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Half an hour ago, as our family was on a walk/bike-ride in the park across the street from our house, five-year-old Anna lost control of her bike and rode off the embankment of the watercourse running through the park, falling with her bike eight feet onto solid stone with hardly any water. Suz saw it coming and screamed but wasn’t close enough to do anything.

At this moment Anna in an ambulance in front of our house with Suz, wearing a neck brace and strapped to an immobilizing board. They’ll be heading to the emergency room soon. I’ll be staying here with the kids.

Anna’s left arm is broken. Thankfully, that seems to be the worst of it. She’s wet and dirty with a bloodied nose and various cuts and abrasions, but she did not lose consciousness and there’s no reason to think she has suffered any serious injury.

Anna just turned five yesterday. She’s our fourth of five, and this is our first visit to the emergency room, so you could say we’re about due.

Prayers appreciated. Updates to come.

UPDATE (8:58pm): I just heard from Suz. The good news: After the first set of X-rays, the doctor has cleared Anna’s neck, so the neck brace can come off. That’s a huge relief to Anna comfort-wise as well as a good sign overall. The not-so-good news: They haven’t decided whether to put her under general anaesthesia, which would require a five-hour wait since she last ate… so they’re not coming home any time soon.

UPDATE (12:27am): Anna is home. Her arm is in a temporary cast and a sling. She was in good spirits and fell asleep almost immediately on being put to bed. Thanks to all for prayers.

Eight feet is a really big drop — for anyone, kid or adult. It could so easily have been worse. Thanks be to God.

This seems beyond outrageous, almost beyond parody.

Apparently, a Canadian judge has effectively ruled that parents can’t impose disciplinary measures for pre-teen children that judges find excessive. (Yankee cap tip: First Things; see here and here for more commentary.)

The plaintiff: a twelve-year-old girl. The defendant: her divorced father.

The plaintiff’s offense: using a friend’s computer to visit social websites disallowed by dad — and posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself on dating sites, among other infractions.

The defendant’s verdict: grounding, and specifically missing a 6th-grade camping trip (apparently, a big deal in Canada).

Note that, apparently, the girl is the plaintiff and the father is the defendant. I’m no lawyer, but usually when the severity of a verdict in relation to an offense is appealed to a judge, isn’t it the defendant doing the appealing? And if so, wouldn’t that be because judges ordinarily hear appeals in legal cases — not domestic, non-legal disciplinary decisions of law-abiding parents? (Lawyers, help me out here.)

Here, it would seem, we have a young girl with a troubled youth engaged in risky and inappropriate behavior, and a dad struggling to protect his daughter from her own mistakes and maintain a level of responsibility and discipline in a troubled house.

We also apparently have a girl who has apparently been the subject of a bitter custody dispute for most of her life, who has been around lawyers and judges as long as she can remember, who has seen lawyers and judges making family decisions regarding her future and her parents’ rights, and has come to view this as the natural order of things.

Worse, we have a lawyer willing to take the girl’s side.

Worst of all, we have a judge — Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court, for the record — who was not only willing to hear the "case," but in fact took the girl’s side against her father, ordering him to permit her to go on the trip.

It seems there was no question of anything criminal here — no physical abuse or anything of the sort. The judge simply thought the father’s punishment was excessive.

Is there any ordinary, non-insane human being whose immediate response to this is anything other than: Who cares what she thinks? Even if she’s right, what business is it of hers? Since when did domestic, non-legal disciplinary decisions of law-abiding parents become subject to judicial review?!

The camping trip is now over, but the father is moving to have the ruling overturned anyway, arguing that his moral authority with his daughter has been undermined. No flipping kidding.

The phrase "nanny state" doesn’t begin to capture it, since, at least in non-Crazy Town, parents overrule nannies, not the other way around.

Any lawyers want to comment?

GET THE (OUTRAGEOUS) STORY.

COMMENTARY.

MORE COMMENTARY.

Yesterday I was reading a story at the Telegraph website and noticed a couple of intriguing "Editor’s Choice" headline links.

One intrigued the contrarian in me: "’Bad boys’ have more success with women."

This seemed counter-intuitive to me. Most of the women I know want good men, not "bad boys." As for the guys in my circle of male friends here in NJ, while I won’t deny we have our faults, I’m not sure we’re really what one would consider "bad boys." Yet on the whole we all seem to be pretty spectacularly successful with women: Nearly all of us are happily married to our first and only wives, all devout women and good mothers, with three to six kids. Most of our wives are committed homeschoolers. How much more success could a man possibly hope for?

