we should be shifting our focus from thinking kids have to go to college to whether it's really beneficial for them to do so. After all, with the cost of college skyrocketing we have to look at the costs versus the benefits to decide whether it's the right thing to do.

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Three time management principles to increase your productivity. It's often the simplest of things that can make the biggest impact.

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10 writing tips from acclaimed novelist P. D. James. Some good food for thought.

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Why Christians should create art:

To those of us trying to live out our beliefs, art can seem dangerous because the art of our culture preaches the beliefs of the culture, and many of these beliefs run counter to the Christian values we hold. But our goal should not be to avoid “secular” art and media, or merely take art as it's given to us and try to fix it, but to create our own art that is unique, meaningful and paradigm-shifting. 

Far from sticking to the conventional standards of “Christian” art, Christian artists should be willing to take risks, to express their deep-seated beliefs and convictions in their own ways. For Christians, art is taking part of the material world and making it sacred with our expression of love and devotion to God. The aesthetic isn't what makes it Christian, the artist's purpose does.

Daily Links 1-20-14

A roundup of interesting links found on the web. In today's edition: tips for posting on social media, applying "Moneyball" techniques to paying for college, homeschool vs. public school, and more.

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Congratulations to my friend Annie Parsons who was featured in Fortune's Best Companies to Work For. Check out the unusual story of how she got her current job.

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Some food for thought on how we use social media:

I was a freshman in college when Facebook came out and I distinctly remember thinking, “why would I need this? I have AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace!” 

Well, times have changed. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram (and a slew of other sites I’m not cool enough to know about) have simultaneously brought us closer together and driven us further apart. With the exception of a few universally offensive statements or pictures, it’s a rule-free zone where we can interact with society while accepting minimal personal responsibility for the implications of what we do.

In absence of guidelines for healthy and polite social media etiquette, we are left to determine our own boundaries for navigating the seemingly endless opportunities available to us. 

Before we snap one more picture of our hot chocolate topped with a foam leaf, perhaps we would benefit from a brief pause—an extra 30 seconds to ask five simple questions might suggest it’s time to unplug, or at least reconsider when and how we use social media.

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Debunking five popular e-mail myths. In reading over this I realized that I've fallen victim to believing a few of these. Makes me rethink how I am using my e-mail.

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Fun facts to know and tell at parties: why fake phone numbers start with "555".

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Implementing a "Moneyball" approach to a debt free college degree. I have a few friends who have used this approach for either part or all of their college education. While I wouldn't consider doing the entire degree this way it is worth considering as part of the degree.

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Homeschooling is not for everyone. Neither is public school:

If you’ve ever spent any time around homeschool parents (or kids), one of the first things they will tell you is that homeschooling is not for everybody. Not every parent is cut out for homeschooling; more important, neither is every kid. 

That is why, unlike those who wish to suppress homeschooling, homeschool parents are rarely if ever heard demanding that the government pass a law demanding that every other family in the country do things the way they do. Unlike our German friends, homeschool parents do not wish to seize custody of other people’s children simply because they prefer a different model of education. The irony here is that more than a few of our public schools are so dangerous and dysfunctional that sending one’s children there really ought to be considered an act of neglect, if not for the fact that those poor parents have practically no choice in the matter. 

As an aside, I’d like to put to rest the canard that homeschoolers are socially maladjusted. In my time teaching, I had the pleasure of having a number of students in my class who had been homeschooled. Some were very bright and engaging, some were not; some were super gregarious, some were not; some were the very picture of emotional and social confidence, and some were not. Which is to say, they were more or less the same as the other kids, with the sole exception of having on average slightly better manners. The traditional classroom is an environment that works for many people, but it is a highly unnatural one: If being locked in a room seven hours a day with 20 other people all born within nine months of each other were a condition for proper socialization, then mankind was never properly socialized until the middle of the 19th century or so. And of course it matters who those other 20 kids are, and who their parents are. I was blessed to attend exceptional public schools, and we call things “exceptional” because they are the exception. 

