We live in an age obsessed with self-actualization, self-fulfillment, self-realization, self-discovery, self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-expression, self-help, self-image, self-identity, etc. Selfies, iPhones, YouTube, me time. We’re self-obsessed.
The idea of “being true to yourself” implies that there is a core-self at our centers to which we could, theoretically, be false. But I doubt that. Continue reading
***Adam Balinski is a guest contributor and a friend of Brian’s from BYU Law School. This article was first posted on his blog, rethbo.org. Please visit his blog for more respectful, insightful commentary.***
Some people have jumped on what I think is an incoherent bandwagon that creates crazy consumer rights.
Under federal law, public accommodations are places where consumers go to receive a service. Consumers can’t be kept out of or denied services at public accommodations because of their sex or other protected attributes. (It’s true that under many anti-discrimination laws, sexual orientation is not a protected attribute. But it should be. It’s fair to allow people to go and buy regardless of how they self-identify.) Continue reading
One of the hardest parts of moving (and lacking the funds to justify an $800 round trip ticket) is missing major family events.
This week, my sister had a baby girl. She has ten fingers, and ten tiny toes, a mouth, ears, elbows, kneecaps, lungs, liver, and two eyes too large for their still half sealed lids. It is all a miracle, because the baby came six weeks early. Failure to thrive. She weighs 3 pounds and has no baby fat on her tiny, wizened body. I love her already.
It is not so different from when her brother was born. Jasper had wrapped the umbilical cord around his face, so his eye was swollen and his face was bruised and his nose was smashed. Our little Quasimodo, my sister said. Continue reading
The autopsy found “Alea iacta est” faintly written on Karl Pierson’s left arm. The phrase translated means the die is cast and is used to suggest the inevitable. My brother was part of that “inevitable” day. He was in a student-singing group performing Christmas carols in the hall when his teacher heard the echo from the shotgun fired on the opposite end of the school and rushed him and the other students into the dressing room for safety where they sat for over an hour until the swat team found them. Today, over a year later, my family seldom thinks of the Arapahoe shooting, though others are still haunted by it daily. But we are all reminded of it sometimes, as I was recently.
In this case, I was reminded of the event as I was scrolling through my Google feed and realized all of the articles were polemics that offered opinions I felt were erroneous and, as a result, would upset me. Continue reading
The Brothers Sabey 