What an idiot.

I don't know who this Charles Blow moron is, but this is the most facile thing I've read this weekend.

Unless it results in unsafe sex (and Blow concedes from the outset that "hooking up" doesn't), who gives a shit about youth social relationships, beyond a puerile or academic interest? Of all the things I worry about today, the "demise of dating" doesn't even make the fucking list. I'm ashamed that the Times gave him space to write.

Although they did manage to get me ranting about it, so I suppose that might count as a successful op-ed...

Also: Unless they've been living in a closet the last twenty years, anyone under the age of 45 -- not 30 -- probably knows all about "hooking up." Your correspondent most certainly included.

For of such is the kingdom of heaven...

A pair of my friends attend a lovely church in Greensboro, N.C. that recently made the front page of the paper there. (My former employer.)

The church runs a program in which it fills backpacks full of food, and every Friday, hands them out to poor children in some of the schools in the city. The idea is that the kids get free food for themselves and their families, and because it's in a backpack and is discretely distributed, the kids aren't stygmatized for accepting charity.

It boggles my mind that people in this country actually still go hungry. No one in the richest country in the world should ever want for food, no more than they should want for air.  

I am not a religious man. Or even a faithful man, sadly. 

But stories like this one make me appreciate and envy those friends and loved ones of mine who are.  Most are Christians. They are not the sort of Christians who try to tell the rest of the world what to do, and who to do it with; they wouldn't be my friends if they were. They are, rather, the sort of Christians who are unswervingly kind and generous and understanding.

God bless them, if there's a God to be handing out blessings. And give some money to your local food bank this season, if you can spare it.