Certainly I, blissfully married to a domestic and maternal goddess as I am, consider myself supremely successful on this front. (We have five, with number six on the way.) Still, could I be missing something? Could some form of "bad boy" behavior somehow give me even more success? I clicked the link.

Imagine my disappointment. "Secrets of James Bond’s success with women unravelled," the headline blared. The lede: "According to a new study, men who are narcissistic, thrill-seeking liars and all round ‘bad boys’ tend to have the greatest success finding more sexual partners."

Oh. Is that all. "More sexual partners." Talk about bait and switch. I thought it was about "more success with women." Like James flipping Bond is more "successful" with women than I am. Puh-lease.

And what’s the science behind this discovery? The story goes on:

Scientists believe that the root of their good fortune is simply that they try it on with more women, therefore by the law of averages are likely to ensnare more.

They say these type of men adopt a more predatory, scatter gun approach to conquests and have more of a desire to try new things which helps when it comes to meeting women, according to the study highlighted by New Scientist magazine.

Sooo… "bad boys" have lower standards, and the more women a guy is willing to sleep with, the more willing women he’s likely to get. Thanks for that startling news flash.

Now, here’s the kicker.

I went to the New Scientist website looking for the article. And right there, under "Latest Headlines," was the following blurb:

Church provides hope of faithful spouses
People use the religious community’s mating market to find a life partner who will provide a large family but won’t cheat, finds a study

Hey, maybe New Scientist does have something to say about "success with women" after all.

Here’s the interesting part of the story:

Weeden suggests that looking for partners within a religious community reduces the risk of adultery in couples adopting a monogamous, high-fertility mating strategy as there is a large fitness cost if the marriage fails: men risk losing substantial investment if the woman cheats; women risk being abandoned with a large brood and fewer resources to care for them.

"Religious groups make this deal more plausible to both partners," Weeden says. "You surround yourself with people who strongly believe that one of the worst things you can do is to abandon your spouse or sleep around."

Now, there’s some reductionistic nonsense here, in that the article suggests that churchgoing is largely or entirely a function of reproductive strategy. If that were the case, celibacy would be a really, really strange phenomenon.

So, did the Telegraph run this second story on why churchgoing guys have more success with women? I did a search at the Telegraph on "church" and couldn’t find it.

What I did find was that practically all recent "church"-related stories at the Telegraph were about controveries over homosexuality … particularly the recent Anglican clerical "gay wedding" flap.

Hm. Homosexuality and gay weddings … in church. And churchgoing is supposed to correlate with … reproductive strategy … Excuse me, my head hurts.

Getting back to the New Scientist story on churchgoing, the researcher observes: "Hardly any of the students in our study were regular churchgoers… but those who saw themselves as having many kids in stable marriages were the ones who were anticipating regular church attendance in the future." This, he argues, supports his reductionist interpretation that churchgoing is largely about reproductive strategy.

Yet, once again, what do we know about correlation and causation? It couldn’t possibly be, could it, that it’s the religious students who see themselves potentially with families, rather than the family-prone students who see themselves as likely church-goers?

Of course, a researcher who thinks in purely Darwinian terms would never ask that question.

Which is another way of saying that the Darwinian qua Darwinian can never fully understand religion … or success with women.

GET THE STORY.

SDG here.

Yesterday I gave a commencement address for my parish school’s eighth-grade graduation.

I don’t remember the commencement address from my own eighth-grade graduation, but I remember my high-school commencement address. It was lame. The speaker got up there and basically admitted that she had no idea what to say, but then luckily she saw Dead Poet’s Society, so she wanted to tell us carpe diem, “Seize the day.” Good thing for that movie.

Anyway, I tried to come up with something I thought might be meaningful and relevant to students of that age, based on my experiences teaching CCD to seventh and eighth graders. I have no idea what they thought of it or whether they’ll remember it any better than I remember mine (darn, that would have been a good lead-in), but for what it’s worth, here’s what I said.

Class of 2008:

I’d like to tell you about a dream.

In this dream, you find yourself in a room with two adults. One is early 20s, a recent college graduate, living on his own (or her own), an apartment, a car. Maybe more or less where you might see yourself in ten years. Maybe your parents hope so too.

