Family Matters

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ABC Television's photo: the fictional Cleaver family, from 1960s 'Leave it to Beaver', television series. Left, Hugh Beaumont (Ward); center left, Tony Dow (Wally); center right, Barbara Billingsley (June); right, Jerry Mathers (Theodore AKA 'Beaver'). (January 8, 1960)One way or another, families have been in the news this week.

That is not a good thing.

Families gathering on a beach planned on celebrating the first day of Hanukkah last Sunday. Then a father-son duo killed 15 of them and wounded dozens more. That father's dead now, too.

News media covering the break in finals week routines at Brown University cycled through to discussions of the dead students' family connections.

Rob Reiner and his wife abruptly stopped living last weekend. Police arrested Reiner's youngest son, charging him with killing the couple.1

That left me feeling even less happy than usual about what's in my news feed: which, together with a quote I saw in an Advent calendar, got me started thinking....

More at A Catholic Citizen in America.

(Mass murder at a Hanukkah celebration, campus killings, and family murders in Brentwood started me thinking. Life, families: and a few good ideas.)

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