Joy [McNair] was just 18 months old in 1986 when the unthinkable happened and the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. Her father, astronaut Ronald McNair, and his six colleagues lost their lives, prompting President Reagan to call them true American heroes.
Now a 27-year-old Washington-based attorney, Joy experiences Father’s Day very much like any other day.
“I’ve never had Father’s Day to celebrate. So in a weird way it’s not something that I feel a loss for….”
Cavaliers shooting guard Anthony Parker to his dad, Larry Parker:…
“I remember losing a big game because of a terrible shooting night on my part. We sat in the kitchen and you got up and started opening drawers, and cabinets, and looking under the table. My brother Marcus asked, “What are you looking for, Dad?” You looked up with a smile and said, “Anthony’s jump shot!” The whole family died laughing! The next day you and I were on the playground working on that jumper.
“The investment you made in your children is why we are who we are today. You gave us the confidence that we could accomplish our dreams. You challenged us and motivated us to work hard and set the bar high. It’s the reason I have played 15 years as a professional basketball player, my sister, Candace, is among the greatest women to ever play the game and Marcus went to Johns Hopkins for medical school and residency to be a radiologist — a dream he had since he was 5 years old.
“When I get home, my favorite part of the day is my two boys running and jumping in my arms screaming, ‘Daddy’s home!’ To me, it means that I’m doing something right. I guess I’m still trying to emulate my dad.
“Happy Father’s Day. I love you!”
A German-born university chaplain has been appointed head of Melbourne’s flagship Anglican church, St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Reverend Dr Andreas Loewe, senior chaplain at the University of Melbourne, will be installed as Dean of the cathedral, the church announced on Sunday.
Dr Loewe, 39, succeeds Bishop Mark Burton, who resigned earlier this year.
After spending yesterday in Berlin, I can tell you the German government is mightily fed up with all this speculation – and fed up with getting blamed for everything bad happening in the global economy (last week’s cover of the Economist, for example).
I interviewed the Deputy Finance Minister – Secretary of State Steffen Kampeter – after the German chancellor’s strident speech to the Reichstag.
He made clear that on one major point – eurobonds – the speculation about what Germany might be willing to accept in time for the summit was simply wrong.
Read it all (emphasis hers).
Phil Fleming, deacon at St. Peter’s Anglican Church of Canton and also assigned as deacon in charge of Trinity Anglican Church in Monmouth; the priest of the Canton church, Father Michael Brooks; and the priest’s wife Louisa Brooks attended an assembly of Anglican church leaders from throughout the world this month.
The assembly was held June 7 through 9, but other meetings also were held June 4-6, in Ridgecrest, N.C. Louisa Brooks attended as a voting delegate. Michael Brooks did not vote but wanted to attend some seminars on “church plantings”–establishing new churches and making them grow, Fleming says.
For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this [A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?] and analyzing our answers. His disarmingly simple experiments have profoundly changed the way we think about thinking. While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents””reason was our Promethean gift””Kahneman, the late Amos Tversky, and others, including Shane Frederick (who developed the bat-and-ball question), demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe.
When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort.
Although Kahneman is now widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, his work was dismissed for years. Kahneman recounts how one eminent American philosopher, after hearing about his research, quickly turned away, saying, “I am not interested in the psychology of stupidity.”
Charles Dickens died on [June 9th]…in 1870, burnt out at 58. But his books live on. What makes them endure?
Charles Dickens often recalled that as a boy he went on long walks with his father. It was during these outings that he first noticed Gad’s Hill Place, a grand family home. His father told him that, should he work very hard indeed, he might one day own such a house. Dickens not only worked hard but also wrote with such an obsessive frenzy that he was able to buy the house in 1856.
In the context of literary immortality, Dickens stands second only to Shakespeare. His novels have complicated plots, sentimentality, melodrama and comic flourishes, and are populated by some of the most vivid characters ever created. To read a Dickens novel is to live it….
O Heavenly Father, who hast given us a commandment, that we should believe on the name of thy Son Jesus Christ, and love one another: Give us also grace to keep this commandment, that we may evermore dwell in thee, and thou in us, in the power of thy Holy Spirit; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved; thy throne is established from of old; thou art from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty! Thy decrees are very sure; holiness befits thy house, O LORD, for evermore.
–Psalm 93
Carole Adlard began Healthy Visions as a counseling program for pregnant teens but quickly realized students needed more.
CAROLE ADLARD (Founder, Healthy Visions): One of the facts that broke my heart was seeing so many students who felt hopeless. They were in bad home situations, they were being bullied in schools, they had been sexually abused. You could see the lack of light in their eyes, and we wanted to offer them hope.
RUSSELL PROCTOR: Day 1 I talk about healthy self-image. With girls it’s much more about body image: Hey, listen, you don’t have to be a size 2. You’re a beautiful girl no matter what size you are, no matter how much make-up you wear. And then I try to teach the guys what it means to be a man, because our society kind of teaches, okay, men need to hook up with girls, men need to drink. Day 2 we talk about Facebook, technology, cell phones, how to be smart with that stuff. Day 3 we talk about sex, the physical side, how people are connected, how STDs spread, kind of the nuts and bolts of sex….
Greece beat Russia 1-0 in Warsaw with a first-half goal from captain Giorgos Karagounis to reach the quarter-finals, a result that sent the Russians home after the Czech Republic beat co-hosts Poland on a similar scoreline in Wroclaw.
Greece, winning for the first time in the tournament, went through as runners-up and will play the winners of Group B in the last eight.
Midfielder Karagounis, winning his 120th cap to equal the record for his country, made Russia pay for a flurry of missed chances when he scored against the run of play deep into first-half stoppage time.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, if performed by a non-physician who has no direct interest in the death. Euthanasia, or “mercy killing”, is legal only in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the U.S. state of Oregon.
[Ted] Goodwin said the election of Socialist Francois Hollande as French president could help the euthanasia cause in Europe. Hollande has said he favors euthanasia under strict conditions.
“If France falls into line, I believe Germany will also adopt it. That is a game changer in Europe,” he said, noting support for reform was also gaining traction in Australia and Massachusetts. “Things are happening slowly but surely.”