October 29, 2009 at 1:14 am (News)
Tags: Environment, Minnesota, NFPworks, Stewardship, University of St. Thomas
I’m off to the “Renewing the Face of the Earth” Conference at the University of St. Thomas today. It’s a conference on stewardship and creation, which will touch a plethora of topics, including procreation and domestic prudence. I’ll keep you posted on the joys to be found in St Paul this weekend (to include Janet Smith).
October 27, 2009 at 10:18 pm (Cognitive Dissonance, Humor/Wit, News, The Green Side)
Tags: NFP, Natural Family Planning, Humor, Jay Leno Show
I guess I should do a little research before I joke...
A reader tipped me off that the TIME piece caught the attention of Jay Leno’s writers, evidently. Was he making fun of how…wait for it…how NFP is green, but be warned that your pregnancy test will be blue! People making fun of natural methods of family planning…both shocking and original. NOTE TO JAY: NFP IS NOT THE RHYTHM METHOD! Well, three cheers for the mention. All press is good press, right Nicole?
Join me if you wish in emailing the producers if you like once you see the video. Let it load for a sec, and the punchline’s at the 10 minute mark.
I’d like to draft a little script–a satire of of his segment Jaywalking, where he interviews average people and ask them easy questions (“What color is the White House?” or “Who’s the President?”), and they feature the people who can’t manage to get it right. Well, this version would be called J-Walking (play on my first name), and I would interview average talk show hosts about their jokes about NFP, and they would get it totally wrong!
The funny thing is that he used a badly-written article to fuel his punchline, but the joke’s on him! The Rhythm Method isn’t NFP! Hello? We’ve got a lot a work to do, friends, but in the mean time, have a laugh at Jay, and let his producers know he’s the worse case of J-walking yet!
October 27, 2009 at 7:39 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Minnesota, NFPworks, Philanthropy, Twin Cities
Hey NFP friends, I’m going to a conference in the Twin Cities this weekend (arrive Thursday evening), and my accommodation with friends fell through! (Thanks swine flu and strep. Boo.) Since I’m in between jobs and trying to start this non-profit, my funds are limited (i.e., hotels are nearly out, unless St. Joseph writes me a check!).
Does anyone have any ideas for a place to crash/ rent a guest room, especially on short notice? Prayers, please. Thanks!
Update: Found a place with some new friends! Thanks everyone for the prayers and suggestions.
October 26, 2009 at 11:13 pm (Cognitive Dissonance, Morality & Ethics, Quotes)
Tags: Family Planning, Natural Family Planning, Birth Control, Janet Smith, Call to Action, Catholicism, Quotes, Indifference
…this blogger at Young Adult Catholics (little bit of a misnomer, since they reject many of the Churches teachings outright) seems to think it’s not.
I like that she puts the words “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic,” thereby questioning the validity of political terms imposed on theological terms (The Church is not liberal or conservative; it’s Catholic–Universal). While she supports a person’s choice to choose natural methods of family planning (I got warm fuzzies), she remains neutral on the moral issues (namely the fact that most contraceptives are abortafacients to begin with, plus contra-love factor). I can deal with people who are against the Church’s teaching or don’t understand it, but someone who’s totally neutral? There’s nothing lamer than lukewarmness.
I appreciate that she’s trying to be loving and to extend an olive leaf, but her amicable branch is a thinly disguised vine of vitriol. There’s nothing more dangerous than indifference. A few words from wiser souls:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.–Our Lord Jesus, Gospel according to St. Matthew 10:34
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.–George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize Laureate
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.–Hellen Keller, author, political activist, lecturer
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. –Edmund Burke, philosopher & statesman
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.–Soren Kirkegaard, philosopher & theologian
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.–Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate & author
It’s worth checking out for a minute. Take the “What’s your method?” pole, and comment away! There’s a nice potpourri of the usual unsubstantiated overpopulation claims, bad theology of marriage & sex (the r who “have no authority on the sex issue”), but there are a few nice counter comments. My favorite is,
As a website that promotes progressive forward thinking for 20-30 year old Catholics, I invite you to think forward to Dr. Janet Smith’s take on contraception and natural family planning…
October 23, 2009 at 10:35 pm (Articles, Reason #323 Not to Use Contraceptives)
Tags: Birth Control, Birth Control Dangers, Contraception, Denver, Family Planning
A recent article in a Denver weekly by Susan E. Wills, Esq. Unfortunately, the print is a little small, but it’s a good piece. The danger of contraception is not news to me, but one of the top search terms to find my blog consistantly is “dangers of birth control,” so I think it’s news to someone.
