Elon Musk and his DOGE-related spending cut recommendations have dominated headlines in recent weeks. Some Americans are treating the announcement of these cuts like Christmas morning, thrilled at the idea that they get to keep more of their money, rather than have it go toward projects they disagree with – such as the transgender mice
READ MOREI spent the first few years of my life in the West End neighborhood of Birmingham, Ala. My mom would routinely pile us kids into the old Ford, and off we would go downtown, observing very old, very beautiful buildings all over the city. These glimpses of structural beauty were deeply stamped upon me –
READ MORE“Be always employed in something useful,” wrote young Benjamin Franklin, promoting the virtue of industriousness and discouraging the wasting of time. “Cut off all unnecessary actions.” Surely, though, he did not intend that we maintain a perpetual busy-ness just for its own sake. After all, as Henry David Thoreau pointed out, “It is not enough
READ MOREAnother Ash Wednesday has come and gone. On this day, many Christians attend church, where a priest or a pastor marks their foreheads with a cross made of ashes, saying, “Repent, and believe in the Gospels,” or more traditionally, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The latter injunction, which derives
READ MORERecently, I dated a man a few times who, as I quickly learned, was opposed to marriage. He pointed out that the legal binding of a marriage puts the man in a very vulnerable position, one in which if – or he would say when – a divorce occurs, his home, children, and livelihood are
READ MOREIn Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House,” we encounter Mrs. Jellyby, a fanatical, crusading philanthropist who by correspondence and personal contacts hopes to bring education and trade to a remote part of Africa. Mrs. Jellyby spends much of her time dictating letters and memorandum to a “jaded and unhealthy-looking” girl who “seemed to have no article of
READ MOREIn an age when Americans are increasingly polarized, there’s something fascinating about the way Meghan Markle – the ex-actress, British duchess, and now Cali-girl extraordinaire – seems to unite us. No matter what poor Markle does, she always seems to leave many Americans with the idea that she’s a clueless pseudo-elite, eager to tell us
READ MOREWhen something gets its own unique acronym, we can consider it to have arrived. Sometime during the last few years, Artificial Intelligence achieved this special status. The promise of AI includes significant economic and societal benefits, such as enhancing productivity and innovation across various sectors. AI can improve business performance through applications like predictive maintenance,
READ MOREIt’s not news to report that Christianity in America has been in alarming decline for many years – even more dramatically so in Europe, a realm which once was known as Christendom. But a new Pew Research Center poll offers a heartening glimmer of hope and change. The decline of Christian America is indicative of
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