Annie Holmquist

The online world is negatively affecting the American dating scene. If you didn’t suspect that already, an experience recorded by Villanova professor Anna Bonta Moreland over at First Things will make that clear.

Moreland explains how she gave her students

In the months before COVID hit, a number of my friends began a new phase of motherhood by starting careers as homeschool teachers. They expressed normal trepidation, concerned they would fail, and by extension, their children would.

Then the pandemic

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, by Ellen Vaughn (B&H Books; 320 pp., $24.99).

This is the official biography of the wife of famed missionary martyr Jim Elliot, who was killed along with four other missionaries while attempting to bring the

If you’re tired of the pandemic and just want to go back to normal, David Frum at The Atlantic has news for you: It’s all the stupid people who refuse to take the vaccine that are prolonging our COVID misery.

If you’ve been watching closely, you may have seen a number of fault lines widening in the COVID pandemic narrative. These fault lines are vindicating for those convinced of the underhanded dealings of pandemic authorities for many months, and horrifying

There is a beautiful conservatory in my hometown that houses flower gardens year-round despite our chilly northern clime. Its soaring glass dome was built in 1915 and gracefully presides over a beautiful pond and manicured grounds in a stately way

Late last year I wrote how a personal bout with COVID-19 changed my perspective and gave me hope that the pandemic wasn’t as dire as many made it out to be. My perspective changed in part thanks to a private

Another weekend, another round of shootings. We’ve only just hit the summer solstice and we’re already off to the races of chaos and crime.

Per usual, the biggest rampage came from Chicago, where 54 people were shot over the weekend,

A few months into the COVID pandemic, an acquaintance of mine got an adorable puppy and named it… Fauci.

Admittedly, it is kind of a cute name for a dog. But after the past several days’ news reports, I’m wondering

Traditional church buildings are emptying at an accelerated rate in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. Yet that same pandemic has seemingly caused an explosion of worshippers at the church of science. Science is the new religion, a

There’s a new censorship scandal afoot: it involves school yearbook pictures, a little too much skin, and some lousy Photoshop skills.

Blond, smiling ninth-grader Riley O’Keefe was one of the “victims” of some aggressive photoshopping of her yearbook pictures by

The city that witnessed the death of George Floyd is seeing more deaths this year, only this time they aren’t those of a full-grown man arrested for passing a counterfeit bill: they are the deaths of children caught in crossfire.

Upon recounting my bout with COVID to an acquaintance, I was asked if I knew where I might have picked up the virus. When I mentioned my hunch about the source, my acquaintance gasped, then inferred that I and those

As COVID restrictions begin to fall there seems to be a new problem emerging, namely, Americans’ inability to ditch the masks.

Masks, it seems, have become a type of “security blanket” for many, reporter Karin Brulliard claims in a recent 

After nearly 100 days in office, President Joe Biden made his first speech to Congress last week, introducing a new program entitled the American Families Plan. For the unsuspecting, Biden’s plan may seem kind and caring. Education, affordable childcare, paid

I noticed a strange occurrence lately, which started when several articles began to appear asking if we should still wear masks outside. My first reaction to this was, “What do you mean ‘still’?! You don’t need masks outside!”

But apparently,

“I took a chance on an ‘imperfect’ pregnancy,” the title of a New York Times article recently proclaimed. Intrigued, I read about author Jacquelynn Kerubo’s journey through a fertility clinic where, after initial treatments, she and her husband

In an age where feminism seems to rule, there’s a lot of pressure for fathers to start acting softer and more feminine in dealing with their children. Not a trace of that “toxic masculinity” should come through!

Perhaps that is

The trial of officer Derek Chauvin came up in a conversation I had with a friend this weekend. “Yeah, I really haven’t been able to follow it much, but I did see a few headlines,” was the essence of my

The bullets of cancel culture have been flying fast and furious in recent weeks and it seems a new public figure falls almost every day.

While many in “woke” society would suggest that cancel culture warfare is being waged for

“Our children need to learn more history and civics!” is a regular rallying cry for those who want to see America returned to its moral and common sense roots.

That a greater emphasis on history and civics is needed is

The other day I ran across a passage from That Hideous Strength which seems oddly applicable to our time. A dystopian novel written by C. S. Lewis at the close of World War II, That Hideous Strength finds one of

Oprah Winfrey’s much anticipated interview with Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, has now hit the airwaves, causing a stir on both sides of the pond.

