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 an online discussion assignment to share their dating experiences. The results were very moving and revealed how...
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 hit, homeschooling became the new way of life, and my friends were suddenly homeschool veterans,...
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 Gospel to a group of savage natives in the South American jungle during the mid-1950s. Elliot was...
Judging by the ads that show up on my computer, I am a prime target for women’s clothing stores. Advertisers clearly know they can catch my eye with feminine dresses and skirts. But such feminine dresses quickly become unappealing when worn by those recently featured in a New York Times article entitled “The Boys...
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 Gospel to a group of savage natives in the South American jungle during the mid-1950s. Elliot was...
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. Oh, wait, that’s not it exactly. In actuality, it’s all Trump’s fault, Frum, once a leading voice of...
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 for those realizing their trust and confidence in authorities was betrayed. Regardless of which camp...
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 reminiscent of the Capitol dome. Several years ago, the park hosting the conservatory must have...
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 practice doctor who had great success in treating COVID. According to him, COVID, if treated...
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, 21 on Saturday night alone. But Chicago is not the only city having problems. A recent...
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 whether my acquaintance will choose a new moniker for that poor puppy sometime soon. For...
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 false god to whom we must pay homage, following its every dictate. The idea that...
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 high school administrators. O’Keefe’s original school picture featured a gray sweater over a low-cut black...
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. The most recent death was that of six-year-old Aniya Allen, who was shot in the...
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 I caught it from must not have been wearing masks since the virus had spread....
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 Washington Post article. She explains how David Díaz, a vaccinated 29-year-old, struggles to go for a run...
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 medical leave, and financial benefits all appear to help young couples in their quest to raise the...
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, officials in states other than my own think you do. Slate, it appears, kicked off this questioning of...
“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 were told that they had a “mosaic embryo.” A mosaic embryo, Kerubo explains, is one which could result in...
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 why we see increasing condemnation of competition (“everyone gets a participation trophy!”) or “dangerous” activities...
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 friend’s comments on the issue. He then noted that the little he had seen made...
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 a just cause—to promote whatever their latest politically correct cause may be—many others increasingly disapprove....
“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 evident from The Nation’s Report Card, which finds only 24 percent of American high school seniors...
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 its main characters, Mark Studdock, working for N.I.C.E., an organization which pulls the strings in a controlling, totalitarian society....
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 politically correct buzzwords. “Racism” appears with sirens and flashing red lights upon the revelation that...
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 just to keep up with all of them. A few of the most recent include:...
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… “woke.” The selected story was The GayBCs by M. L. Web. “A is for Ally,” repeated the little boy,...
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 sometimes difficult, I quickly grew to love the time I spent teaching, talking with, 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 the service, and then she began to lead those gathered to remember the departed through...
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 lot to drop children off. While it’s good to see kids going back to school,...
“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, she’s probably the envy of many others who want to be in person with their...
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 job was one which the corporate world might frown upon, with responsibilities including changing diapers,...
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 are bad, one would not be blamed for turning tail and running as far away as possible from...
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, I found 10 stanzas of verse written by Rudyard Kipling in 1919. The “copybook headings” featured in...
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 of this topic into everyday life. The suggestions range from using fun and games, to...
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 for those of our elites who really want to impress with their knowledge of history,...
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 four children growing up in 19th century New York, Almanzo and his siblings were once...
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 of those around you. It doesn’t matter which political party people align themselves with. Liberals’...
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 for some, but I tend to think those people are in the minority. A piece...
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 such as Child Protective Services or other agencies with allegedly good intentions. Unfortunately, such an...
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 for a time of encouragement. Neighbors who have waved at each other for years came...
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 the secluded learning environment, and would be happy if she never had to go back...
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 it’s rewarding to see the finish line in sight. Having done this challenge, I took...
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 lie. The real story? I had some congestion, did lots of sneezing, and was quite...
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, “Oh Holy Night,” seems a fitting description of this year. Our world and those who...
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 old McGuffey Readers. At the time, my delight in the McGuffey Readers stemmed from the...
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 of us likely feel similarly to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy as we reach the end of...
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 Snapchat interview, “which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes...
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 ourselves. The fact is there have been many actions by our leaders, both elected and...
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 out for a re-watch and found that yes, “Mr. Smith” rings even more true for our time...