Meg White

Dear middle aged guy playing #PokemonGO after coming back from communion. I saw you. Jesus still loves you. But me? Having a hard time. 😬

@TPCarney Less than four months til @NDFootball starts. ❤️ Love will be missed!

This is one of the greatest plays in football history.

@BrentAWilliams2 Nature’s already got this covered…. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactation…

Let me explain exactly why parents pay $25,000 a year for youth sports their kid will never play professionally, because the math is more interesting than the headlines suggest. The $25K is buying admissions arbitrage at elite colleges. Run it both ways. Scholarship math first. The US has 8 million high school athletes. Roughly 7% play in college, 2% at D1. Total NCAA athletic scholarship spend is $3.6 billion across about 175,000 D1 athletes, mostly partial aid in the low teens per year. A family putting in $25K annually from age 6 to 18 spends $300K chasing a maximum return of about $80K. The expected value is a lottery ticket. Admissions math second. The SFFA v. Harvard trial disclosed that recruited athletes get admitted at 86%. The non-athlete rate sits around 5%. Even academically weak applicants jump to a 98% admit probability if recruited. A non-athlete with a 1397 SAT has roughly 0.08% odds at Harvard. The same kid recruited for crew has 70%+. The athletic hook is the largest single advantage in elite admissions, bigger than legacy or dean's list. Ivies don't even offer athletic scholarships. The value is purely the admissions ticket. This is what $25K buys. Year-round travel ball is the qualifier round for an admissions process operating on different rules than the one your kid's classmates compete in. The "country club sports" pipeline (squash, lacrosse, crew, fencing, golf) is a feature. Barrier to entry is the product. 90% of Ivy League squash players come from $30K-a-year private high schools. The math works because the alternative pool is small. PE arrived after the demand existed. Unrivaled Sports, Perfect Game, regional travel-ball roll-ups. Upper-middle-class parents had already turned youth sports into a class transmission mechanism. PE consolidated the supply chain and raised prices because the buyers were already there at $25K. $300K to convert a 4% admit rate at an Ivy into an 86% one. Plus the alumni network and pre-professional sorting that follows. That's the actual equation. The trade is rational at the top of the income distribution. Brutal everywhere else.

Explore... ...The American Book of Fables

@TeeplesCY @maryricehasson Also: the truth will set you free!

"If I told you there was one free thing you could do every Sunday that would make your kids happier, healthier, smarter, and closer to you, you'd think I was selling something." Take your kids to church regularly. I don't care if you believe. The data is so lopsided that skipping it is the parenting equivalent of refusing vegetables because you don't like the taste. Grades. Religious teens get As at almost twice the rate of nonreligious teens. In a class of 100, that's 24 A-students instead of 14. Church gives a kid the same academic boost as being born rich instead of poor. College. Working-class religious kids earn bachelor's degrees at double the rate of their nonreligious peers. Middle-class kids do it at 1.5x the rate. For families without a trust fund, this is one of the most powerful forms of upward mobility social scientists have measured. Character. Religious teens are far less likely to lie, cheat, or do things they hope their parents never find out about. They're more likely to care about racial equality, the elderly, and the poor. They reject the idea that morality is whatever works for you in the moment. That kind of kid doesn't happen by accident. It's built. Closeness. 60% of parents of religious teens say they feel "extremely close" to their kid, compared to 50% of nonreligious parents. The kids report the same thing back. They get along better with their parents, talk about hard stuff, and actually want to spend time with their family. Despair. Religious teens are dramatically less likely to be depressed, anxious, lonely, or feel that life is meaningless. 90% of devoted religious teens never binge drink, compared to 41% of the disengaged. Economists named the modern epidemic "deaths of despair." Regular church attendance is one of the strongest known buffers against it. Parents are spending fortunes trying to solve teen mental health. The most evidence-backed intervention is free. Purpose. Religious young adults report higher purpose, gratitude, life satisfaction, and resilience. These are the exact traits every parent says they want their kid to have. Here's why it works. Affluent families already surround their kids with networks of stable, accomplished adults through neighborhoods, schools, and parents' colleagues. Working and middle-class families usually don't. A congregation is often the last institution in American life that puts your kid in weekly contact with dozens of stable, employed, sober adults who know their name. It used to be called "a village." Now it barely exists outside of churches. "But I don't believe." Your kid doesn't need your theology. They need you to show up. "But church is boring." So is sitting through a kindergarten music recital. Parenting is the deliberate choice to be bored on purpose for someone you love. There's a church within 15 minutes of nearly every American home. You don't need money, connections, or credentials to walk in. Nothing else in this country will surround your kid with engaged adults, teach them moral seriousness, and give them a stable weekly rhythm at zero cost. You already drive them to practices that produce far less. The free thing on Sunday produces more, on more dimensions, than almost anything else you do as a parent. You don't have to believe anything. You just have to take them.

