Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason by Alfie Kohn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I’m so enamored with Alfie’s work. It’s validating to hear researchers coming to progressive conclusions about child-rearing.

But what struck me the most about this book was how practical and actionable the advice was, how very non-progressive it is. For instance, if most adults reject autocratic rule, why would we want that for our own children (“Do it because I said so”)? For that matter, why do we (particularly if we’ve been raised in such an authority structure) feel threatened by the idea of seeking compromise or rational discourse with our kids?

I was also very fascinated by the intersection of Kohn’s psychology concepts with that of faith and religion. There are so many points of intersection with fundamentalist or Evangelical notions of authority, image of God, masculinity, punishment, shame, love and forgiveness — most of which have toxic baggage for those of us who have escaped.

I can’t recommend Alfie Kohn’s work enough.



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One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon by Tim Weiner

One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is truly a staggering work. It was a tower of details, geopolitical intrigue, espionage, statecraft, deception, and of course corruption.

Not having lived through this period in history, I think my biggest takeaway is that everything I’d come to accept as “culturally” true about the Nixon era is every bit warranted. In other words, a kid like me in the 80s grew to understand that Nixon really was a crook, despite his claiming otherwise.

And in fact, thanks to Weiner’s incredible tome of a work, he was much worse. He was arguably a war criminal, a narcissistic felon, an egomaniacal tyrant.

And yet, he went to China. He started talks with Russia. He turned the U.S.’ policy course from domestic to foreign.

Nixon’s a complicated character for sure. But he was absolutely guilty of every crime he wasn’t punished for. And his own words prove it.

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The Goblins & the Forest

Netflix has really gone all-in this Halloween.  They’ve produced tons of original content for the holiday. But over on reddit, they sponsored an interesting little campaign. They asked for users to tell their childhood nightmare stories and an artist would volunteer to illustrate the dream.

I submitted mine, but I think it was just a little too late to be picked up by an artist.  But here it is anyway…

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Halloween 2018 movie fest

For those that like a little dose of fictional fear and thrill each October, there are endless Halloween movie candidates.  This year’s lineup for me was:

  • The Boy
  • The Endless
  • Apostle
  • Creep 2
  • Hush
  • Holidays
  • Hold The Dark

I plan to also watch a couple TV shows, which I’ll cover later.

  • Ghoul
  • The Haunting of Hill House

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Digital volume knob fix

The volume knob in my wife’s Toyota Highlander behaved weirdly.  As you turned it up or down, the volume setting would jump up or down, sometimes in the wrong direction and by an unpredictable amount.  It didn’t give a linear output as you would expect.

What to do?  Why, take it apart of course!

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The Language of God review

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for BeliefThe Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really loved this book. Collins helped me wrestle with the very real possibility of “a third way” to be a spiritual being and yet also fully endorsing of material science.

The false dichotomies in humanity (science vs. religion, good vs. evil, Left vs. Right, etc.) are exhausting. They lead to burn-out and disenchantment. The Language of God reminded me that it’s possible to navigate two worlds in harmony.

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Letters from a Skeptic review

Letters from a SkepticLetters from a Skeptic by Gregory A. Boyd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was incredibly helpful to me during my faith deconstruction, long before I even had the language to call it that.

What struck me the most about it was its compassion. Boyd has this rigor in his delivery somehow without being dogmatic. So instead of being exhausting, as most Evangelical religious treatise are, he comes across as being earnest and loving.

I have so many underlines in my copy, I can’t possibly get rid of it. Which is a very good thing.

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