Parenting
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On the dangers of reading.
When my kid reads stuff she can’t quite understand, she only hurts herself. Others cause more harm. Please, vaccinate your child.
45, altering children’s literature, anxiety, books, breast milk, breastfeeding, Calvin and Hobbes, censoring children’s books, censoring children’s literature, censorship, children in human evolution, comics, conspiracy theory, cultivating a child’s reading habits, curating a child’s reading habits, death of a child, disease, disease burden, do vaccines cause autism, do vaccines work, do you like my hat, Donald Trump, Eula Biss, evolution, fatherhood, flu, flu vaccine, Fox Is Famous, Fox on the Job, gender stereotypes, get your child vaccinated, Go Dog Go, growth mindset, H1N1, herd immunity, human evolution, independent reading, James Marshall, kids’ books, learning to read too early, measles, milk, Mutts, Olivia Dahl, On Immunity, open communication, parental censorship, parenting, Patrick McDonnell, preventable death, preventable illness, raising children, Raquel D’Apice, reading, reading too early, research journals, Roald Dahl, science, science deniers, scientific discourse, scientific literacy, scientists, stereotypes, teaching children to read, too young for independent reading, undervaccination, unvaccinated children, vaccination, vaccine efficacy, vaccines, vaccines don’t cause autism, when a child starts reading
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On courage, parenting, and Sergio de la Pava’s ‘Lost Empress.’
It takes real courage to do something hard day after day with nobody watching, nobody cheering.
a meaningful life, accounting, brain damage, bravery, concussion, courage, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Dinnerstein, emotional pallet, fatherhood, Fatherhood in Pieces, finite bravery, football, good parenting, heroism, how we act when no one is watching, interminable tasks, Lost Empress, meaning, Michael Chabon, parenting, Pops, raising children, raising kids, Sergio De La Pava, Sisyphus, sports, suicide, The Mermaid and the Minotaur, The Pale King, writing
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On explaining religion to my child, part one.
Humans have told so many stories about sky ghosts, but don’t worry, kiddoe … ghosts are pretend!
Abrahamic faiths, atheism, atheist, Buddha, Buddhism, children, Christ, Christmas, cobra, death, deities, Eden, Enkidu, explaining Christmas to atheist children, explaining Christmas to atheist kids, explaining Christmas to kids, explaining god to kids, explaining holidays to children, explaining religion to kids, expulsion from Eden, fatherhood, forgiving god, Genesis, ghost stories, ghosts, ghosts are pretend, Gilgamesh, good without god, holidays, immortality, In a Dark Dark Room, jealous gods, Jesus, John-Michael Bloomquist, Loki, Magic Penny, Malvina Reynolds, Midgard Serpent, misogyny in world religions, Moana, Mucalinda, mythology, naga, nap, naptime, Old Testament, parenting, penance, Quran, Ragnarok, religion, religions, sacrifice, secular children, secular kids, secular parenting, sharing, Siddhartha, sky ghosts, snake, snake myths, snake stories, snakes in mythology, snakes in religion, spirituality, stories about death, stories about god, stories about snakes, teaching children about religion, teaching kids about religion, telling children about god, telling kids about god, The Prodigal’s Lament, Thor, to live forever, toddlers, trickster gods, world mythology, Yahweh
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On conspiracy theories and Santa Claus.
We told our kid that Santa is just a regular ol’ dungeon master so that hopefully she never thinks the Earth is flat.
alternative facts, autism, Bible, Biblical prophecy, Christmas, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory, criminal justice, critical thinking, DARE, do vaccines cause autism, drugs, dungeon master Santa, expert opinion, expertise, experts, flat Earth, holidays, humans on the moon, International Space Station, just say no, lying to children, lying to children about Santa Claus, lying to kids about Santa, lying to kids about Santa Claus, magical animal, mall Santa, meat, MMR, moon landing, myths, Nostradamus, parenting, Santa, santa claus, segregation, sex before marriage, sex ed, solitary confinement, teaching in jail, truth, vaccination, vaccines, vegan, vegetarian, ZOG
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On Daniel Handler’s “All the Dirty Parts”
Heartbreak hurts. Reading will help. And mayhaps Daniel Handler’s “All the Dirty Parts” is a book kids will actually want to read.