Whoa. Anti Catholic prejudice is alive and well.

If you pitched this as a screenplay, every studio would reject it for being too on-the-nose. Fernando Mendoza was a 2-star recruit ranked 2,149th in his high school class. Zero FBS scholarship offers. Not one. He walked on at Cal, fought for a starting job, transferred to Indiana for his senior year, then led them to 16-0 and the first national title in school history. Heisman, Walter Camp, Maxwell, Davey O'Brien, Manning, Big Ten MVP. 41 TDs, 72% completion, 8-to-0 TD-to-INT ratio in the playoffs. The Raiders took him #1 overall Thursday night. $54.56M fully guaranteed. Only the third player ever to win the Heisman, win a national championship, and go first overall the next spring. Burrow. Newton. Mendoza. Then he skipped Pittsburgh. The biggest stage in football, the moment every kid imagines from the second they pick up a ball, and Fernando watched the call from his living room in Florida because his mom Elsa is in a wheelchair and the travel is hard for her. She was diagnosed with MS when he was 4. She wrote a letter to her sons in The Players Tribune in 2015 promising the disease "won't affect us in the ways that matter." The part nobody talks about: while every other top pick was on stage, Fernando announced the Mendoza Family Fund the same day. $500K personal donation to the National MS Society. Committed to raising $1M over three years. He hasn't taken an NFL snap and he's already given more to a cause than most players donate in a full career. He and his brother Alberto have already raised $360K through the Mendoza Bros. Burger at BuffaLouie's in Bloomington. At Christmas, he handed four families dealing with MS $10,000 each for an Adidas shopping spree. Both his parents are children of Cuban refugees who fled Castro. His dad rowed at Brown, won a Junior World Championship in 1987, and played high school football in Miami next to a teammate named Mario Cristobal. Fernando beat his dad's old teammate in the national championship game in January. Every athlete talks about playing for their family. Fernando actually did it.

@CorieWhalen @TPCarney I was always taught two wrongs don’t make a right!🤬

Just voted no on the most egregious ballot measure I’ve ever encountered—both in framing and outcome. The dishonesty of this question alone should probably render it illegal, on top of the fact that it upends constitutional processes and was brought up now simply so one political party can have an extreme partisan advantage during this year’s midterm elections. If this measure passes, Democrats will almost certainly win in 91% of Virginia’s congressional districts. Yet as currently drawn, the districts are split between six represented by Democrats, and five represented by Republicans—which is in line with the way Virginians have voted in federal elections. This whole exercise is a truly outrageous example of blatant corruption that should be rejected by any honest observer (if they can even interpret the ballot language, which is so dishonest and misleading that it’s virtually impossible to understand absent significant outside context). As an independent who has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, I never want to hear another Virginia Democrat (not to mention all of the out-of-state heavy hitters, including Barack Obama) say they oppose gerrymandering again. Same with their constant invoking of “democracy” and “fairness.” It’s all a lie. And this isn’t to absolve any Republican gerrymandering in other states—it’s to note that there are no honest brokers on this issue. Democrats cannot claim the moral high ground here, yet their language insists they’re somehow better on this issue and that their goal is lofty. But the nonsense is so easy to see through if you scratch the surface. I suspect I’m not alone as an independent in being tired of this.

@bennyjohnson I used to see these kids and think NEVER would I send a child to the hill. I feel validated.