We have 900 kinds of shampoo on the shelves and 40 different kinds of fresh fish at my neighborhood Whole Foods. Anybody who sees all that but thinks that there is only one good model of education is in no position to criticize anybody’s education.

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Daily Links 1-8-14

In today's links: making college pay off, a caution to Christians about alcohol, a word from a young woman to young men, and more.

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If you don't click through any other link in today's post, take time to read this heartfelt letter from a 19 year old young woman to young men. It is an amazing post.

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Baseball's Hall of Fame will announce their 2014 class of inductees later today. Before the announcement, take time to read this column from Jonah Keri on what's wrong with the current voting process, how to fix it, and what his ballot would look like if he could vote.

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Glenn Harlan Reynolds (a.k.a. Instapundit) on how to make college pay off:

In the field of higher education, reality is outrunning parody. A recent feature on the satire website the Onion proclaimed, "30-Year-Old Has Earned $11 More Than He Would Have Without College Education." Allowing for tuition, interest on student loans, and four years of foregone income while in school, the fictional student "Patrick Moorhouse" wasn't much better off. His years of stress and study, the article japed, "have been more or less a financial wash."

"Patrick" shouldn't feel too bad. Many college graduates would be happy to be $11 ahead instead of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, behind. The credit-driven higher education bubble of the past several decades has left legions of students deep in debt without improving their job prospects. To make college a good value again, today's parents and students need to be skeptical, frugal and demanding. There is no single solution to what ails higher education in the U.S., but changes are beginning to emerge, from outsourcing to online education, and they could transform the system.

His upcoming book, The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, looks like it will be an important one to read this year.

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Eric Metaxas interviews Malcolm Gladwell at Socrates in the City:



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31 College Campuses that are the perfect wedding venue:

Duke Chapel, Duke University, Durham, NC

Hat tip: Neatorama

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Somehow I missed this when it was first published: The Distinct, Positive Impact of a Good Dad.

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A caution to Christians who drink alcohol. I don't have any objections to occasional drink. This article makes some very solid points.

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Daily Links 11-22-13

Five for Friday: a roundup of links today on writing (plus a bonus recommendation on how to deal with rejection).

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From Brain Pickings: Ernest Hemingway's advice for aspiring young writers. This includes a great excerpt from Ernest Hemingway on Writing. Be sure to scroll to the end of the post for links to more writing advice.

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How to write things the people you lead will want to read. This is a great article including three common mistakes people make and how to fix them.

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Since 2005, the SAT has included an essay section. What's the key to doing well on this part of the test? Make stuff up!

This essay, which was added to the SAT in 2005, counts for approximately 30 percent of a test-taker’s score on the writing section, or nearly one-ninth of one’s total score. That may not seem like much, but with competition for spots at top colleges and universities more fierce than ever, performance on a portion of the test worth around 11 percent of the total could be the difference between Stanford and the second tier. So it’s not surprising that students seek strategies and tips that will help them succeed on the writing exercise. Les Perelman, the recently retired former director of MIT’s Writing Across the Curriculum program, has got a doozy. 

To do well on the essay, he says, the best approach is to just make stuff up. 

“It doesn’t matter if [what you write] is true or not,” says Perelman, who helped create MIT’s writing placement test and has consulted at other top universities on the subject of writing assessments. “In fact, trying to be true will hold you back.” So, for instance, in relaying personal experiences, students who take time attempting to recall an appropriately relatable circumstance from their lives are at a disadvantage, he says. “The best advice is, don’t try to spend time remembering an event,” Perelman adds, “Just make one up. And I’ve heard about students making up all sorts of events, including deaths of parents who really didn’t die.” 

As a result, the SAT is helping us create bad writers.

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A related problem is that college graduates don't know how to write.