October 21, 2009 at 12:05 am (Articles)
Tags: Catholic, Catholic News Agency, Children, Family, large families, Rachel Campos-Duffy, The View
After seeing this clip of The View (which you may or may not like, depending on your politics–watch it anyway) featuring a very strong and family oriented Rachel Campos-Duffy, I decided to find out who this firebrand mother was. After finding out that we have some very strong worldview connections.
I started following her on Twitter, and found a link to this piece, “Whatever Happened to Large Catholic Families?” (Geocache that!)
Good stuff. Certainly not an analysis piece aiming to answer that question per se, but definitely a look at the current shallow fascination with large families, and testimony to the enduring value of large families. She should be the Population Research Institute’s spokesperson for their Overpopulation is a Myth Campaign (newly added to the blogroll)!
By the way, I think the answer to her article’s question is: the same place where Catholic spines and authentic Church teaching went, probably stored in the closet where the plasma TV boxes are in the garage where people’s three cars are parked.
October 20, 2009 at 12:33 am (Articles, The Green Side)
Tags: Birth Control, Columbia School of Journalism, Environment, Family Planning, Green, Inc., Natural Family Planning, NFP, TIme, TIME Magazine
I would hardly call one quote the big time, but you know, it’s a play on words.
This 700 word piece, “Sex & the Eco-City” on Time’s online addition [spoiler alert/warning to the uber-pious and sensitive souls--reverence for sex is sparse] by Kathleen Kingsbury, 04′ graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and Catholic, is hardly a ringing endorsement for the benefits of natural methods of family planning, but at least it’s on the radar in a fairly positive way instead of the usual condescending and ignorant or halfway correct way.
I’ve read Kingsbury’s other work online at Time and elsewhere, and her work seemed fairly balanced and well written. Objectively, while I’m appreciative for the NFP mention (here’s a solo-feature spot on NFP), I’d hardly say it did NFP any justice. I know there wasn’t space for a full-on explanation, but she described NFP as the sympto-thermal method (fine, but incomplete), never mind that there are several other methods out there, and though the Church strongly endorses it under good circumstances, there are other NFP/FAM users out there. Not to mention the fact that many, many people use NFP to diagnose and treat infertility and women’s wellness issues with a higher success rate than mainstream methods and IVF.
Honestly, when she contacted my old work for an interview after she found the Go Organic brochure online, I received the impression that the piece was on green family planning options, not environmentally friendly sex toys. I probably would have thought twice before doing the interview if the opening pitch had been, “Hey, I’m doing a piece on alternative sex toys. Can I work NFP in, and then I’ll massage the message with unsubstantiated claims endorsing zero population growth?”
My guess is that the editors saw the original piece, and thought “This is too soft–can we sex it up a little, and since I don’t agree with the Catholic Church [never mind that fertility awareness isn't just a Catholic thing] about things, we’ll stick in some stuff on ZPG.”
Did you read the article? What did you think? I’m thinking of writing in (letters@time.com), but I’m not sure if it’ll do any good. Perhaps if they get enough emails. How would have *you* written a “Green Sex” piece?
October 15, 2009 at 10:03 pm (Articles, Physicians, Read It!)
Tags: Family Planning, Health, NFP, Natural Family Planning, Women's Health, Fertility Awareness, Women's Wellness, Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, JABFM, Balloon Boy, Stephen Pallone, MD, George Bergus
Maybe if I put this journal article from the American Board of Family Medicine up in a weather balloon and claimed a child was in it, it would get a little more press and recognition. (H/T to Birth a Miracle blog for the journal link.)
