Category: Life

To Fail and Be Forgiven

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Ever since discovering Dorothy Sayers’ delightful gentleman detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, on BBC Radio years ago, she has captured my imagination. Eventually, I found that she was a Christian author contemporary with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. And then when I went to read Dante’s Divine Comedy I was surprised to find that her translation is one of the most famous and well-regarded translations. Not only was she a master of the mystery genre, she was also a remarkable scholar, particularly in a time when it was still difficult for women to achieve the academic success of their male counterparts….

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A Life of Love and Grace

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Inspiration from a Biography of Fred Rogers Growing up in a strictly conservative home, there were strict limits to what our family was allowed to watch on television. We were probably a decade behind the times when we finally upgraded from the boxy old TV set to a new-fangled flatscreen. Our TV time was limited to a few animated cartoons and old (mostly black and white) movies. But there were a few shows on PBS that were also acceptable, including Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which came on every day at 12.30 pm. My mother would comment that this was perfect timing because…

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Unbelievable Injustice

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How All of Us Participate In the Silencing of Truth “Just because we can’t see the path doesn’t mean it’s not there.” — Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever, Unbelievable) I recently binge-watched the Netflix crime drama series, Unbelievable. I added it to my list when it was released, but of course, it became buried in my queue. When my husband started the first episode on his own, he realized it was something I’d want to watch with him. I don’t often binge-watch shows but couldn’t help it with this one. I admired how the writers explored so many sensitive concepts with nuance and…

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A New Journey

For the past few years my blog has been a reflection of what my life is about at any given point. From my old blog filled with pet pictures to this site where I’ve written on topics ranging from philosophy to Doctor Who (as a side point, I would argue that those two subjects aren’t really that different), my blog has evolved with my interests. So I decided it was appropriate to write about my newest foray into a completely different area… A few weeks ago (actually, a month today, to be exact) I was having lunch with a friend…

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A Brief Update

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The last couple months have been pretty busy as I finished up my Gadfly of Serenity paper for the MPCA/ACA conference that took place in early October. The conference was really interesting and the presentation of my paper went well! The version here on my site is the full essay, I had to do some heavy editing to get it condensed for the 20 minutes of time allotted for me during the panel.  And in the absence of a proper blog post, I’ll just give a quick update as to what I’m doing now. I am currently developing an economics curriculum for…

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Report on Meeting with Transform Rockford

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When Mike Schablaske, the executive director at Transform Rockford, saw my recent posts through Twitter, he put me in touch with the group which had written the Shared Value statements. The team, Jay Sandine, David Sidney and Blake Musser, were very accommodating and willing to discuss my concerns. Although Jay was unable to make it, I met with David and Blake last week to talk about the questions I had raised. Before I get into the details, I just want to make a disclaimer. Although David and Blake are involved with Transform Rockford, not all the opinions they expressed represent…

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Highlights from Mises University 2014

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For new readers, Mises U is a week-long summer economics program hosted by the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. The conference covers theoretical and applied economics, with lectures covering topics such as epistemology, entrepreneurship, comparative economic systems, political economy, and the history of economic ideas. To see the schedule and recorded lectures, visit this page. This was my third year at Mises U. I attended in 2010 and 2011, then went to the AERC (formerly ASC) for the past two years, and decided it was time for Mises U again. I remember seeing posts about Mises U 2013 last summer…

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Mises University 2014

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For those of you not aware of this…I am in Auburn, Alabama this week attending the Mises Institute’s Mises U. So far it has been just incredible, I am enjoying every moment of it. To follow the official posts, please visit the Mises blog. As time allows I am posting to my Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, so you can check it out there as well. I am excited to share more details next week, but the schedule is pretty intense and I can’t make any guarantees about additional posts this week. Just listen to the lectures and and follow along…

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Concerns about the Vision Statements

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In my last post I discussed the issues I have with the Shared Values of Transform Rockford. The leadership of Transform Rockford was very responsive to these concerns and when I get back from Mises University, we will be meeting so that they can better answer these questions. I’ll definitely be writing another post to update you on that situation. However, that post was really just a lead-in to my response about the Vision Rally itself. I have three primary aspects of concern with the vision statement and related statements announced at the Vision Rally. I think it is easy…

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Shared Values: Upholding Virtue or Undermining Freedom?

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I intended this to be a post specifically about the Vision Rally, but I realized that I have not yet written much about the Shared Values and decided that topic deserved its own post. Transform Rockford has developed a list of nine statements that sum up the values which the movement holds to and promotes.  Here is the list: Update: I had incorrectly stated there were seven. There are actually nine of these value statements. I copied this text from the Transform Rockford site and apparently missed the first two, inclusion and caring.  – Inclusion: Cultivate and support an environment that fully…

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