This week's links

Some links from the past week:

* 'Backbone parents': Mel Hayde on the importance of saying the little 'no's from the earliest days.

* 'Right Unhappy': A nice little post by Simone on the right kind of unhappiness.

* Collective Shout Campain success: Good news about Collective Shout's campaign calling Diva (accessories shop aimed at 8-13 year old girls) to stop selling Playboy brand in their store.

* Interview with activist and author Melinda Tankard Reist on why she wrote her latest book, Big Porn Inc.

* Carl Truman on what it means to be a theologian of the cross
...and on what it means that God is the God of the cross:

* Ghosts of Children passed: A beautifully written article about the many families who have lost a child, how those chidlren are remembered by their families, and how those outside the family can love and be sensitive to those who grieve. (On a related note, I was really glad I watched the recent episode of Australian story, in which Christina Keneally speaks about the loss of her daughter. Australians can view it free for a few weeks.)

* The forgotten children: Jeremy Sammut argues that government policy on out-of-home care for at-risk children has terrible adverse consequences for many children:

"Many of these children should have found permanent homes years ago, but for the official taboo placed on adoption by family preservation-obsessed child protection services, which are unwilling to take legal action to free children for adoption no matter how inadequate their parents."

* The future of punctuation: A depressing piece in the Wall Street Journal, predicting that apostrophes "will either disappear or be reduced to little baubles of orthographic bling". Oh dear.


I'll share some more things I've found in my travels around cyberspace next week!