Our graduates lack writing skills. While adept at crafting bullet points, they often have difficulty writing in declarative sentences and complete paragraphs – thus impeding the effectiveness of their business communications, including memos, letters, and technical reports. 

A 2004 Conference Board survey of 120 corporations in the Business Roundtable concluded that most companies take written communications into consideration when making their hiring and promotion decisions and implied that many current or prospective employees lack the requisite skills. This conclusion was reinforced by a 2006 Conference Board survey of 431 human resource professionals, which cited writing skills as one of the biggest gaps in workplace readiness. 

Recent graduates also frequently commit basic grammatical errors, such as using an improper pronoun (e.g. “between you and I”) selecting the wrong homonym (e.g. “compliment versus complement”) or employing incorrect diction (e.g. “appraise versus apprise”). Not coincidentally, these kinds of errors are difficult to catch with spell-check. 

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But there is hope. Here are 10 tips how to write less badly.

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As an added bonus, a great quote from Barbara Kingsolver on dealing with rejection:

Daily Links 9-27-13

Harnessing the power of introverts, the dangers of busyness, how a 1940's actress helped develop wireless technologies we enjoy today, and more in today's link roundup.

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One the best books I have read lately is Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking. This article neatly summarizes her findings in the book and how businesses can apply its lessons.

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Three dangers of busyness. This looks like it's going to be a great book.

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Some fascinating facts about Walt Disney World that you may not know.

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Did you know that a 1940's Hollywood star helped make wireless technologies possible? It's a fascinating story.

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Recreating Ernest Hemingway's hamburger recipe. (Hat tip: Food Riot). I have to say that this looks delicious and may be well worth a try.

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Victor Davis Hanson on the decline of college:

For the last 70 years, American higher education was assumed to be the pathway to upward mobility and a rich shared-learning experience. Young Americans for four years took a common core of classes, learned to look at the world dispassionately, and gained the concrete knowledge to make informed arguments logically.

The result was a more skilled workforce and a competent democratic citizenry. That ideal may still be true at our flagship universities, with their enormous endowments and stellar world rankings. Yet most everywhere else, something went terribly wrong with that model. Almost all the old campus protocols are now tragically outdated or antithetical to their original mission.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Daily Links 9-16-13

Spies, bookish art, marriage as a covenant, and more in today's links.

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The beauty queen who was Winston Churchill's favorite spy and might have been the inspiration for Vesper Lynd in Ian Fleming's Casino Royale.

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Some really cool bookish art:

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Tim Keller on The Marriage Covenant:

In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies. It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe and society. Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family’s interest. By contrast, contemporary Western societies make the individual’s happiness the ultimate value, and so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment. But the Bible sees GOD as the supreme good – not the individual or the family – and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feelings AND duty, passion AND promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.

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Tips for changing your reading habits. I think I would be a much more effective reader if I applied all three of these tips.

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Four in Ten College Grads Don't Need a Degree for Their Work

A majority of American workers have jobs that do not require a college degree, according to a new Gallup. This finding wouldn’t be particularly surprising if it were only blue-collar workers saying this, but the poll also found that four in ten college grads agreed that they don’t need a college degree for the work they do.

It’s not exactly a shock at this point that college grads haven’t been able to make the most of their degrees, but when nearly half of the country’s college students are wasting money on degrees that they believe have done nothing to prepare them for their jobs, there’s obviously a problem. These findings can’t be chalked up entirely to undergraduates’ poor choices; college degrees have increasingly become prerequisites for jobs that could easily be performed by high school grads. In many cases, employers are just looking to a college degree as a quick signifier of an applicant’s determination and work ethic, not as a sign of skills learned.

Hat tip Instapundit

Daily Links 9-12-13

Hercule Poirot returns, hidden passageways, how to become a well-stocked recluse and more in today's link roundup.

