Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson We love our smartphones, but many of us wonder if they are controlling our lives in ways that may not be healthy. Markham Reid responds to this question in his commentary in Time magazine: “You Asked: Should I Ditch My Smartphone?” He rehearses much of the evidence I have discussed in previous commentaries. Dr. Brian Primack, professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh explains how “the little wobble of the emoticon, or the A-flat ding that stimulated the…

Penna Dexter The #MeToo movement is curtailing sexual predation in the workplace. But it has a growing destructive component. Institutions across society are doing all they can to make certain the term “all white male” could never be used to describe them. Journalist, attorney, and Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather Mac Donald spoke about this to students and faculty at Hillsdale College. She warned, “#MeToo is going to unleash a new torrent of gender and race quotas throughout the economy, on…

Kerby Anderson One of the many dividing lines between progressives and conservatives is their belief in the efficiency and effectiveness of government bureaucracies. Liberals may have some misgivings about how they are treated at the Department of Motor Vehicles or by the TSA at airports. Nevertheless, they tend to believe that government is the solution to most social and political problems. Conservatives are usually more skeptical about government and support the private sector over the public sector. But their reactions…

Kerby Anderson Ayaan Hirsi Ali begins her commentary with these words: “I was a Muslim refugee once. I know what it’s like.” She was en route to Canada to consummate a marriage arranged against her will by her father. At the Frankfurt Airport, she fled to the Netherlands. There, she learned Dutch and received a master’s degree in political science before coming to America. She has worked as an interpreter for abused Muslim women and understands the Muslim refugee experience….

Kerby Anderson Whenever I speak to an audience about the influence of the media on children, I quote from a survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation concerning electronic media. When you add together the amount of time children spend with television, cell phones, iPads, video games, and computers, it essentially becomes a full-time job of more than 53 hours. This is a dramatic increase from over a decade ago. The findings of the survey of over 2,000 young people…

Kerby Anderson We often talk about worldviews, but do we know how they were formed through history? Professor Glenn Sunshine wrote a great book entitled Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home.It helps us see the influence of worldviews through history. He defines worldview as “the framework you use to interpret the world and your place in it.” He begins by discussing the worldview of Rome. By the end of the…

Kerby Anderson Over the last few weeks, I have read editorials and heard comments that have used the phrase “educational fraud.” The reason is simple. We are spending more and more money on public education and have less and less to show for it. Last month was the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Many people call it the “Nation’s Report Card.” This is not a report card you would want to show to your parents. It isn’t…

Penna Dexter No one should be shocked at the announcement that the Boy Scouts of America will drop the word “boy” from the name of the program that has served young boys for 102 years. Beginning in February this program will be known as Scouts BSA. We’ve known this was coming since last’s year’s announcement that the organization is opening up to girls. The Boy Scouts — and the Girl Scouts — were created because of a belief that boys…

Kerby Anderson Another sex education battle is brewing. First, there was a scathing New York Times editorial aimed at the Trump administration and at the idea of abstinence education. Then there was the front-page article in USA Todayon sex education, politics, and pop culture. These and other editorials and articles leave you with the feeling that: (1) the current sex education programs are working, (2) the abstinence programs are failures, and (3) the Trump administration is “advancing an anti-science, ideological…

Kerby Anderson Stephen Moore, an economist with the Heritage Foundation, wrote an op-ed with the intriguing title, “Goodbye, OPEC.” He argued that America was not only on the way to becoming energy independent but was also headed towards becoming energy dominant. What a change this is from just a few decades ago. I grew up with environmentalists warning that we were running out of food and energy. They were predicting future famines and a major energy crisis. It was nearly…

Kerby Anderson Over the last year, we have been hearing that the judges that President Trump has been appointing to the bench have been faithful to the Constitution. But few of us have time to read any of their opinions and determine that for ourselves. So today I want to summarize the first opinion rendered by Judge James Ho (who now serves on the 5thCircuit Court of Appeals). Here is the opening line of his opinion: “The unfortunate trend in…