Frederick Douglass once said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Reading is vitally important to a child’s imagination and education. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) notes, "At all three grades, students who more frequently read for fun on their own time had higher average proficiencies."

Much is going on in our country. Some of it is positive and some of it is negative. Something that seems to get little attention, at least in the media, is how our families are doing. What is the status of the family in America?

In 2022, research found that almost 1 in 5 Gen Z-ers were willing to quit their job to be an "influencer" on social media. 12% would quit college. So, whatever an influencer is, it sure seems important to this generation. Is that for good or for ill? While there are rarely clear answers to questions like these, here are some thoughts that might offer a sound perspective on the newfangled industry of "influencing."

A sad commentary on American culture is its confusion regarding love, to the point that love has been flipped on its head to become its opposite!  Today, if you genuinely love, you will probably be called a hater, and many will declare that you are loving when what you say and do is actually destructive and deadly!

Last time, we discussed the two sides of the intramural pro-life debate: abolitionists and prudentialists. And we observed that each side has a valid perspective based on a very true aspect of the issue. But shall the twain ever meet?

I trust you’ll recall the source of this verbal gaffe. It came from our esteemed former president, George W. Bush. It was his attempt to define when someone undervalues or underestimates something. It was a malaprop we all understood. 

Stories of children reported to be victims of sexual exploitation are so familiar these days that they have become little more than background noise in the daily news feed. Even our legislators don’t give this exploitation a second thought. At least, that’s the impression I get from a review of HB 5239.

Picture this: nations all over the world enter into a binding agreement, not with one another, but with a global governing body that they empower to essentially take over in case of emergency.

Last time, we discussed several moral issues that arise when man decides to "play God" in the area of human reproduction. In vitro fertilization always takes innocent life. Embryonic genetic editing tends towards the sad assumption that the mother is the only patient involved, because the embryo is not considered a patient. And efforts to alter a baby's genetics don't have an easy line between "health-related concerns" and flat-out "child enhancement."

Online games and videos are popular in today’s day and age, and many of these games are marketed towards children. YouTube Kids, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and the PlayStation 5 are common platforms that children use to access online games and entertainment.

The pro-life movement is solidly consolidated in its stance on abortion. And this is for good reason, given how heinous and grievous of a crime abortion is. However, abortion is not the only contemporary issue fundamentally affecting nascent life. One issue on which pro-lifers arguably have less of a consensus involves the medical practices for various forms of artificial reproductive technology.

There's a common debate that tends to pop up in pro-life circles when "partial solutions" to the evil of abortion are proposed. Incremental pro-life moves, such as a ban on abortion after the baby is 15 weeks old, tend to draw both ire and praise from the same side of the aisle.

It comes as no surprise to me that the so-called “progressive” mind embraces the idea of a woman’s choice to end a pregnancy. Nor does it surprise me that those of the libertarian mindset are willing to jump on the bandwagon for “choice" as well. It’s their “keep government out of our bedroom” mentality. 

For over 20 years, