Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter I still have most of the Halloween candy I bought this year. We live within walking distance of three public schools. But where are the kids? Very few were in our neighborhood trick-or treating. In fact, not many families with young children live here anymore. This is partially on us. According to a recent CNN report: “Fewer homeowners selling is part of what is keeping the inventory of homes historically low and pushing prices ever higher in markets…

Kerby Anderson On my radio program the other day, I provided a good news/bad news story. The good news is that the youngest generations (millennials and Gen Z) are reading the Bible. The bad news is they don’t always believe that what they are reading is accurate. The statistics come from The “State of the Church” initiative and were recently reported by Leonardo Blair in the Christian Post. Interviews with over 12,000 were conducted online. They discovered that approximately 50…

Kerby Anderson Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided not to revisit its previous decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Although there was a suggestion by Justice Clarence Thomas that the justices “should reconsider” past rulings about same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, few believed that would occur. The case that the court rejected was an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky country clerk who did not want to issue same-sex marriages licenses. As you may remember, she was found in contempt…

Kerby Anderson For the last three months, National Guard troops have been deployed to several cities in the country. Unfortunately, one of the major reasons for this urban crackdown is rarely mentioned in the media. Edward Ring writes about the broader reasons for deploying troops. When we discussed this recently on our roundtable on radio, neither of my politically aware guests were aware of the extent of the dangers in our cities. He explains, “America is being systematically corrupted by…

Kerby Anderson Columnist Cal Thomas wrote about “The Hunger Games.” He wasn’t talking about the movies but about the fact that 42 million people receive food aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That figure represents 12.3 percent of our population. Many Americans learned more about SNAP because of the government shutdown. The government could not fund the program because there weren’t enough Senate Democrats to vote for closure and thus break the filibuster. Cal Thomas suggests, “Now would…

Kerby Anderson The nation has just endured the longest government shutdown in history. News stories focused on everything from flight delays to the interruption of SNAP payments.  As some parts of the government return to normal, there is a long-term economic impact of the government shutdown that very few are reporting. Let’s go back to Halloween. On October 31, the Federal Reserve’s repo facility pushed out $29 billion in emergency loans overnight. That was the biggest spike since the 2020…

Penna Dexter Like it or not, it’s a Boomer world. The huge and influential baby boom generation is still the most powerful presence in American society. Members of the Boomer generation were born between 1946 and 1964. That puts President Trump — born in ‘46 — at the generation’s leading edge. As part of a recent symposium on Boomers, cultural commentator Aaron Renn contributed an essay: “The Boomers’ World.” He says Boomers “empowered the craziest of politics, but have also…

Kerby Anderson Europe is moving quickly to make sure that every person in every country has a digital identification on their phone. Michael Brendan Dougherty dreads that “The Rush to Digital ID is Creepy.” He begins by acknowledging some of the benefits. “Instead of handing your driver’s license over to a bouncer — who then learns your name, address, home state, exact birth date, and what class of vehicle you’re licensed to drive — you could simply confirm via your…

Kerby Anderson The Climate Change Conference in Brazil has taken on a different perspective because of a memo posted two weeks ago by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. He argued that: “Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise.” He recommended that climate activists move away from the “doomsday outlook” they have been promoting. He called it a “strategic pivot” from talking about climate change. Rather…

Kerby Anderson Michael Lewis begins his book, The Big Short with this quote from Leo Tolstoy. “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” He used the quote to illustrate why most on Wall…

Kerby Anderson “American physician Duncan MacDougall is known as the man who tried to weigh the human soul.” That’s how neuroscientist, Dr. Sharon Dirckx begins her column in World magazine. If you have read the latest book by Lee Strobel on Seeing the Supernatural, you will notice he quotes her work frequently. She reminds us that scientists like Harvard professor Steven Pinker argue that the soul is merely the brain: “The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected…