PicoBlog

Today I’m thrilled to be running a Q&A with public health journalist Chelsea Conaboy, author of the important new book Mother Brain: How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood. You may have seen her provocative (and excellent) op-ed in The New York Times a few weeks ago, “Maternal Instinct is a Myth that Men Created,” which was an adapted excerpt from her book. In it, she argues that the idea of the “maternal instinct” — the notion that women are uniquely suited to raising children based in part on how pregnancy and motherhood change the brain — is a farce.

After what felt like 30 years (14 in actuality), Incredibles 2 finally released. And my goodness it was amazing. Picking up right where the first movie left off, we see the Parr family battle the Underminer (such a stupid name), with the ever looming illegal status of their superpowers coming to bit them in the butt. When the battle results in millions of dollars in property damage, our resident superhero family is forced to go into hiding once again.

When I was a kid, the accents changed. Driving north from central Iowa through the corn toward Minnesota, the dialect would gradually get a little Fargo — a little Norwegian bachelor farmer — maybe an hour or so from the border. Past “the Cities,” you’d encounter the Oop! Uffdah! deadpan in full hilarious effect. Likewise, heading south, the accents would gradually trend Joe Dirt as Missouri drew near. Below I-70, the twang whistled Dixie.

My lord, what a mistake. What a terribly misconceived idea. Horribly timed, inspired by short-term frustration and a genuine, frustrated desire to understand, offered with no consideration of the logistics…. A major undertaking launched on a pure whim, with money attached, meaning that I had a duty to take it seriously and really evaluate the various entries. Here’s some issues that immediately became clear with the (paid!) challenge I issued:

Last week, you may remember, I wrote about the ecumenical milestone of Pope Francis including a group of Coptic Orthodox martyrs murdered by ISIS in Libya in 2015 in the Roman martyrology. For my troubles, an individual on social media accused me of “dabbling in heresy, schism, and apostasy” for suggesting in the article that the Coptic Orthodox could be among the saved, and claimed that Pope Francis’s gesture was “further prove [sic] that the Vatican II sect is the end-times Counter Church, the Whore of Babylon.

My family has been enjoying the new Netflix series “The Devil’s Plan”. My daughter has declared it the best reality show she’s ever seen. While I wouldn’t go that far, I do think it is definitely worth watching, particularly for game designers. In The Devil’s Plan, twelve people are confined to a Big Brother-style house for a week and forced to play… board games. There’s not a physical or dexterity challenge to be seen.

I’m keeping the reader poll up for one more week: so far my favorite answer to the question “Which public figure can you trust when they make recommendations, for products or restaurants or what have you?” is “You, I guess.” 😋 Go fill it out if you have a sec, but also read the story below by Grace Jidoun! —Katherine by Grace Jidoun Three decades of smoothie and juice cleanse madness pushed Orange Julius to the margins of the food world, and today, it has all but vanished.

Welcome to my new subscribers! I’m glad you’re here. This email comes out once a month. Otherwise, find me on Twitter, Instagram, or (if you must) Facebook. I’ve entered into an intense writing phase, hoping to finish my book about Anne Frank—or most of it, anyway—by the end of the summer. I jump-started this process in early June with Jami Attenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer, which I highly recommend. She’s running a mini-version in August.

One of the toughest things for me to grasp was the idea that there is a difference between discipleship and disciple making. For years, I thought everything I taught about Jesus was disciple making. Preaching, Bible studies, etc. All of that (in my mind) fit under the umbrella of disciple making. Yet, when it came time for spiritual reproduction, the people in the room still felt ill-equipt. That’s when I was confronted by my dear friend Justin Gravitt.