Courage
There are few disasters as riveting as a shipwreck. Thankfully they are very, very rare these days. This weekend was one of the exceptions, as the cruise ship Costa Concordia struck a reef off the coast of Italy and sank in shallow water near Isla di Giglio. It's too soon to know the full story…
"To his son Custis, a cadet at West Point, Lee once wrote: 'Shake off those gloomy feelings. Drive them away. Fix your mind and pleasures upon what is before you. ... All is bright if you will think it so. All is happy if you will make it so. Do not dream. It is too…
Occasionally I open the news and think, “Have. We. Lost. Our. Minds?” This week, I read that the best way to show repect to a girl is to gouge her in the eye, slam her to the ground, and lay on top of her. That’s what ESPN columnist Rick Reilly thinks. Joel Northrup is a…
From time to time it's helpful to ask, and try to answer, the question of just what is a "real man." I recently saw a book criticizing the commercialization of boyhood. The cover artwork showed a hapless young man about ten or twelve years old. He was wearing a football helmet, shoulder pads, and Superman…
We've got a lot of veterans in our family, myself included, so we like to recognize them on Veterans' Day. Someone asked a question recently about this particular veteran, so I thought I'd share the story today in honor of intrepid young men doing their duty all over the world! We talk about Admiral David Farragut…
Halloween is an English contraction of "All Hallow's Eve", or properly, the Eve of the Feast of All Saints ... which is, after all, November 1. In our house, it's not a day of jack-o-lanterns and goblins, but a day to remember true heroism -- a man who faced death and thereby opened the door…
Fernando Espinosa, 17, of El Paso, Texas, is receiving the Boy Scouts' Honor Medal with Crossed Palms, its highest award for bravery and service. Espinosa was walking a teacher to her car earlier this year when another vehicle bore down on them in the crosswalk. He managed to push the teacher to safety but was…
In Charlotte this week, a long-time member of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang turned evidence against his former friends in federal court, saying he knew he risked being killed but did it because of his mother and brothers. According to the story in the Charlotte Observer, the 21-year-old said he had joined the gang as a young teen and took part…
After our eldest, John Calvin, read his dad's Ten Moments in Manhood list, he sent us a link to an incredible YouTube video. In this 3D animation of Captain Sullenberger's Hudson landing, you can see it all happen up close. What I found most fascinating was listening to the actual audio while being able to…
Since the annual "Year in Review" and "Top Ten" articles are appearing in the media this week, I thought I'd take a quick look at ten stories that illustrate what it means to be a real man - or what can happen when you abandon that ideal. These may not be the biggest and greatest…