The other is older, a manager or director. It’s a job interview. And the older person is saying something to the younger one like, “This is a very responsible position. You need to be able to work on your own, without a lot of direction.”

And then a strange thing happens. The job applicant turns to you and says uncertainly, “How well do I work on my own?”

And you think, “Why ask me? I’m graduating 8th grade, going into high school. I’m not applying for the job.”

Or suppose the interviewer says, “This position requires excellent oral and written communication skills, or a good head for numbers,” or whatever it is. And then he turns to you and asks, “How well do you do in those subjects?” And again you wonder what’s going on.

Maybe you’ve played simulation computer games like Sim City or Theme Park where the lives of the characters depend on decisions you make. What if you were playing a game like that and you found out the decisions you were making were actually affecting real people, real families with children, even?

You might think, I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility. And yet the fact is that the decisions you make right now, that you will make tomorrow and next month and next year, really do have that kind of influence. Job interviews in the real world really do depend on your decisions. That twentysomething’s fate really is in your hands right now.

Some of you have probably figured out who it is. It’s you, ten years from now.

Continue reading “Pomp and Circumstance”

SDG here.

The last couple of years haven’t produced a lot of good family films.

Take last year. The best bets from 2007 were Ratatouille, In the Shadow of the Moon and Mr. Bean’s Holiday. After that it went downhill pretty quick.

Walden Media released a couple of okay films, Bridge to Terabithia and The Water Horse. National Treasure: Book of Secrets was diverting, and lots of people liked Enchanted, although Mrs. Decent Films’ minority report on that one has gotten a lot of positive feedback).

Then what? A string of utterly forgettable fare: Shrek the Third, Happily N’Ever Ever, Bee Movie, etc.

2006 wasn’t much better. The year’s best films, Akeelah and the Bee and Lassie, hardly made a ripple. Cars was the closest thing to a disappointment from Pixar since, like, A Bug’s Life. A few others were worth catching once: Monster House, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away and even Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (mostly for Scrat’s brilliant slapstick). After that, though, forget it.

2008, though, looks like it could be shaping up to be a better year for family films than either of the last two years, at least for quality.

It started with The Spiderwick Chronicles, a strong family thriller with goblins attacking a troubled family, which dealt with a number of daunting themes — divorce, parental abandonment, death — in surprisingly effective ways. (I’ll be reviewing it soon for the DVD release.)

Then Blue Sky Studios produced their best film to date, the delightful and gratifyingly pro-life Horton Hears a Who.

This weekend, DreamWorks Animation releases the charming, entertaining Kung Fu Panda. I seem to be in the critical mainstream in enjoying the film, though I may be among a comparative minority who, not having been bowled over by the Shrek films (1 2 3), thinks this may be DreamWorks Animation’s best CGI cartoon to date (beating out Over the Hedge, Shark Tale and Madagascar as well as the Shrek flicks).

(Note: This is not to say Kung Fu Panda is DreamWorks Animation’s best animated film — only that it is possibly (IMO) their best computer-animated film. The Prince of Egypt remains their masterpiece, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is the best animated swashbuckler of all time.)

The year’s most anticipated release, of course, is Pixar’s WALL*E, coming out later this month. I’ve seen advance footage from this one, and, well, let’s just say my anticipation is through the roof. If it meets my expectations, this film could power 2008 to the best family-film year since, like, 2004 and 2005 combined.

Prince Caspian, not a great film, is still a good ride. And Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is Indy’s most family-friendly outing since, like, 1981 (this being the first Indy film since the original without some sort of bedroom scene).

What else? A little off the beaten path, Son of Rambow is a flawed but endearing film that might be okay for families with older kids (the story is about two young British schoolboys in the 1980s who set out to create a homemade sequel to First Blood).

And the year’s not over.

Looking further ahead, I’m getting no vibes on 20th Century’s Space Chimps, but I’m more intrigued by Fly Me to the Moon, a Belgian English-language cartoon about houseflies stowing aboard the Apollo 11. (Neil Armstrong voices himself?! He couldn’t be bothered to participate in In the Shadow of the Moon, but he turns out for this?)

Then there’s City of Ember, a Walden Media adaptation from the director of Monster House — and the first Walden film to set off my spider-sense in a good way since, like, Holes. (I liked Because of Winn-Dixie, but I didn’t get the same vibe from it… and I’ve been ambivalent about the Narnia films.) One of Walden’s problems in recent years has always been not having the right creative team. Could this break the pattern?

