God's Politics Blog » LaVonne Neff

Committed: Family Values from Eat, Pray, Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert

LaVonne Neff — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:06:22 +0000

Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 mega-best-seller Eat, Pray, Love is a rambling memoir-travelogue in which Gilbert leaves her husband, is dumped by her lover, travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia studying food and spirituality, and ends up in bed with a Brazilian she calls…

Regulating Wily Predators in Ecosystems and Economies

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:00:45 +0000

I’ve been obsessing about coyotes. A breeding pair has moved into my neighborhood, and in a few weeks they may favor us with up to a dozen pups. Meanwhile, they leave footprints in the snow as they case our backyards…

African Lent

LaVonne Neff — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:00:39 +0000

Here’s an idea for Lent that will do more good than giving up desserts: Read a book about contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. It’s not a penance, though it can hurt. And seeing how much of the rest of the world lives…

An Ash Wednesday Memoir of Mortality

LaVonne Neff — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:00:23 +0000

Fifteen years ago next week, on my mother’s 85th birthday and exactly one week before Ash Wednesday, my father died.

Some months later I wrote a short memoir about my parents, death, dying, and faith. I say I wrote it, but…

A Lenten Experiment

LaVonne Neff — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:00:00 +0000

In January last year, Mr. Neff and I began a Lenten experiment. We wanted to see if we could eat adequate amounts of tasty and nutritious food on a food-stamp budget. We also wanted to see what we might learn…

Married for Money: The Unnatural Union of Government and Business

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:29:28 +0000

This week’s Economist, a conservative journal from the U.K., looks at “the backlash against big government.” Using Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts as their starting point, the lead article (”Stop!”) admits that “this newspaper’s prejudice is to look for ways to…

Health-Care Magic

LaVonne Neff — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:30:14 +0000

While talking with George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America yesterday, Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele neatly summarized the prevailing American attitude:

Remember, 82% of the American people like their health-care plan. They just want us to address their costs.

Mr Steele got…

Five Steps to Avoid Financial Disaster (Inflated Expectations, Part 2)

LaVonne Neff — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:01:18 +0000

[Continued from part 1] I have no idea how the United States will or can get out of the economic mess we’ve spent the last 50 years getting ourselves into. As individuals, though, we can take steps to avoid disaster.

1. It’s…

50 Years of Inflated Expectations

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:00:54 +0000

Over my working life, I have seen investments inflate. I have also seen prices inflate. And even though, on the whole, investments inflated more than prices, I have seen something more ominous: I have seen expectations inflate.

Turn the clock back…

Do You Believe in (Compounding) Magic?

LaVonne Neff — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:00:01 +0000

Last week, I wrote about the boomers’ seriously underfunded retirement savings accounts. My friend Sydney commented (on my Facebook link) that “people living beyond their means and not understanding saving is a huge problem. Not only for the older generation,…

Boomer Blues, Part 2: Have You Saved $1 Million Yet?

LaVonne Neff — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:56:14 +0000

[continued from part 1]

Here is how things used to be: My parents retired in 1975 when they were both 65. Their household income had been modestly sufficient, right around the national average or perhaps a little less. Their former employers…

Boomer Blues: ‘We don’t learn from the past, and we don’t plan for the future.’

LaVonne Neff — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:00:05 +0000

In this morning’s New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert confesses to “An Uneasy Feeling,” apparently his understated way of saying “panic.” Herbert lists his concerns: unemployment, worthless mortgages, a decade with no job creation (previous decades since 1940 have all had at…

Cheerful Books for the Bleak Midwinter

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:00:49 +0000

Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. What’s a (middle-aged) girl to do when her husband leaves her for a guy named Bob and a car accident leaves her with multiple injuries? Go home to mother, of course. Even…

The Archbishop and the President’s Common Problem

LaVonne Neff — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:00:37 +0000

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
–William Butler Yeats, from “The Second Coming”

Two of the best people in public life today — in my humble opinion — are the president of the United States and…

Make Your Wish List a Giving List

LaVonne Neff — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:35:28 +0000

I have mixed feelings about wish lists. They rob Christmas of creativity, surprise, and personal contact, but they make shopping much, much easier. And it’s nice to know that if I pay attention to the lists, gift recipients won’t roll…

When Everything Changed: 50 Years of Women’s Progress

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:00:10 +0000

In the first year of Gail Collins’s survey of “the amazing journey of American women from 1960 to the present,” I turned 12. Not long after that, I told my father I was thinking of becoming a lawyer. “That’s not…

The Mammogram Panic, or, False Positives Are No Picnic

LaVonne Neff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:00:01 +0000

Inhale through your nose (be sure your abdomen moves, not just your chest). Exhale through your mouth. Slowly, now …

OK, let’s talk about the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation that women begin getting mammograms at age 50 instead of 40,…

The Locavore’s Dilemma: What We Eat is More Than Just a Personal Choice

LaVonne Neff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:30:08 +0000

I’m a cradle vegetarian. Didn’t have even a bite of meat — red or white, fish or fowl — until I was maybe eleven years old, and then I lost my dietary virginity to a hot dog. Go ahead and…

The Evil Insurance Company Repents, But the Stuggle for Reform Continues

LaVonne Neff — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:30:19 +0000

Never underestimate the power of a determined family, the press, the internet, and an outraged public. Guardian Life has changed its policy and apologized to the Pearl family. Ian Pearl will continue to receive the home care he needs. Read…

I Was Wrong. The Insurance Company Was Evil.

LaVonne Neff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:00:16 +0000

I was wrong. In my recent post, “Evil Insurance Company or Evil Health-Care System?” I argued that the villain in an obvious case of injustice — a denial of service to spinal muscular atrophy sufferer Ian Pearl — is not…