The expense of obtaining a decree of nullity makes it difficult for some people to come into full communion with the Church. When annulments are expensive, there is also the risk that outsiders (or even Catholics) perceive that annulment is just “Catholic divorce,” for sale to parishioners with enough ready cash. But here’s the problem: it really does cost money to do it right.
PIC Aha band “Not this kind, fortunately. Never this kind.”
Says the boy: My tooth is almost out. Can I just have my tooth fairy money now so I can buy this thing?
Me: Nope. Sorry.
Boy: Okay. I guess I better haul some more rocks so I can earn the money, because I really want it.
Me: Good idea.
[Me on the inside: HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Now to spread the word to everyone who owns a credit card . . .
A Massachusetts antiabortion group has unveiled a bill that would let individual taxpayers opt out of paying for publicly funded abortions. Under the measure, a taxpayer could choose to have whatever portion of their state taxes pays for abortion coverage directed instead to the Baby Safe Haven Law. That law allows parents to leave unwanted newborns at fire stations and other designated locations.
Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said the bill, one of several filed by the group for the new legislative session, would give residents who oppose abortion a way of exercising their conscience. The head of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, Andrea Miller, said she had not seen the bill but argued that tax dollars routinely go toward many things that a given taxpayer might not agree with. (AP)
Trick-or-treaters might be coming around with UNICEF donation boxes. Don’t give ‘em a dime — UNICEF pushes for abortion and sterilization as part of its efforts to improve the lives of women and children. Beyond the immediate irony of that idea, it’s not even good policy. According to CatholicCulture.org (emphasis mine):
Pro-family UN watchers are concerned that [UNICEF’S] disproportionate focus on unsafe abortion, based upon questionable maternal mortality figures, detracts from addressing the major health risks to pregnant women in the developing world. Experts say these are severe bleeding, eclampsia, and obstructed labor. By UNFPA’s own admission in a 2004 report, the most important means of reducing maternal mortality is not access to contraceptives and legal abortion but the presence of skilled birth attendants and access to emergency obstetric care.
Imagine: those backward, third-world women would rather survive childbirth than get help killing their children. Savages.
Abortion proponents often link unsafe abortion and maternal mortality to push for legal, “safe” abortion. Critics of this argument are quick to point out that in Poland, when abortion was severely restricted in 1993, the country showed a sharp decline in the abortion rate and a decline in maternal deaths. In Ireland, where abortion remains illegal, the country reports one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. By contrast, while the United States has had abortion on demand since 1973, this year the US reported a rise in maternal deaths.
Oh, and look at this! I was searching for an image for this post, and turned up this ad:
It’s an ad placed by the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation, and shows an axe hacking into the Star of David. And looky! There’s the UNICEF sponsorship logo, down at the bottom left. (Image source and more information here.)
(Wait, let me save the very vocal minority here a little trouble: Israel has committed atrocities! They are the true criminals here! Ms. Fisher’s blind, jingoistic support of Israel is what’s wrong with the Church and the world in general! Aieeeeee, boogie boogie boogie, somebody said something about the Jooooooos!
Hokey doke. Let’s just think about this for a second. What is UNICEF for, again? According to their website, it “works for children’s rights, their survival, development and protection.”
You know, with an axe.)
I’m not in favor of burdening young children with more bad news than they need to know. If mini Buzz Lightyear shows up on your porch with a UNICEF donation box, just say, “No thanks, but here’s your fun size Snickers.” But if your kid is being pressured by his school to use these collection boxes, you can tell him what I just said to my daughter: UNICEF does some good things, but they also do a lot of bad things, and we don’t want to help them hurt people. There are other charities that do a better job of helping poor people, so we give our money to them instead.
Here is our favorite charity, run by the Church with an incredibly low overhead: Save a Family Plan. Among other programs, you can choose a plan in which your family sponsors a desperate family in India, helping them to become educated and self-sufficient within a few years. Boy, they get the job done. And somehow they manage to do it without killing anyone.
UPDATE:
Sandy, an alert reader, sent the following links to clarify the connection between UNICEF and PYALRA, the organization that ran the ad above. According to Israel National News,
“In a statement dated March 23, UNICEF president, Caryl M. Stern, denounced the “incorrect use of the UNICEF logo” and stated that “UNICEF was not consulted by PYALARA about the use of its logo in a poster announcing a youth broadcast and it condemns the use of its logo to imply endorsement of political opinions. Neither the poster nor the television program it advertises reflect UNICEF’s policies or its views.” Ms. Stern added that “UNICEF’s partnership agreement with PYALARA ended in January 2010” and that “UNICEF will be carefully reviewing any proposed future partnerships with PYALARA.”