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 Frankly, I am not sure what to make of this:

Hercule Poirot has returned. HarperCollins has announced it will publish a new novel centered on Agatha Christie’s famous protagonist – a Belgian detective famous for his carefully tended moustache – to be written by author Sophie Hannah. The book is authorized by Agatha Christie’s estate. The novel by Hannah will be “a diabolically clever murder mystery sure to baffle and delight,” according to HarperCollins. The new book, which will be the first work about Christie’s characters since the author’s death in 1976, is set to be published next September.

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Architectural delight - a wonderful round up of hidden passageways and secret doors (via Mental Floss).

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Making the case against college.

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How to order everything you need online and never leave home again. This appeals to me a lot.

All kidding aside, Amazon Prime is still one of the best deals going online.

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A profile of the women of Duck Dynasty: Of all the shows on television right now,Duck Dynasty is one of the few that does not objectify women, but portrays them as whole persons. Furthermore, it pushes back against shallow stereotypes of Christian womanhood. The Robertson women are not cookie cutter look-alikes. They're not all stay-at-home moms, or incredible cooks, or silent submissives. Korie is a businesswoman without a knack for cooking or sewing, and Miss Kay wields a gentle yet authoritative power in the family. As the two main female characters, Korie and Miss Kay are not cut from the same cloth, but each woman has her own strengths, her own areas of influence, and her own expressions of self. And amidst this diversity, each embodies the biblical image of a woman "clothed in strength and dignity" (Prov. 31:25).

Random Thoughts

A few stories of interest from the past week....

Earlier this week came the not totally unsurprising news that Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees was tied to a clinic that allegedly provided him with performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). If confirmed this would be the second known instance where he had taken PEDs. He previously admitted to taking the drugs from 2001 to 2003 but when he made the admission in 2009 he proclaimed himself to be clean. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports suggested that A-Rod is finished. I tend to agree. Even if the PED story isn't true it's hard to see how A-Rod will be able to rehabilitate his image. Age and injuries have caught up with the slugging third baseman and his career has nowhere to go but on a continued downward spiral. This might be a good time to consider retiring rather than trying to slog through these allegations any further.

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This week marked the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Few novels or novelists have  developed such a strong following as Austen or her most famous novel. The BBC has an interesting look at why Americans are drawn to the British author.

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Speaking of British entertainments, Downton Abbey has been causing quite the stir on the American side of the Atlantic. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting interview with series creator Julian Fellowes that provides some surprising insights into the hit series.

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Having a daughter about to graduate high school has caused me to think (and read a lot) about the changing face of higher education. Arthur C. Brooks offers some interest insights into the college dynamic in a New York Times column entitled My Valuable, Cheap College Degree. Peter Berkowitz offers 10 Ways Liberal Education Fails Students - and Society. Finally, Mark Cuban boldly declares that Colleges are Going to Start Going Out of Business (language warning).

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Robert Epstein, author of The Case Against Adolescence, has a thought-provoking interview with Psychology Today about the problems facing modern teenagers. Among his more interesting assertions is that teenagers spend too much time with other teenagers. He makes several good points in the interview and while I don't necessarily agree with everything he says it's worth a read. (Hat tip: Joe Carter)

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Twitter surprise of the week: I am constantly surprised by the people I find on Twitter. This week's great discovery is that Dick Van Dyke is tweeting. He's @iammrvandy and definitely worth a follow.

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Finally, the oddest story of the week: A group of men have been playing a game of tag for 23 years.

Is College Worth It?

This is not simply a rhetorical question on my part as I have a child who will be ready to go to college in just a few short years. But more and more, I've been thinking about whether it's really worth it to send my kids to college.

Both my wife and I have college degrees and we were blessed with a fine education. But if I had it to do all over again, I don't know whether it would financially be worth it. I'm not alone as there are many other people, according to this article in the Washington Post, that have been deliberating over that same decision.

No doubt part of this is driven by economics and specifically the cost involved of sending a child to college. It may well be that we are seeing a higher education bubble about to burst.