Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter When President Trump rescinded his predecessor’s school shower and bathroom edict, the matter landed right where it belongs, in the laps of the states. And my home state of Texas is leading on the issue. On February 22, President Trump reversed Obama guidelines issued last May that specified that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms that match their gender identity. That Obama directive meant biological boys would be allowed into intimate spaces meant for…

Kerby Anderson Anyone listening to the confirmation hearings for the Secretary of Education would think that America’s public school system was in great shape. In fact, the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus even warned that the new secretary “will have an incredibly harmful impact on public education and on black communities nationwide.” Most people don’t agree with that assessment. The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune criticized the secretary’s critics. “Instead of lauding DeVos for trying to break a…

Kerby Anderson Our nation’s intelligence gathering is in the news, so I read with interest a transcript of a speech Herbert Meyer did for a Hillsdale College leadership seminar. He served as a special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and was the Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. Meyer reminds us that: “From the end of World War II until 1982, every president’s objective had been not to lose the Cold War.” When President Ronald Reagan…

Kerby Anderson What is driving the protests by the millennial generation both on campus and in the streets? There are a number of theories. Evan Morrison has this observation: “If you were to come across someone who cried in the streets, who saw the world in terms of black and white and made death threats against strangers, who cowered in a special room and made public displays of naked self-harm and blood letting, you might conclude that they were suffering…

Kerby Anderson Earlier this month, a mob on campus shut down the lecture and attacked a professor. The protest I am talking about took place at Middlebury College but could have taken the place at the University of California at Berkeley or at the University of Missouri or a number of other campuses. Conservative author Charles Murray was scheduled to deliver a talk and then be interviewed by politically progressive professor Allison Stanger. Students in the room shouted him down….

Kerby Anderson Recently I was asked to be on a two-hour radio interview to talk about fake news. Initially, I wondered if I would have enough to discuss for two hours. As it turns out, there was more than enough to talk about. Now there is even more to discuss since universities are beginning to post what they call a “fake news list” of news organizations. A Harvard University library website provides students with a section called: “Fake News, Misinformation,…

Penna Dexter So — the Left organized something they called “A Day Without a Woman.” On March 8th  women were supposed to stay home from work, wear red, and refuse to shop. The idea — I guess — is that the pain caused to employers and businesses was supposed to highlight the value of women. The effort, which organizers admitted was really a protest against Donald Trump, got most of its traction in places like New York and California. Uber,…

Kerby Anderson Your children are facing an onslaught of profanity through the media. Movies are one place where profanity reigns. One survey has been tracking profanity in movies from the first swear word on film (1939’s Gone With the Wind) to The Wolf of Wall Street, which holds the record with 798 swear words. There has been a 500 percent increase over these many decades. The Parents Television Council has documented the fact that the number of expletives on television…

Kerby Anderson A library in Oregon is providing a six-part course called “Adulting 101.” If it becomes popular, I suspect we will be seeing more of these courses nationwide. Maybe I need to back up and define the term “adulting.” Last year, the term began to be used more frequently. It means to “behave in an adult manner” or it can also describe the attempt to “make someone behave as an adult.” It gained some attention because millennials often go…

Kerby Anderson More than 100 million American adults claim to have a biblical worldview, but actually a much smaller percentage of adults do. That is one of the striking conclusions of George Barna’s survey with the American Culture & Faith Institute. It is important to know how many people have a biblical worldview because belief drives behavior. And it was important for George Barna to get an accurate baseline to use in future comparisons. His survey asked 20 questions about…

Kerby Anderson Let me give you some advice. The next time you hear a media report of a hate crime by a conservative or Trump supporter, wait a day and see if it is a hoax. John Hawkins lists “10 Examples of Hate Crimes that Turned Out to be Scams.” Elizabeth Nolan Brown documents in Reason that “There Is No Violent Hate-Crime Wave in Trump’s America.” Kevin Williamson, writing in National Review, talks about both “Fake Hate Crimes” and “Fake…