Tag: Article Responses

Yes, We Do Need the Synod

Catholic

I had a Twitter exchange with Father Dwight Longenecker recently, in response to his article about how, exactly, we Catholics should go about bringing diversity, equity and inclusion into our parishes. That “how” question is extremely valid and completely on point: all the talk in the world won’t address the issues. We Catholics need to actually do something to make the Church on Earth more welcoming.

My Tweeted response was simply an enumeration of the Corporal Works of Mercy. In response, Fr. Longenecker asked if I’d actually read his blog post, and I confirmed that I had. I will admit that my initial short intent was to be a bit lighthearted, within the bounds of 140 characters, but there was a definite point behind my response. I wasn’t attempting to be “gimmicky.”

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This Dinosaur Isn’t Extinct Yet

HR, Benefits & Insurance

Are we ready for an end to employer-sponsored group health insurance?

Mike Markland, the CEO of an employee benefits consulting firm, certainly thinks so. In a recent viewpoint piece written for Employee Benefit News, he opined that employers that “want to attract talent in this new world will need to offer individual choice of health insurance the same way they now need to offer remote work.” He believes this so strongly, in fact, that the primary focus of his consulting involves showing employers how, exactly, to accomplish this; and in his opinion piece, he presents the idea as something cutting-edge and new.

While his presentation is good, experienced benefits professionals will easily recognize that this is far from a new idea. It has been tried before, more than once. It didn’t work then, and — unfortunately — it’s not going to work now. It’s going to be tried again in the future sometime, and it should be, because hopefully someday we will see an extinction of the dinosaur that is employer-sponsored group health. But we’re not to that point yet. Neither employers nor employees are ready.

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A Delightful, But Empty Snack

The Scratch Post

Bill McKibben’s liberal use of humor in The Only Way to Have a Cow disarms the reader and suggests a friendly-but-informative approach about vegetarian eating. Unfortunately, beyond appeals to emotion and worn-out clichés, he doesn’t deliver on the promise of that humor: instead, the essay is a trivial addition to the ongoing debate. Worse, his approach makes assumptions about a reader’s background that may or may not actually be correct. Ultimately, in terms of calories, this essay is like sugar candy: delightful, but empty.

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