What else? Could The Clone Wars possibly be worth catching? The PG-rated Brandon Fraser Journey to the Center of the Earth could be fun (I missed an early screening due to a conflict). Disney tries another home-grown CGI cartoon, yawn (Bolt). For Harry fans, December will bring The Half-Blood Prince.

Of course, not all the news has been good. Speed Racer anyone? We saw another tepid VeggieTales movie (The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything). And, yikes, DreamWorks is releasing a Madagascar sequel.

On the other hand, there are no fantasy films this year selling atheism to children, and that’s a good thing.

One way to stack up the year against other recent years is to compare this year’s films with recent counterparts.

Horton Hears a Who easily beats Blue Sky’s most recent efforts, Ice Age 2 and Robots. Kung Fu Panda stands taller than DreamWorks’ previous Shrek the Third and Over the Hedge.

Spiderwick beats out Bridge to Terabithia (or Monster House, whichever you prefer). And I probably liked Prince Caspian better than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I’m looking forward to comparing City of Ember to The Golden Compass. And how will WALL*E stack up to Ratatouille and Cars? I have a hunch it may compare favorably indeed.

GET MY KUNG FU PANDA REVIEW. EDIT: Link fixed!

I just know I’ve heard that somewhere before…

Narnian eye candy. That’s what The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian amounts to, for the most part.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s a lot less than Lewis fans might have wanted, but in some ways it’s actually better than we might have expected.

Judged on its own merits, the filmmakers have made a better movie than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They’ve also departed more from the source material — in some ways to the betterment of the film. Structurally, the book has issues, both as drama and as source material for a film. Some of the best bits in the film, especially the central set piece at Miraz’s castle, aren’t in the book, but are basically compatible with the book and help make for a better movie. Plotwise, character-wise, strategy-wise, it works — and it’s great eye candy too.

My biggest complaints are twofold. First, Prince Caspian introduces two of Lewis’s best characters — and the film gets them both wrong.

Peter Dinklage, a strong actor, is effective as Trumpkin, except he’s not playing Trumpkin. He’s playing some other, more soulful, less hearty dwarf. And Reepicheep — well. Let’s just say I remember him as more dashing and less sarcastic.

Secondly, I don’t mind a somewhat revisionistic approach to the story, as long as it honors the spirit of the book, as long as it honors the themes. Caspian gets the spirit of Lewis’s plot, but eviscerates his themes. I’ve said in the past that LW&W got maybe two-thirds of Lewis’s intended meaning; if so, Caspian might get a quarter — if it’s lucky.

Here’s the thesis of my review in this regard:

Thematically, Prince Caspian the book may be said to be about the triumph of mythic imagination over Enlightenment rationalism and skepticism. The movie almost entirely omits the skepticism, and greatly diminishes the triumph of mythic imagination.

Basically, to enjoy Prince Caspian, you have to put C. S. Lewis out of your head and enjoy an action-packed movie with gorgeous vistas and special effects, a dazzling central set piece, and a bizarrely annoying pop song in the last five minutes.

Even though it’s more revisionistic, Caspian is less annoying to me than LW&W, in large part because LW&W is a more important story. I mean, the triumph of mythic imagination over Enlightenment rationalism and skepticism is all well and good, but it isn’t exactly the passion and redemption, you know what I mean?

Still and all, I was hoping that Caspian might put the franchise on firmer footing for the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Now that is a story they must get right, especially if the franchise is to continue.

In that regard, I’m glad to see that a new creative team is coming on board: Andrew Adamson and his two-time screenwriting team are moving on, and director Michael Apted will be taking the helm for Dawn Treader with screenwriter Steven Knight, who previously collaborated with Apted on Amazing Grace (also for Walden).

I have no idea whether Apted and Knight are the right team for Dawn Treader. I just know for sure Adamson and company aren’t. Let us just hope and pray that they rise to the occasion and sail the Dawn Treader straight and true.

Incidentally, wondering why, even with Lewis’s stepson Doug Gresham producing, these films are so far from the mark? I’ve interviewed Gresham, and I haven’t been particularly impressed with the perspicacity of his take on his stepfather’s work.

Get that story.

Prince Caspian review

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe review

SDG here with a belated guest blog post from a 15-year-old who saw B16 at the youth rally. His excitement is palpable. The Church belongs to the young!

