And I thought I couldn't be more impressed with the first man I ever voted for as POTUS. Thanks for the great story, Peter.

One day I was eating lunch with a dozen teachers (M & F) at a big table and one of these female teachers started talking about how she would much rather work with men than women, and I chimed in how my wife says the same thing. Well, a different female teacher got really offended and said "Hey, I'm sitting right here, I'm not comfortable with this conversation, would you please stop?"That shut me down right away, but the first women continued in about how difficult it has been for her to work with and especially under women, blah, blah.  Needless to say, the rest of that lunch period was a little awkward.  But we are all still friends now, it is just a really explosive topic.

Wow, super-interesting, rollicking discussion, the kind I would hope to see on Ricochet.My wife (who at 50 loves to ask "how old do you think I am?" because a lot of people think she looks 30) work in a clinic at a large hospital. She is pretty low on the food chain (medical assistant) because after raising 6 kids she just wanted to work part-time. She always says it is a good day when she works with male doctors and always complains about working with the female doctors because of many of the issues discussed above: pettiness, cattiness, backbiting, etc.Meanwhile I work as a teacher at a private school where it seems the administration has purposely, consciously not discriminated against beautiful women. As a result we have a notable number of female teachers who are both wholesomely but knockout beautiful. AND intelligent and capable.

Since children of educated religious parents tend to have children with similar values, this trend should continue until the non-religious essentially die off (as compared to the exponential growth of the population of church-goers). If I was a non-religious elite, I would seriously consider some kind of plan to keep this from happening, starting with making all the religious people pay for my contraception...

One could see this as a sign of hope.  At least they have noticed a problem and are doing something to try to ameliorate it, even if it looks to some like closing the barn doors after the horses got out.

Five years ago guidelines like these were much rarer in public high schools, only in the tony private Catholic or religious schools (like my employer) would you see such specific guidelines be introduced, much less adhered to.   Unfortunately, we found that you have to have several ADULT adults who are willing to send crying girls home in order to make it work.  Such people are harder to come by than some might imagine.

In addition, you also have to enforce such a policy at EVERY semi-formal dance, not just prom.  That way prom is a snap, the kids already know the drill if they attended dances in freshman and sophomore years.

I once had the privilege of being asked to serve as a member of th board of governors of an NSF-funded research center. Well, it was a privilege for me, a lowly high school math teacher. It was there I found out to my chagrin how large a role politics plays in the decision to fund or not to fund, to hire or not to hire. Naive idealist that I was, I thought scientific merit had something to do with it.

I read Brietbart's book Righteous Indignation last summer, and since gave it my college-age son and his future in-laws to read. Truly inspiring reading, but now I hope it provides the blueprint for 100 other young firebrands to follow in the footsteps of Andrew the happy warrior.Thanks Mr. Sajak, for sharing this wonderful memory of a man who made a difference.

My boys loved a cartoon called George Shrinks, about a kid who is five inches tall living in a normal-sized family. The adults are annoyingly eccentric, but George's unfailingly fearless good old-fashioned American can-do attitude, with the help of good gadgets, makes this one worth it. You can find several episodes on YouTube.

The schemes of the left for ordering society which we conservatives despise the most are those that by their very nature MUST involve ALL of us: universal health care being the primary example.  

Therefore every individual in society must go along with such a plan willingly or shut up and go along unwillingly in order for it to "work."  (And by a lefty-plan "working" we mean of course that it is a complete disaster. But it makes liberal-lefties feel better somehow.  Until it completely collapses, then they blame us for not going along with it more willingly.)

Rinse and repeat!

The school where I teach in Minnesota did something similar on Friday.  Here is a link to some video: http://www.providenceacademy.org/about_us/media/.  When you get there, click on PA marks 9/11.  This was a student initiated project, some kids from the Pro-life club started this several years ago with little tiny flags, but this year the school bought them bigger flags.  It's pretty impressive.

The attacks happened a week after our school opened ten years ago.

This is the reason I've dedicated my life to education of the young.  Even though I teach math (mostly, but this year I'm taking on the choir) I consider it one of my main tasks to communicate something beyond erudition to high school students.  And boy, are they hungry for it, after a steady diet of the stuff portrayed in this picture.

I could only hint at it in the public schools, and the elite post-religious 100-year-old private school I taught at for a decade would have forced me out eventually due to my non-orthodox beliefs concerning homosexual activity.  Now that I am at a good Catholic school, I can unequivocally proclaim the source of renewal which turned pagan Rome into Christian Europe.

That same source can renew our culture again, but who knows how far we have to slip before we begin to realize our need for renewal as a society.  The African and Indian priests that serve my suburban Minneapolis Catholic parish bear witness to the fact that the 3rd world is now sending missionaries to ME.

I am reeling with the realization that Claire, (whose writing and voice I have enjoyed immensely since I found Richochet last year) has such a cool Dad who wrote A Tour of the Calculus and other extremely well-written popular books about math....and I never made the connection. I second Peter's call for more, please, more!

My daughter Rachel got married in July of 2009, and she looked in vain for a dress with sleeves, finally paying $2K for someone competent to make the thing.  Every one to whom I show the pictures just raves what a beautiful bride she is, and they all love the dress too.  [That ain't just a proud papa talkin'!]

She was apparently ahead of the curve.

I couldn't find the post, but one of these said that they asked parentsaf

I'm not surprised.  A lot of people would hear the question this way: Was I up to the challenges of parenting?  [No.]  Did I make a ton of mistakes? [Yes.]  Was raising kids always rewarding or fun? [No, especially if they are destructive at any stage, that can be very hard to endure.]

But the question really amounts to this: would it be better if your kids never existed?  Even though they suffer and they cause you growth (amid suffering)?  I would hope the answer for most parents would be: "I can't answer questions like that.  Way above my pay grade."

The first recorded directive from God to man is "Be fruitful and multiply..."  Of course we can expand that to include intellectual and creative fruitfulness, but clearly the plain meaning is to welcome the gift of children as God enables you to do so.  Why am I not surprised to read that "they" have "research" to show that following the natural impulse of God's original purpose does NOT result in "happiness?"  

Sounds like the same slithering, hissing voice that said "Has God really said not to eat the fruit of the tree?  You surely will not die!"

That familiar voice is now saying "Has God really said to be fruitful?  Consider the problems that causes!  Environmental degradation! Needless suffering!  And besides that, YOU will be less happy in the long run."

I am not raising six kids with my wife because I am on some search for personal happiness.  They came along as gifts as a result of taking our love seriously, like responsible adults.  With God's grace I can finish the course and raise them to live in the same manner, eschewing fruitless illusions of the kind of "happiness" talked about in the New York Times.

My daughter is constantly saying "Really?"   As in, "Really dad?  Really?  You're kicking me off the computer? Really? That's so mean."   Don't know why it irritates me so much.

I looked for the genesis of this habit, and one day I saw it on an old rerun of Sat. Night Live: Really?!! with Seth and Amy on Weekend Update.