It’s one of the better articles I’ve read, refuting point-by-point the major objections to Fertility-Based Methods of Family Planning (FABM’s) as a legitimate method of family planning and fertility treatment.
One of the strengths of the article–and NFP fans may disagree–is it’s honesty about the lack of data on the benefits of FABM’s: increased communication, enhanced intimacy (the honeymoon effect), increased respect for their partner and other psycho-spiritual effects. While there’s loads of anecdotal evidence, it’s true that the statistical evidence is lacking. This doesn’t mean that the positive effects don’t exist; I believe they do. However, as I stated in a previous piece on promoting NFP, more studies are needed, and those studies need to be published.
I might know statistics and a fair study when I see one, but I don’t know the name of the grants and publication game. Any med students, doctors or academics out there who have any suggestions?
One small step for NFP, one giant leap for NFP-kind. Keep it up, Drs. Pallone & Bergus!
October 14, 2009 at 10:26 pm (Pharmaceutic Continuity)
Tags: Birth Control, Catholicism, Contraception, Ethics, Faith, Pharmacy, Trevor Dal Broi
Mr. Dal Broi, chemist with courage
If you live anywhere near East Griffith NSW (west of Syndey and north of Melbourne, I think) in Australia, bring your prescription to Trevor Dal Broi, one of many chemists (pharmacists) whose personal and moral beliefs (which happen to be religious) forbid him for prescribing contraception of any kind.
This, of course, makes him the enemy of many whose secular devotion to contraception, sprinkled with a little anti-Christian prejudice, is a kind of tyrrany over a person’s right to exercise their conscience and religion.
According to an Australian blogger from the same town of some 16,000 residents, there are about five pharamacies serving the town, which isn’t exactly depriving the fair citizenry of their compacts of carcinogens.
My favorite quote is from Miss Alison Dance, 18, who believes it’s wrong for someone to exercise their conscience. My guess is that 1) She’s never actually read the pamphlet inside her Pill packet or researched the drawbacks of condom usage; 2) She’s not thought more than 30 seconds about her attitudes and beliefs about sex and contraception, and 3) She feels inconvenienced because someone else has spent more than 30 seconds critically thinking about it, making her ride her bike six more blocks.
According to Freerebulic.com, Mr. Dal Broi will contineu to prescribe contraception that is needed for medical reasons.
The best quote comes from Bob Laird, executive director of another pharmacy, via the Catholic News Agency,
“Birth control is not good health care. Birth control makes healthy reproductive organs sick and prevents the marital act from completion. This is not healthcare. Birth control is a lifestyle choice…”
Amen. Contraception is a lifestyle choice. Some feel it’s more essential than others, but I advocate the ability to make that choice or choose to advocate non-contraceptive family planning, as Mr. Dal Broi does.
Last note: The Catherine of Siena Institute has a great blog post on this story, and ends by encouraging people to support other people who make couragous decisions based on their convictions.
I support Trevor Dal Broi.
October 10, 2009 at 9:58 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Family Planning, NFP, Natural Family Planning, Etsy, Menstrual Beads, Cycle Beads
There are a few stores/ web stores that inspire me. You know, they don’t just sell or feature cute stuff; they just embody beautiful, lovely and creative. One of them is the online community Etsy. Though there are definitely less lovely things on Etsy, there are some really fabulous finds. Well, I typed “natural family plannning” in the ‘ol search engine, and found this.
Now, there’s a debate about whether or not menstrual beads (Cycle Beads) are good for the NFP movement because they are essentially a modern, slightly modified version of the Rhythm method, or so I’ve heard (I’ve not taken the class). Anyone who’s a little familiar with the contemporary NFP movement knows that people’s stereotype of the Rhythm method is one of the biggest things holding back progress in the wider culture.
Yet, despite this, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence (and I believe a study or two–does anyone know where to find them?) that menstrual beads work, and work well. They’re marketed largely in developing countries because of lower literacy levels (no charts) and little expense (pennies apiece at cost), but somehow it’s caught on here as well. What’s your thought? Yay or nay?
Whatever your thought is, I give a yay to Etsy.
