Bravo to Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana for vetoing a gestational surrogacy bill passed by the state legislature. Fighting infertility is good. Promoting the adoption of children in need of parents is good. But gestational surrogacy is bad—bad for children, bad for women, bad for the community. There are better ways. If you doubt that (or even if you don’t), please see the documentary film “Breeders: A Subclass of Women” by the great Jennifer Lahl. Anyway, Jindal did the right thing and demonstrated that he is someone who possesses the courage—rare among politicians—to stand for principle.Wouldn’t you love to see that quality in a President? Continue Reading »
It seems that every few years something new is added to the list of cancer-causing products. Once thought ideally suited for fire-retardant insulation, asbestos was used widely in insulation, pipes, and building materials well into the middle of the last century. Gradually though, researchers discovered a trend of early deaths among those working with the material. As a result, the product has been effectively banned in the United States and many other countries. As recently as a few years back, researchers suggested there was a connection between brain cancer and cell-phone usage. While studies remain inconclusive, the news brought with it a noticeable shift to accessories that distance radiofrequency fields from the brain (headsets, earbuds, Bluetooth, etc.). Continue Reading »
Mad Men’s Season Seven, Episode Seven (“Waterloo”), the half-season finale, may look a bit like a rerun of Season Three’s “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” and Season Six’s “For Immediate Release”—both episodes in which a crisis precipitated a . . . . Continue Reading »