All the Dirty Parts, cyanide, Daniel Handler, dating, English class, erotica, Ethan Frome, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Heartbreak, high school, In Search of Lost Time, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Love in the Time of Cholera, Marcel Proust, organic synthesis, pornography, relationships, sex, sex ed, The Magus, unrequited love, Within a Budding Grove
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On addiction, crime, Buddhism, and exorcism.
If we want people to heal, we shouldn’t keep them inside bleak boxes.
abuse, addiction, agency, Buddhism, child molesters, Demon, demons, drug dealers, exorcism, free will, gang murder, Harvard commencement, hurt people hurt people, I Will Find You, incarceration, J.K. Rowling, jail, Jason Shiga, Joanna Conners, liberation rite, mythology, nurture, parenting, penitence, poverty, prison, prison rape, Rowling, sex offenders, solitary, Tibetan mythology, trauma
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On keeping someone alive.
Our bodies will go, but our values might live on.
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On Robert Gordon’s ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth.’
What if technological innovations are a cause of, not a solution to, our post-1970s economic morass?
Amazon, artificial intelligence, automation, CAFO, clean water, concentration of wealth, delivery drones, distribution of wealth, driverless cars, economics, electric appliances, factory farming, feminism, future technologies, GDP, GDP is not an effective measure of quality of life, GDP undercounts the value of caregiving, guaranteed basic income, Impossible Foods, increasing gains to capital, invention, labor versus capital, negative tax, no one’s choices should be curtailed because of gender, parenting, Pat Brown, pessimism, poverty causes stress, productivity, quality of life, reparations, Rise and Fall of American Growth, Robert Gordon, robotics, slow growth, social breakdown, Steven Rattner, technological progress, the value of a stay-at-home parent, wealth tax, William D. Nordhaus, women’s work has been historically undervalued
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On unilateral reproduction.
We’ve identified some of the genes that allow Cape bees to reproduce without males … if human men don’t help more with the chores, will they be ditched too?
a world without men, birds and the bees, Cape bee, Frankenstein, game theory, golems, investment in children, Jane Ellen Harrison, just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good, Mary Shelley, mythology, parenting, parthenogenesis, reproduction, Wendy Doniger, Women Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts
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On paranoia, virology, conspiracy theories, & lemmings: my experience reading ‘Gravity’s Rainbow.’
In which our hero stumbles across a Disney-promulgated conspiracy of lemming misinformation.
1958 Disney documentary, accidental death mistaken for suicide, Apophenia, are parents trustworthy, are politicians trustworthy, are scientists trustworthy, authority figures, being honest to your kid, being honest with my kid, bibliophile, book hunting, book review, characters trapped within the grand schemes of their creator, climate change, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory, disappointment at rampant misbehavior in classic literature, Disney, Disney documentary, do lemmings commit suicide, do you know how they make pepperoni?, does life have any meaning?, Easter Bunny, evil cabal, fabricated documentary footage, faked documentary footage, fatherhood, Fred Tomaselli, Genesis 41, Gravity’s Rainbow, hidden meanings, honesty, human fallacies, human population, hunting to extinction, influenza, influenza virus is one step ahead of our defenses, is life random?, is the world random?, lemming migration, lemming suicide, lemmings, lemmings don’t commit suicide, library booksales, lying to children, lying to children about Santa Claus, lying to kids about Santa Claus, mental illness, novelist as God, overbreeding, overfishing, overpredation, paranoia, parenting, pattern seeking, pop psychology, population booms and busts, population dynamics, predator prey population dynamics, predator prey relationship, psychology, randomness, randomness is scary, Rob Brotherton, santa claus, Santa Claus conspiracy, schizophrenia, should children believe in Santa Claus, Slothrop, storing food for lean years, Suspicious Minds, Thomas Pynchon, truth, unrealistic expectations, used bookstores, water usage rights, White Wilderness
Frank Brown Cloud 