Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Yesterday, I mentioned that Robert Knight wrote two commentaries about cellphone use. Today, I want to focus on his second that had the title: “This is Your Brain on Digital Screens.” He explains that neurological science is catching up with the tech revolution. We are being overstimulated by these digital devices. “Our bodies emit fight or flight chemicals when we feel endangered, anxious, or stressed. Adrenaline and cortisol rev us up to fight off the threat.” He observes…

Kerby Anderson Columnist Robert Knight usually writes commentaries on political issues but took two columns to address the growing concerns about cellphone use. He began by reminding us of some of the benefits. “Remember what it was like trying to connect with someone arriving at an airport? Or losing written directions on the way to a destination?” Once he dispensed with that brief acknowledgement of its benefits, he then proceeded to remind us of the many concerns surfacing about cellphones….

Kerby Anderson On my radio program recently, we had a roundtable discussion about AI sermons. What stimulated the discussion was the article, “Majority of Pastors Now Using AI to Prepare Sermons Amid Rapid Embrace of Technology.” Leonardo Blair reports that a majority of pastors are using AI tools, like ChatGPT and Grammarly, to prepare their sermons. The 2025 State of AI in the Church Survey Report provided the interview data. Nearly two thirds of church leaders surveyed prepare sermons using…

Penna Dexter At this year’s D.C. March for Life, Vice President J.D. Vance announced the “historic expansion” of the Mexico City Policy, which prevents federal funds from going to groups that perform abortions overseas. Pro-life administrations have maintained and reinstated the Mexico City policy since President Reagan initiated it in 1984.When pro-abortion presidents enter office, they  rescind it. The edict sets the tone for the values the American government will export in its foreign policy, in effect answering the question:…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about social media and the teen brain. Today I want to talk about social media and its impact on teenagers’ mental health. An article in Axios reminds the reader that experts have been “increasingly warning of a connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children.” Apparently, there are lawsuits against social media producers that accuse them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis. One of the experts quoted is Jean…

Kerby Anderson What is the effect of social media on the brain? Nicholas Carr made this observation fourteen years ago in an article in The Atlantic: “Over the past few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” In a book he later wrote, he blamed the internet and social media. We now have studies that seem to confirm what most of us suspected. Neuroscientists at…

Kerby Anderson A few weeks ago, the price of gold shot past $5,000 per ounce. President Trump has been proclaiming that the country is entering into a new golden age. I don’t think this is what he was talking about. Some say that gold is a barometer of belief, while others say it is a vote of declining confidence by the market. It isn’t just that gold is $5,000 an ounce. It is also a recognition that the dollar is…

Kerby Anderson Andrew McCarthy recounts the first time he encountered sports gambling. As a deputy US Marshall, he learned about it from Henry Hill, who was later portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The amount the mob made from the Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal would be a rounding error today in the world of online sports gambling. The Internet revolution and a 2018 Supreme Court ruling has turbocharged legalized gambling. A few decades ago, it wasn’t as easy to bet…

Kerby Anderson Clay Shirky, writing in the Yale Alumni Magazine, reminds us of the benefits and limitations of chatbots. He begins with a thought experiment. Imagine you were sitting around the Thanksgiving table in 2022 and a guest asked the table when AI would get to a million users. Some might say two years away, others might say ten years away. The answer is “a week from Monday.” OpenAI dropped ChatGPT 3.5 on the last day of November. It had…

Penna Dexter Newly-inaugurated New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran for office on a 4-point platform: rent freezes, free buses, free childcare, and city-run grocery stores. In an essay for The Claremont Review of Books, Christopher Caldwell points out that these are the policy positions of the Democratic Socialists of America which, he says, “shows signs of turning into the main political organization of the political Left.” These are bad ideas. There’s already a housing shortage. Mr. Caldwell says the rent…

Kerby Anderson James Piereson declares that “Socialism is a hate crime.” He uses this phrase often used by leftists against them because of their admiration of socialism. He thinks “it is remarkable that, despite its long record of failure, socialism is now more popular than ever among college students and in progressive precincts of the Democratic Party.” He believes that anyone with just a bit of curiosity can open a history book and see the millions who have died or…