Naturally, then, Powergirl and I were freaked by a lengthy and detailed story that ran in The New York Times last week about cone-beam CT scanning technology that many pediatric dentists are using nowadays.

I won’t spoil the entire piece, but the Cliffs Notes version is this: These cone-beam scans can help dentists deal with complex cases, but research indicates that the machines generate way more radiation than is necessary to tackle everyday issues (cavities, etc.) that afflict a vast majority of kids.

What’s more, the piece concludes that these machines are zapping our kids excessively and unnecessarily, at a time when excessive and unnecessary zapping may cause cancer.

The article also suggests that this could be a case of users embracing technology for technology’s sake; though the machines generate three-dimensional images, in many cases there’s no need for anything more sophisticated than a two-dimensional image.

(As a related side note, I’ve wondered why every movie these days has to be in 3D as well. Isn’t high-definition 2D just fine? I digress.)

Anyway, if you’re a parent of a kid with teeth, give the piece a read.

The story, titled, “Postpartum Depression Strikes Fathers, Too,” is written in the first-person by a practicing psychiatrist. Over the course of the piece, the author recounts experiences with one of his patients whom he (the author) believes suffered from PPD. The author also cites a number of scientific research, including one study that revolves around vasopressin, the hormone that triggers parental behavior in humans (I’m fascinated by this hormone in general).

To be frank, the article isn’t that good, and it doesn’t advance current thinking on the subject of male PPD. The theme of the story: Yes, men can get PPD as well. That’s important, but it’s not news.

Still, at a time when 99.8 percent of all parenting articles are about Moms (magazines like Parenting Early Years don’t even address fathers) it’s encouraging to see a respected national newspaper pay attention to medical conditions surrounding the Dads’ experiences with parenthood.

Check it out.

Janet Maslin of the NY Times ripped him a new one. Bob Minzesheimer, of the typically milquetoast USA Today, actually asked some pithy questions in this Q&A. You likely can read other reviews by Googling “Home Game” and Lewis’s name.

The truth is: the book really isn’t that bad. I read it over the course of a few mornings on shushing duty with L. Like his other books, the prose is light and moves quickly. Also like his other books, it is clear from the moment you crack the spine that you are reading the musings of a self-obsessed narcissist who takes himself way too seriously.

Controversy has stemmed from Lewis’s assertion that while “maternal love may be instinctive,” paternal love is “learned behavior.”

If he had taken the time and energy to look into the anthropology behind this statement—made the effort to tell us how in other primate species, fathers are absent all together—I might have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and at least entertained his argument. But the lack of any science behind his argument, coupled with a hearty dose of cynicism about kids in general, made me want to gag. To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, he lost me at hello.

This said, Lewis touches on a number of concepts that definitely resonated.

My first post on this site remarked about early fatherhood as a series of monotonous chores. Lewis definitely experienced that too (which, quite frankly, made me feel a little better about three loads of laundry a day). When he discussed the art of balancing work with different facets of childcare—something I started doing two weeks after L was born—I listened.

The bottom line from my perspective is that any new book that discusses a different approach to fatherhood is worth considering. Not a wholehearted endorsement, but a thumbs up nevertheless.