Weekend Links 1-31-20

Each Friday I feature links to articles of interest that I have found. Here is this week's edition for your weekend reading enjoyment.


The weekend is coming up which means it's more than likely you will have brunch at some point over the next couple of days. Have you ever thought about the origin of the term brunch? This article will help. 

So you want to read more books? Here are some ways to make that happen. Some of these suggestions to similar to ones that I offered in a recent post. Related: How to read 100 books in a year.

Here's a potential money saving tip: a new browser extension will let you know when new books are ready for checkout at your local library. 

Prohibition seems like ancient history. Did you ever stop to think why there is no anti-alcohol movement? 

I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from writing but it's likely you don't have a book in you.

Our family watches a number of Korean dramas so naturally we were interested in seeing the movie Parasite while it was still in the theater. It's an extremely well made film and hopefully will win a number of Oscars. While it is not necessarily an entertaining film it is certainly thought provoking. We have been discussing it off and on for days after seeing it. This review explains why the film resonates so deeply with the audience. Related: a profile of the film's director Bong Joon Ho. Also don't miss this: The Oscars need Parasite more than Parasite needs the Oscars.

This is certainly the funniest thing I read this week. I think it's because it is so spot on: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.

Personality tests such as the Enneagram are all the rage these days but they don't excuse your sin. 

New research suggests procrastination is about managing your emotions not your time. Interesting stuff.

Another new study suggests skipping the easy tasks and tackling the hard stuff first. I've always heard the opposite is true that it's better to tackle easy tasks first to build momentum to handle the harder tasks. I think I will have to put this into practice to see if it works.

I appreciate the honesty in this column: things I wish I had done differently when I homeschooled. (Hat tip Susan Wise Bauer) Both of these perspectives highlight one of the unique joys of homeschooling: there is no right or wrong way to do it. You can tailor your homeschooling experience to you and your child's needs.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. At the time many pledged a catastrophe such as the Holocaust would never happen again. Sadly, political conditions are such that many worry that it will.

Sunday the Super Bowl will be played in Miami. Dave Barry has some helpful tips for fans visiting Miami for the game. 

And finally, my favorite tweet of the week:

I bought this @designingannie print - inspired by a scene in my book Framed - as a present for someone but now I can’t bear to give it away. Such a thrill
When someone responds to your work with work if their own. Also it’s lovely pic.twitter.com/goa1yaRkUi

— Frank Cottrell-Boyce (@frankcottrell_b) January 29, 2020

Full disclosure: @designingannie is my oldest daughter. As you can imagine, I am a very proud father.

Daily Links 1-28-14

In today's edition: who I'll root for in the Super Bowl, some really cool kids bookstores, our marriage obsessed culture, and more.

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I don't follow football at all. I doubt that I'll even watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. But if I had to pick a team to root for it would be the Broncos. Why, you ask? Peyton Manning gives me a pretty good reason:

Like my dad, I make it a point when I speak to groups to talk about priorities, and when it’s schoolkids, I rank those priorities as: faith, family, and education, then football. For me generally it had always been the big four: faith, family, friends, and football. And I tell all of them that as important as football is to me, it can never be higher than fourth.My faith has been number one since I was thirteen years old and heard from the pulpit on a Sunday morning in New Orleans a simple question: “If you died today, are you one hundred percent sure you’d go to heaven?” Cooper was there and Eli [Peyton's two brothers] but it didn’t hit them at the time the way it did me. It was a big church, and I felt very small, but my heart was pounding. The minister invited those who would like that assurance through Jesus Christ to raise their hands, and I did. Then he invited us to come forward, to take a stand, and my heart really started pounding. And from where we sat, it looked like a mile to the front. 

But I got up and did it. And I committed my life to Christ, and that faith has been most important to me ever since. Some players get more vocal about it—the Reggie Whites, for example—and some point to Heaven after scoring a touchdown and praise God after games. I have no problem with that. But I don’t do it, and don’t think it makes me any less a Christian. I just want my actions to speak louder, and I don’t want to be more of a target for criticism than I already am. Somebody sees you drinking a beer, which I do, and they think, “Hmmmm, Peyton says he’s this, that, or the other, and there he is drinking alcohol. What’s that all about?” 

Christians drink beer. So do non-Christians. Christians also make mistakes, just as non-Christians do. My faith doesn’t make me perfect, it makes me forgiven, and provides me the assurance I looked for half my life ago. I think God answered our prayers with Cooper, and that was a test of our faith. But I also think I’ve been blessed—having so little go wrong in my life, and being given so much. I pray every night, sometimes long prayers about a lot of things and a lot of people, but I don’t talk about it or brag about it because that’s between God and me, and I’m no better than anybody else in God’s sight.

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Three reasons why our culture is obsessed with marriage. I do seem to notice a lot of articles about marriage show up in my news feed.

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How to give childhood back to children:

All young children are creative. In their play and self-directed exploration they create their own mental models of the world around them and also models of imaginary worlds. Adults whom we call geniuses are those who somehow retain and build upon that childlike capacity throughout their lives. Albert Einstein said his schooling almost destroyed his interest in mathematics and physics, but he recovered it when he left school. He referred to his innovative work as “combinatorial play”. He claimed that he developed his concept of relativity by imagining himself chasing a sunbeam and catching up with it, and then thinking about the consequences. We can’t teach creativity, but we can drive it out of people through schooling that centres not on children’s own questions but on questions dictated by an imposed curriculum that operates as if all questions have one right answer and everyone must learn the same things.

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A fun slideshow of hip children's bookstores. Yes, kids always get the neatest stores. (Hat tip: Book Riot)

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The triumphant return of wet shaving. I am a fairly new convert to wet shaving having received all the materials for Christmas last month. I thought with as tough a beard as mine it was going to be difficult. Not only has it been surprisingly easy to switch but I'm actually able to achieve much closer shaves that I had ever been able to get with a multi-blade razor.

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Are you more productive when working in a coffee shop? There's a reason that you might be.

A Super Tribute to Ronald Reagan

Today is the Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. But more importantly, it's the 100th anniversary of the birth of our 40th President, Ronald Reagan. Prior to the game today, this wonderful tribute will be shown in Cowboys Stadium.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Hat tip: Elisabeth Meinicke

Pro-Choice Columnist Calls Out Intolerant Left

Few things have caused as much controversy in recent days as Tim Tebow's upcoming pro-life Super Bowl Ad. Abortion advocates have been critical of Tebow and of CBS' decision to air the spot during the upcoming game.

But the most remarkable thing I've seen yet is this column from Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins. Ms. Jenkins takes the abortion advocates to task for their criticism of the young football star:

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something
important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

There's not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the "need" for abortions wasn't so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow's ad.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Hats off to Ms. Jenkins for calling out the intolerant critics on the Left who wish to demonize the Tebows. Though we may not agree on whether abortion is wrong we can at least agree that we can respectfully disagree with each other.