Andy

Here a story about how X isn’t real life. Last weekend I was at a child’s birthday party and I bumped into a girl I knew in college. We had been friends and in a few clubs together. She had a reputation as the “college ho ”. She didn’t hide this much. She had attended parties in her birthday suit and the photos were sent via hundreds of email accounts all across campus. Everyone knew, even if they didn’t want to. Obviously I didn’t approve of her behavior, but I was always friendly and kind when we met. We never dated so it was platonic. I had sort of gotten the impression that she may have had a difficult upbringing. I know now for sure that she had been abused as a child, because she had all the signs professionals are trained to notice. Her sexuality was her way of acting out against whatever trauma she had suffered. Well, I hadn’t seen her in decades and she showed up with a husband and two beautiful tween girls. We chatted for a while and I got the impression that she had started making a lot of positive changes in her life. I gave her a hug, told her I was proud of her, and said it looked like she was raising her girls well. I didn’t ask about her “body count” or say she was “damaged goods”. I talked with her husband about being a girl dad and we hit it off. We went our separate ways after that, but I was happy to have seen her and proud that she finally had gotten life figured out. You see, that’s a normal human reaction. We certainly don’t need to approve of bad behavior, but we needn’t give up on someone in their 20s, either. Not all of us mature on the same schedule, and what matters is how we finish, not how we start. There’s hope, even for “304s”, because human beings always have a chance to turn it around. As Christians, we can fill someone with shame, or we can teach them that there is always a way out. I would never want anyone to follow this woman’s path, for it is filled with pain and heartache. But I did want to share that you have the agency to be happy again.

GOP Senator Thom Tillis on Trump’s proposed “Anti-Weaponization” fund: “I think it’s stupid on stilts. When you take money from me to give to a purpose I vehemently disagree with, that’s tyranny.”

Patriot

8 weeks of maternity leave isn’t enough. Neither is 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. Attachment theory research shows that babies need their primary caregiver (most often mom) far longer than a few months, ideally for the first 3 years. Longer maternity leave leads to better mother-infant interactions which results in a more secure attachment at 24 months. Babies are so sensitive that even any mother-baby separation for more than a week (1 week!) under the age of 2 has been shown to predict higher child negativity at age 3 and higher aggression at both age 3 and age 5. You can never convince me that anything about women working corporate jobs is natural.

Is it time?

So Thune and company having a temper tantrum over Trump’s Paxton endorsement so he’s using the weaponization fund as an excuse to once again not do his job. Senate leadership is an absolute disgrace and every single one should be replaced.

Lunch just costs $28 now. Are they not supposed to eat?