The Whole Culture Is R-Rated

When I saw the [indication] that R-rated movies are on the decline, I couldn't help but laugh (“Family-Friendly Movies Sell Better Than R-Rated Ones,” Nov. 2-8). Do you know that there is nothing in R-rated movies that you don't see and hear on television?

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission has announced the allowance of the “F” word on TV. Keeping kids and Christians out of movie theaters that show R-rated movies (and PG-13 is just as bad, only more kids get to see them) is fine. But what happens when they turn the TV on? It used to be just prime time. Then the talk shows got filthier and the soaps are like mini-porno movies, and even the cartoon shows are nothing but smut.

With satellite TV, people all over the world can see our lack of morals and values in this country. These are countries that still have values and dignity. No wonder they hate us. Kids just learning to talk use all sorts of four-letter words because that's all they hear. It seems that folks can't express themselves any other way. Keeping the TV and videos off until the kids are in bed isn't going to do it. Christians have to keep the TV and videos off period for it to sink in. When we stop watching, buying products that sponsor this filth, stop buying videos and paying for tickets to the movies, we'll send Hollywood a message.

Nancy Sonneman

Cincinnati

The writer is host of the Web site:

www.nancyswritingpatch.homestead.com.

Cord-Blood Collections

Regarding “Bill Promotes Adult Stem Cells” (In Brief, Nov. 2-8, 2003):

During the birth of our sixth child recently, we collected the baby's cord blood and donated it to Cryobanks International. Cryobanks sent us the collection kit free of charge with detailed instructions and made it very easy to follow through with the collection. They even sent a carrier to the hospital hours after birth to take the package on its way. Afterward they sent a confirmation that they have received the cord-blood sample and a letter of thanks for building up their donation registry.

I wish more women knew about this possibility of helping save lives and proving that harvesting stem cells from aborted babies is not necessary when stem cells are so readily available from cord blood obtained from live births.

You can contact Cryobanks International by calling (800) 869-8333 or visiting www.cryo-intl.com on the Internet. They are located in Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Marie Monsour

Barberton, Ohio

Home School Critics

Regarding “Home School Groups Cry Foul After CBS News ‘Hatchet Job’” (Nov.2-8):

Rob Reich, the assistant professor at Stanford who argues that home schooling threatens to “disable children and render them unable to engage in democratic citizenship,” tries to sound even-handed by extending his concern not only to the home-schooled children of Christians but to the children of New Agers, left-wingers, etc. However, he omits mention of the Amish, who only educate their children to the eighth grade, and the Orthodox Jews, many of whom indeed “isolate children while indoctrinating them with a single set of values.” Reich realizes, of course, that the state is never going to get these devout groups to expose their children to the “competing ideologies” he feels our children must hear about (and good for them!).

By never including these communities in their worries about the isolation of children, these critics expose their own agenda. Unlike the communities of Orthodox Jews or of the Amish, the general home-schooling movement signals social change — in a direction the critics don't like. They object to our children being moved out of reach of their social engineering. When they start trying to curtail the “virtually unlimited authority” of the parents of Jewish children living in closed communities in New York or of the parents of Amish farm children in Pennsylvania, I'll take them at their word that they just want what's best for the children.

Patricia Sette

Sterling, Massachusetts

Cheese With That Whine, Sir?

As a parent of five, I would like to add my own sentiments to “The Family as a Sign of Contradiction” (Commentary & Opinion, Oct. 19-25).

Have you ever heard the expression “would you like a little cheese with that whine?” Anybody who is a little different is usually going to get comments. I can tell you that I know that I've said unthinking, stupid things to other people and I certainly didn't realize it until it was too late. All I could do was apologize and wish I could melt into the woodwork. I bet we've all made comments we wish we wouldn't have.

How about forgiving people for not being as enlightened about having a large family (only by today's standards) as you are and maybe, while you're at it, you could show them what they're missing? I remember standing at a candy counter with my first four boys and my sister's two and explaining to the clerk that only four were mine and then chuckling to myself later about how absurd that must have sounded to the uninitiated.

My suggestions to the writer of the commentary: Smile a lot. Make sure the children are behaving in a reasonable manner according to their age. Don't drag 'em out when they're tired and/or crabby. Refer to the list of responses in the Register's sister publication, Faith & Family magazine; my favorite one is about my husband and I having a really good gene pool and that we owed it to the world to have as many children as possible! Research your next vacation and go where you feel welcome. We used to take the kids camping or to cabins where us doing what we do doesn't interfere with someone else's tranquility. And, finally: Lighten up! God bless you and your family.

Sharon E. Coyle

Robesonia, Pennsylvania

Men, Work and Family Life

Regarding “Bring Work Home” (Family Matters, Nov. 2-8):

You make it sound so easy! Don't work so hard! Have you any idea the pressure they put on you to work long hours of usually unpaid overtime? The trips they insist you go on? The sales quotas they impose? They put you in a position where your job, or more likely, the jobs of a lot of other people, are on the line. Especially these days, companies are on the verge of going under unless they get a certain contract or meet a certain deadline.

As for talking about work, it's easy for a mother to find interesting things to talk about: the cute things the children have done, ways to make the home more attractive, vacation plans and such. But what about the husband? Our jobs are usually boring as all get-out. Moreover, sometimes the work is too technical to explain in anything less than a year of full-time training, or the work is secret, or involves trying to head off some disaster that you don't want your wife and kids to worry about because you hope it can be averted.

Did it ever occur to you that the campaign to abolish family and community ties that we have been subjected to for more than a generation has been heavily funded by captains of industry like the Rockefellers and their ilk? Why do they, through their foundations, spend billions to weaken family life? Because they want the working class to spend all our time and energy working in their mills and shopping in their malls! It's not just the Devil that's behind the campaign to corrupt our children's morals, encourage divorce, glorify greed and encourage perversion. He gets financial help from the captains of industry. This is the culture war that we are engaged in, and it is more serious than the Cold War. And we are not winning.

The Catholic press could be a powerful force in this struggle, and the Register is actually one of the few publications that is engaged in the fight at all.

Paul Alciere

Hingham, Massachusetts

Habit Test

Regarding “Calcutta Celebrates Beatification of a Nun Who Was ‘Mother to All’” (Nov. 2-8):

I suspect that those women leading the march in Calcutta are not Missionaries of Charities, as your story and photo caption claim. Check the sari. Look at the two thick stripes, then look at the three-striped sari of Mother Teresa in the photo the marchers carry. Unless the habit has changed recently, it is not the habit-sari of either Mother or the Missionaries of Charity Sisters — whom I was blessed to serve with 22 years.

M.C. Sisters throughout the world celebrated Mother's beatification not by parades, but in going out to feed the poor.

DREW DE COURSEY

Morristown, New Jersey