This weekend I was blessed to be able to visit the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, on his first Pastoral Visit to the United States. People flocked from the far corners of the Americas to see the Vicar of Christ. They came by the thousands hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pope. They stood on street corners in expectation of a momentary view as he drove by. Those who saw him will tell you that it is a meeting, even if for only a second, that they will treasure for all their lives.

But why did they come to see him? What did they see in the Vicar of Christ that inspired them to come from all around the globe to just to hear him?

The Pope made a visit to America, but those who watched on TV, or listened on the radio, or actually saw him, would say that they came to see him; that America came to see the Pope. People throughout the Western Hemisphere flocked to the Holy Father; it was not the other way around. The Pope came to bring the Truth to us; instead the Americas came to find the Truth in him. People have always been in search of happiness and many times they look in all the wrong places. They search for happiness and truth, for they are one, happiness is found only in the discovery of the Truth, and the discovery of the Truth begets happiness or more correctly joy and peace. Many, however, look for these two things in the world and fail to delve into the unknown glory of the realm of the Spiritual. People came to see the Holy Father because they saw in him both happiness and Truth.

In turn, the Holy Father was eager to share the Truth with us. He came with a message that called all Christians throughout the world to Holiness, a message that called us to Christ. He brought Hope to many who had lost Hope. At the Youth Rally he called the future Church of America to truly live their freedom. For freedom is not the right to choose between good and evil, but the ability to do good. He called the young people to silence, to meditation. He called them to find their vocation, to discover what God has planned for them to do in their life on Earth. He asked them to seriously consider the religious life.

And the young people of the Western Hemisphere responded with cheers of “We Love You Benedict”. They became so loud, that the Pope in his eagerness to get his message out, had to raise his hand and calm the crowd. Every time he stood up, or sat down, or spoke, he was greeted with cheers. The Pope showed how much he loved the children on the steps of Saint Patrick’s in his embrace of a small baby, and the youth showed their love for their Leader in their cheers and in their presence.

Benedict returned to Rome, the capitol of Christianity, on Sunday night, April 17th. However, his message and his image will be engraved upon the hearts and minds of all those who saw him forever. He now is thousands of miles away in Italy, but for those who saw him on TV, heard him on the radio, or were there with him, he will never leave.

Viva Le Papa!

SDG here with a numbingly depressing note about how representatives of two ancient Christian communities spent yesterday, Palm Sunday of Holy Week on the Julian calendar used by many Eastern Churches. Here’s the lede:

JERUSALEM —  Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows in Christianity’s holiest shrine on Palm Sunday, and pummeled police with palm fronds when they tried to break up the brawl.

The "holiest shrine" in question would be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So, yeah, in honor of the beginning of Holy Week, on the day of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, dozens of Christian priests and worshipers brawled at the site of Our Lord’s victory over death and evil — and pummeled police with palm fronds.

With palm fronds. Christopher Hitchens couldn’t have scripted it better. Or James Carroll, for that matter (talk about Constantine’s sword). Here’s ashes in your eye, brother! I’ve got an olive branch and I’m not afraid to use it! Think of Charlton Heston’s John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told, combat-baptizing the Herodian soldiers trying to arrest him, thundering "Repent! Repent!" while forcibly ducking them in the Jordan — and weep, for the accidental parody is hardly more absurd than the reality.

Yesterday was also, incidentally, the last day of Pope Benedict XIV’s visit to the United States. I can imagine someone supposing that I as a Romanist might derive some sort of satisfaction from the spectacle of two separated Eastern communities brawling on the other side of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. It depresses the snot out of me. Partisan churchmanship has no place here of all places. The shame is all of ours. I would almost rather let Hitchens have his way and demolish the site altogether, denying it to us all rather than seeing Jesus’ will for unity mocked and defied at the very site of His victory.

Almost. The Sepulchre belongs to all future generations of Christians, and our failure to follow Christ now is no license to deny them their patrimony. But dang, it’s galling.

Added: A further twist of the knife: Although Catholic, Greek and Armenian communities uneasily coexist at the Holy Sepulchre, none of them controls the main entrance. Instead, two local Muslim families retain the keys, and come twice a day to open and close the doors. This has apparently been the situation for centuries. I’ve heard it said that the Muslims retain custody of the entrance to keep peace among the Christian communities; and while that might be an excuse, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were truth in it too. God help us.

Ut unum sint, Lord. That they may be one.

Get the (depressing) story.