Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter Move over Soccer Moms. There’s a rising voting bloc in American politics: the Single Woke Female. She’s young — these are Gen Z and Millennial voters — she’s often urban and she’s never been married.  She’s usually progressive, often discontented. Two professors, experts in demography, economics, and politics, write about her at Real Clear Investigations. Joel Kotkin, a sought-after authority on demographic trends, teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California and runs the Urban Reform Institute. Samuel Abrams is…

Kerby Anderson Why do young people have short attention spans? That is a question the editors of the Wall Street Journal asked college students to address. Here are some of the best answers. One student at the University of British Columbia observed that “we live in a civilization of instant pleasure. Anyone who has used TikTok knows this.” Therefore, students are being raised in a culture of instant pleasure and low attention spans. Another student at Harvard University said he…

Kerby Anderson Social justice warriors and their woke philosophy are taking over nearly every academic discipline, even biological science. A presentation by Williams College biology professor Luana Maroja illustrates what is happening on college campuses. She said, “As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge.” She explained the threat used to be from the right, now “the threat comes mainly from the left.” She is rightly alarmed at what science professors are…

Kerby Anderson Churches are closing in significant numbers. Even the secular press is starting to notice this trend. They attribute much of the decline to the lack of relevance of Christianity to young people. Although that may be true, there are many reasons. According to a survey done by Lifeway Research, about 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, while only 3,000 new churches opened. This is the first time the number of churches in the US has not grown since…

Kerby Anderson One factor that should be considered during the ongoing congressional debate about spending and raising the debt ceiling is the declining value of the dollar. Each year the dollar is losing value. Unfortunately, many Americans may think the problem with rising inflation and the decreasing value of the dollar is a recent phenomenon. Let’s start with the standard graph using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows the decline in the value of the dollar from…

Kerby Anderson Last year, when I was speaking at an open forum, I was asked a question about the ESG Index, which I answered. After the session, I had several people come up to me and express their surprise that I knew what these ESG rules were and had an answer for the questioner. I suspect those people know quite a bit more about ESG now. Stephen Moore, for example, warns: “Biden’s ESG Investment Rules Threaten Your Retirement Savings.” The…

Penna Dexter Last month the White House and the Consumer Product and Safety Commission denied that they’ve been working with climate groups to ban gas stoves after the GOP called them out on it. But, in a recent column, The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel warns readers that, “A ban is the plan.” She describes last month’s White House “electrification summit” and says there is “a coordinated, calculated — and well-funded — strategy” to kill off gas stoves and all “‘combustion…

Kerby Anderson As more research studies are done on the impact of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, we are getting a better picture of what happened in America. Two studies look at excess deaths and excess retirements. One study compared deaths from the virus to deaths due to the draconian steps to mitigate it. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the economists found that there were nearly 100,000 “non-Covid excess deaths.” They also issue the…

Kerby Anderson Teresa Mull wrote a fascinating article with an intriguing title: “Why lumberjacks are happy and you’re not.” A Bureau of Labor Statistics survey reported that lumberjacks and farmers are the happiest, least stressed, and most fulfilled workers.” The reason is simple: they work outside. It also illustrates that what provides the most joy and satisfaction isn’t manmade. This is one of the reasons I am such a supporter of Christian camps and any outdoor activity that connects God’s…

Kerby Anderson Why are food prices so high, especially in places where there are few or no grocery stores? Phillip Longman tackles that economic problem in his article “Everyday High Prices.” He begins with a story of the only supermarket serving an Indian reservation in South Dakota. It looks like any other grocery store with clean floors and well-stocked shelves and an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Those in the community face extreme poverty. They don’t own cars, and the…

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…