This is the most disturbing thing I have ever heard on my show... Former Congressman George Santos tells me that the House of Representatives had to SHUT DOWN the High School Page Program because Congressmen were sexually abusing young students. "Remember why the U.S. House of Representatives no longer has the page program — because young children, who would go from their schools to learn from our leaders, were literally ASSAULTED by members of Congress! And these are 13, 14, 15, year-olds.” "This is the beginning of the END of the sexual predator behavior in Capitol Hill. This is going to be the Harvey Weinsteins of the Bill Cosbys that are going to bring down this GENERATIONAL behavior." Congress has harbored a sick predator culture for far too long. Eric Swalwell is just the beginning. More will be exposed. It’s time to finally clean house in Washington.

“I’m Catholic, so I’m gonna say it: Jesus Christ, that’s what’s gonna fulfill me.”

Still more evidence that EdTech harmed American education: Across states, the year that the state imposed mandates requiring computers/tablets, that's the year that test scores stopped rising and in most cases started falling. From Jared Cooney Horvath thedigitaldelusion.substack.com/p/when-correla…

There are moments in life when words just aren’t enough. Losing Coach Holtz is one of those moments. Coach was so much more than a football coach to me. He was family. I still remember the day he came to my house to recruit me. He didn’t just sit down and talk to me about football or what I could do on the field. He talked to me as a young man. And he spoke to my mom the way a man should speak to a mother who was trusting someone with her son. He looked her in the eye and promised that I would be taken care of at Notre Dame. That moment meant everything to us, and it’s something I’ve carried with me my entire life. Coach Holtz believed in people. He believed in building men, not just players. He welcomed my entire family into the Notre Dame family and always made sure we felt that love and support. That’s who he was. He cared deeply about the people around him, and he made every one of us feel like we mattered. The lessons he taught me went far beyond football. His faith, his discipline, his belief in doing things the right way shaped who I became as a man, a father, and a leader. My heart is broken today, but I’m also filled with gratitude for the time I had with him and for the impact he had on my life. Coach will always be with us—in the lessons he taught, in the lives he changed, and in the love he gave so freely. Thank you for everything, Coach. I love you. You will forever be in our hearts. Go Irish ☘️

@BayerPicciotti This is excellent. Thank you!!!

I confess. I’m an “irresponsible” mother of ten. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. ncregister.com/commentaries/p…

When I was a few weeks postpartum with my second child, I bundled us both up and waddled into the Fairfax County Circuit Court to testify against a man who had accosted my then-toddler daughter and I in a public bathroom while I was heavily pregnant. When I arrived I was brought into a room with his other victims and found out he had assaulted a woman in the same bathroom. I suddenly felt I had been lucky. The arresting officer who had also interviewed me weeks prior was clearly eager to do everything right to keep this guy off the street—he found additional witnesses, pulled surveillance footage, followed every step to the letter. It was physically painful and difficult for me to even be there—trying to discreetly feed and soothe my two week-old for 6 hours on hard benches when we should both be home in bed. It was also terrifying discreetly breastfeeding in the same room as this monster. When I finally took the stand, the attorney for the Commonwealth asked me if the man who was in the bathroom that day was in the room. I paused, confused—because I knew what was going to happen next. The courtroom had been packed all day but as case after case was handled, ours was the last one—now it was just the judge, court reporter, bailiff, the defendant, his lawyer, the Commonwealth attorney, and I. The arresting officer wasn't in the room. The other victim and her husband had been given a new court date and sent home. I adjusted my baby against my chest and looked at her as she repeated the question: Do you see the man you reported to police in this room today? Why was she doing this? What was she doing? I was sweating in my oversized cashmere nursing sweater and I felt prickles down my back. Everyone was staring at me. I'm not a lawyer. She asked me a question... and she was “on my side” so I should answer it, right? I adjusted my baby again to give myself a free hand—and I pointed to him. And just as I expected, his lawyer immediately pointed out there was nobody else present in the courtroom who it could be and therefore we had violated his constitutional right to due process. The judge agreed. Hell, *I* agreed—but then I asked WHY hadn't the Commonwealth given me a photo array to choose from? Why did she ASK that? Too late. It didn't matter that he was on surveillance footage entering the bathroom before us and pushing past us as we fled. He was set free. As I walked out of the court room the arresting officer spotted me from down the hall and ran over to me “Is it back in this courtroom? Is it starting?” No, I told him, it's already over. He had been sent to another courtroom “by mistake.” He didn't even get a chance to testify. He looked horrified. The Commonwealth attorney and “victims advocate” that morning assured us they were going to fight for us. They were SO SORRY this had happened to us. They were SO GRATEFUL that I had come to testify in my condition. Instead they seemingly intentionally let the monster walk free. It's been two years. Yesterday he was released on bail for yet another crime—one of at least THIRTEEN he's committed since that day in court—including sexual abuse of a child under 15. His arrest record from just the last 5 years spans four pages on the Virginia court website. Look at how many women—and CHILDREN—he's victimized since that day. Look how many times his victims have gone to court just as I did only to see him set free again and again and again. This is NOT happening by accident. This is deliberate.

