If you are in NY, Philadelphia, or D.C., have you considered NRI’s regional fellowship program. It equips for better citizenship, I think it’s a great help for civic renewal. Take a look – and especially if you do work that is not public policy or politics. The more teachers and surgeons and truck drivers and accountants and pastors and small business owners and . . . . You get the idea . . . the better.


1.

Protesters in #Baghdad Tahrir square put up a Christmas tree and decorated it with the pictures of their fallen protesters. #Iraq #IraqProtests pic.twitter.com/i6tFHltVm3 — Steven nabil (@thestevennabil) December 10, 2019

2. Grateful to the NY Post for this:

Foreign Desk: Our Duty to Iraq The American media are obsessed with impeachment, “but we had better make room for the Iraqi people,” warns National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. Iraqis have been pouring into the streets to call for a better political arrangement, and as Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil warned in a speech this month, “at stake is whether Iraq will finally emerge from the trauma of Saddam and the past 16 years to become a legitimate, independent and functioning country” or “become a permanently lawless region.” While defeated for now, ISIS and other Islamists could soon regroup if Iraq’s democracy fails to meet the population’s demands, posing a particular threat to minority Christians and Yazidis. “That should rattle and convict us” to continue to support economic development, political reform and security efforts in Iraq, Lopez concludes. “Whatever is going on domestically, let’s not look away.”

3.

I met with @SDF_Syria Gen. @MazloumAbdi & personally saw the destruction caused by #Turkey's continued violation of the ceasefire. Now they are violating agreement they would safeguard religious & ethnic minorities inside 20-mile zone seized. Surprised?https://t.co/ZXFHmCWVIR — Nadine Maenza (@nadinemaenza) December 16, 2019

4.

The question is depressing. So is the "advice." https://t.co/8Rr6eqp7Au — Michael Wear (@MichaelRWear) December 17, 2019




5. Federal Workers Just Got Paid Family Leave. Is the Rest of the Country Next?

6. Toward more family friendly businesses

7. Attack on FDNY dad’s daughter caused by failure to treat mental illness: experts

8.

I am really pleased to see bipartisan progress made in the House on repealing the parking tax on nonprofits and houses of worship. Now it's time for the Senate to finish the task and end this troublesome tax. Churches must not be seen as untapped sources of government revenue. — Russell Moore (@drmoore) December 17, 2019

9. I had no idea:

You've got to be kidding me. After all these years… pic.twitter.com/dhNgjCVzeG — Chuck B (@chUckbUte) December 15, 2019

10. Former Queen’s chaplain to become Catholic

11. Meet the millennial nuns sharing faith through social media

12. The case for the crèche

A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living is currently sold out on Amazon (thank you EWTN World Over with Raymond Arroyo viewers! — video here), so your book may arrive later in the Christmas Octave than the first day (more are on the way), but that’s okay! I always think we should spread the cheer beginning, not ending on the 25th!