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The Unique Advantages of
National Right to Life News
Part Two of Two By Dave Andrusko Editor's note. My family is on vacation. While we are gone I'll be running some new stories and past articles that you've indicated you liked. This first ran July 13. Dave
The letter was so complimentary it almost made me blush. She liked the yin and the yang, so to speak of the latest issue. She was thrilled to read the winning pro-life essays from youngsters and a story about interns at NRLC on the one hand. On the other hand she was encouraged by Karen Cross's story about the solid pro-life candidates that are running this fall and the in-depth explanation of the background of Dr. Donald Berwick, a fervent believer in rationing, who Obama had nominated to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services(Subsequently, facing opposition, Obama used a recess appointment to prevent a Senate Finance Committee hearing.) Brooks' op-ed in the New York Times, "The Medium Is the Medium," touted the improvement in the test scores of disadvantage students who were given books of their own to take home at the end of the school year. These kids, who had done this for three consecutive years, "had significantly higher reading score than other students." This approach is not the be-all and end-all for anyone [nothing by itself is], but many of the reasons Brooks cites as possible explanations why scores went up apply to anything that is not located in cyberspace--newspapers and magazines. [www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&sq=david brooks column&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print] Touting the virtues of NRL News is not to downgrade the great usefulness of the Internet. You are reading this post online, after all. It is to say that there are unique pluses for a publication such as NRL News that is kept around the house, that people return to repeatedly over the course of a month, that they share with family and friends, and which has a "presence" that doesn't disappear with the click of a mouse. By the way, I neglected to mention that the researchers allowed students to choose their own books. By selecting NRL News you are choosing a communications vehicle that you want in your home which (we might infer from the study from researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee) increases the likelihood you and your family will especially benefit. My expedition into copies of NRL News from the 1970s reminded me both how we prophesized the onslaught of the euthanasia ethos 37 years ago and how many great writers this newspaper has published. Nice to be in such elevated company. Please do me a favor. Go to http://www.nrlc.org/news/NRLNames.html. There you can download a form that you can use to send a sample copy of the "pro-life newspaper of record" to family, friends, and colleagues. It's very inexpensive to and is an enormous help to us. Take a moment, won't you? You'll be glad you did, I promise. After all an educated pro-lifer is the unborn child's best friend. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
In
an information-saturated communications world, sometimes we
place so much emphasis on what we can access electronically that
we ignore how important a role books and newspapers still play.
This came to mind for three reasons: (1) a very nice letter I
received praising National Right to Life News;(2) a recent
column by David Brooks; and (3) an expedition into back issues
of NRL News from the 1970s.