Glad to hear it. UNICEF still stinks, but at least this time, it turns out I was the one going “Aieee, the Joooos.” Sorry about that!
Here are a few more links with more information about this story
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/03/31/news/world/doc4bafdbe416e47247495742.txt
From the Anti Defamation League: http://www.adl.org/Internet_Rumors/UNICEF.htm
Don’t worry, it’s not another scholarly fisk of the cultural significance of Billy Jean. I’m talking about the county fair! The fair! Who doesn’t love the fair?
Does your library give out copious prizes just for checking out books in the summer? Ours does: ice cream and pizza coupons, tickets to sports events, T-shirts and toys, games, stickers, etc.
But the prize that thrilled my kids the most was something new this year: ten dollars! Their enthusiasm was only slightly dampened when we explained that no one was actually going to hand them a ten-dollar bill–they’d have to open an account at a local bank, which would credit them $10.
Daddy was glad to help. He would bring the happy little misers to the bank, sign them up for accounts, go home, and then truck them right back to the bank again as soon as humanly possible to close out their accounts. They would then zip on over to the Dollar Tree to blow their glorious cash on sticky hands, expanding dinosaurs, and expired Laffy Taffy. You know, the American dream.
Not so fast.
Don’t ask me why I didn’t see this coming, but there was a catch. Of course there was a catch! Sure, they’ll deposit $10 in your Young Saver account. They’ll even waive the $4 monthly fee, as long as you’re age 18 or under. All you have to do, kids, is keep a minimum monthly balance of $250.
$250! Stupid jerks. What kid has $250 seed money to start a Young Saver account? No one. Okay, maybe some enterprising Eagle Scout mowed enough lawns to save up $250, but I guarantee that all the other Young Savers got their minimum deposits straight from mom or dad’s wallet. Bah.
When I was a kid, our local bank that gave out little cardboard boxes for collecting quarters to put in your junior savings account. There were no minimums or monthly fees–it was all about teaching you that money doesn’t just materialize out of nowhere. If you don’t spend it, you’ll still have it; if you keep spending it, eventually it will be gone. But the most you could possibly save up was maybe $20 before the box fell apart.
I really don’t want my kids to have a meaningful financial portfolio. That’s the idea of being a kid: you learn the lessons, but you don’t get any of the actual benefits. You don’t need benefits, because you parents are taking care of you.
When you get older, then you learn how money really works. In a nutshell, adults have two choices. You can turn over your finances to a ravening monolith that will (1) warn you by mail that, four days ago, they charged you a monthly fee for your overdraft protection plan, which will (2) hit you at a bad time and make your balance dip below zero, at which point the bank will (3) charge you an overdraft fee for letting your balance dip below zero, and then (4) charge you a second overdraft fee because you didn’t have sufficient funds to cover the first overdraft fee.
This is called “customer service.”
Your other choice is to keep a wad of cash in the freezer. This is a bad strategy if you are an avid collector of half-empty cartons of old, drippy ice cream. In that case, a workable counter-strategy is to invest in the really high quality brands of Ziplock baggies, which really keep your money dry.
Our financial adviser (who speaks directly into my ear at 4 a.m. She has a querulous voice tinged with panic, and sounds just like me) has counseled us to diversify our portfolio. So now we keep our Regular Money in the bank, and our Frivolous Whim/Horrible Emergency Money in the freezer.
For an even niftier fiscal maneuver, try letting your prudent, thrifty super-ego save money, while allowing your idiot, scatterbrained id to forget all about it. Then, one day, your ego (who is in charge of cooking) will be gloomily surveying the dark landscape of Dinners Yet to Come, and in between the freezer-burned pork chops and the eleven chicken carcasses that never will be soup, you will see something. Something . . .
Could it be? Yes, yes, it’s a Ziplock bag! And inside it is . . .
Aw, you thought I was going to say $250. No, it’s only $42. The label on the bag says $250, but you had to spend part of it on a new spinner thing for the washing machine, and part of it on the great Tooth Fairy Amnesty Pay-Off, in which each child aged 5 to 12 got $5 and was counseled to move on with their lives.
But that leaves $42! Enough to settle either your bank fees or your library fines, with some left over to buy some brand new ice cream for the freezer.
Isn’t that a good system? God bless America.