@Church_POP @UofDallas

Two brothers from Potomac, Maryland, Peter and Thomas Cooney, recognized a need for Catholics to be empowered with an AI tool that would serve them in this new age without providing information that contradicts the truth as understood in the Catholic tradition. Peter, a junior economics student at the University of Dallas, and Thomas, a freshman computer science student at Baylor University, are building Acutis– “a Moral AI rooted in Catholic doctrine” in the off-hours between classes, regular reception of the sacraments, and the ordinary responsibilities of college life: churchpop.com/catholic-broth…

@politicalmath Amazon Music on an Alexa? Not without downsides but no videos..

I'm so frustrated at being a parent in this garbage digital age. I hate short-form video. TikTok / YouTube trash is just pure brain-rot and I can't stand it. I try to keep my kids away from it. I gave them access to Spotify b/c I want them to enjoy music and develop their musical tastes and personalities. That was working pretty well. They would go onto Spotify on the XBox and listen to music and explore that space. Good for them. But what does Spotify do? They put short form videos into their app. Now my kids are watching the videos instead of listening to the music. I have to decide if I have to take Spotify away from them (along with all their playlists) because Spotify pulled this bait-and-switch on me and turned an app that I felt good about giving to my kids into another brain-rotting platform of garbage. Every month something like this happens. It's impossible to navigate this as a parent, even if you're largely on top of things. It's exhausting and dispiriting.

@LeahLibresco We don’t even begin to enforce until age 7, and they usually stick to it pretty quickly after that with the exception of a super long post communion kneel.

What age was your youngest child when you became able to consistently kneel during the kneeling parts of Mass?

@Joeinblack I tell my kids chastity before and during marriage is a marathon. Train accordingly. You need a plan. It won’t just happen. You need grace and specific habits and specific rules.

The sexual life is a gift God created and put in us. His fire to create, to enter, to be entered…all of it. It’s a gift. For most of human history, right as the gift of that fire was being awakened in young men and women, they were married. Their parents strengthened the bonds of two families by joining these young people in marriage. By the union of these two, two families became one, the tribe became stronger, and the young man and woman learned the gift and the power of their sexuality. They learned it together in the context of marriage. Society very slowly, but steadily shifted and we have moved from arranged marriages for 13 to 15-year-olds to today’s reality where couples marry later and later in life, usually with absolutely no help from their parents. No help wanted, no help offered. At no point that I’m aware of has the church or her leaders offered any kind of wisdom for helping young people deal with this shift & the impact it has on the human body and soul. We’ve reduced the beautiful gift of sexuality to “don’t do that”. We literally tell teenagers that if they masturbate, they will die in mortal sin and go to hell unless they get to confession. It’s absolute insanity and cruelty and a disrespect to the power of the fire God put in them. We tell young couples in their early 20s that they should be engaged for years and years and years, but never sin sexually or, again, they go to hell if they do and then die before confession. It’s cruel. It’s insane. That’s a disrespect to the gift and power of the fire God put in us. I know people will read this and pretend that I’m suggesting that sexual sins either don’t exist or are not serious and that’s not remotely the case. When I am suggesting is that we need to have a real talk about helping people who care about holiness to deal with the fact that God did not create us to procreate like flowers. When we move the average age of marriage from early teenager years to late 20’s, we need to recognize the human nature hasn’t changed.

Democrats of MD, DC, & VA are pretending this environmental disaster just isn’t a big deal in our nation’s capital This is a national emergency. The Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay will likely have safety & health setbacks for years Import the 3rd world, governed by 3rd world

Read this and do your best to protect your loved ones. The phone scam part is just gonna get harder to avoid as AI voice scams become more common, but corporate entities could be a lot more helpful by training employees in best practices for aging and bereavement in customers.