On the surface, the big takeaways from the interview revolve around

We’re only a few months beyond the turn of the calendar and already I have a candidate for the word of the year: Censorship.

Examples are proliferating at such a fast rate that it seems like a game of whac-a-mole

The other day I was sent an Instagram video of a little boy having story time on his mother’s lap. The little boy was precious, the time spent on his mother’s lap special, but the choice of reading material was…

I was a sheltered white girl working my way through my teen years, when circumstances suddenly threw me into regular contact with minority children and families in inner city Minneapolis. Although it was a bit of a culture shock and

Sitting in a pew last summer, waiting for a small funeral service to start, I saw a young woman walk to the podium and begin to speak. To my surprise, she introduced herself as the minister who would be conducting

A smile came to my face as I drove past a school this morning. No longer was it a desolate ghost town; instead, I had to navigate a long line of cars and buses waiting to turn into the parking

“I’m so glad to be back in the classroom!” a young high school student told me the other day.

Her enthusiasm is understandable. As one of the first students to get back to some form of normalcy in public schooling,

A little over a year ago I got a note from a reader who told me she was leaving her present job for a better one. She was climbing the ladder of success and… heading home.

That’s right, her new

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

TIME published an article entitled: “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” Having been constantly told by the media in recent months that conspiracy theories and underground movements

I can’t claim to be much of a poetry buff, but upon seeing a footnote reference to a poem called “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” I was too intrigued to ignore it.

Upon hunting down a copy,

A comic from NPR caught my eye the other day. Promising to tell parents “how to raise informed, active citizens,” the scrawled images and text stressed the importance of civics and made several recommendations on how parents can work instruction

The political jargon and posturing one hears these days seems to suggest that we are in an era unlike any that has ever occurred before. Hope springs anew, there is light at the end of the tunnel, politicians gush, and

I loved Little House on the Prairie when I was little, but as I grew older, my favorite story from this series of novels centered not on Laura Ingalls’ childhood, but on that of her husband, Almanzo.

The youngest of

Fear. Nervousness. Anxiety.

If you are lucky enough to avoid these feelings dominating your person right now and turning a few more hairs gray, then you can likely still smell them in the air and see them in the actions

With mass homeschooling becoming the new norm starting early last year, one might easily assume that parents have by now adjusted to their new roles as teachers and work-from-home employees, in addition to their parenting responsibilities. That may be true

The little kids walking through the airport or the state fair wearing leashes disguised as monkey backpacks signal every parent’s worst nightmare: losing their child.

That nightmare increases ten-fold when the loss is inflicted upon parents via so-called authority figures

The string of bonfires my neighbors hosted last fall were a departure from the norm in more ways than one.

Anticipating the bleak prospect of a Minnesota winter with limited social gatherings, my neighbors decided to rally those around them

I would guess that the neighbor kids living across the street from me are a microcosm of America’s youth population. The oldest hates the distance learning that has been inflicted upon him in recent months. His younger sister, however, loves

At the beginning of the year, a couple of my coworkers challenged me to join the yearly book challenge on Goodreads. While I am still wrapping up a few of my selections, I’m on track to finish my goal, and

I was stricken with COVID last month.

You probably expect me to now explain how awful it was, how I laid around in bed, suffering in agony, and was nearly carted off to the hospital. But that would be a

I caught a glimpse of a friend’s Christmas decorations the other day while looking at social media. Positioned over the fireplace was the phrase, “The Weary World Rejoices.”

That reference to a weary world, taken from the famous Christmas carol,

One of my favorite field trips as a child was my annual summer visit to a one-room schoolhouse where I spent the day dressed in an old-fashioned dress and bonnet, scratching away on a slate and learning lessons out of

When the Civil War interrupts the Christmas plans of the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, the four lament their reduced prospects for a happy holiday. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” Jo says.

Many

Former President Barack Obama took a bold step the other day when he suggested that calls to defund the police might alienate a number of voters.

“You lost a big audience the minute you say it,” Obama noted in a

With widened eyes, pursed lips, and a quick intake of breath the woman muttered in whispered tones through clenched teeth, “He is such a TYRANT!”

Many of us have likely seen similar displays in recent weeks… or have performed them

I recently wrote about one of my favorite movies – “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”­ – noting that its message seems more relevant to our times than when it was first released. After penning that article, I pulled the movie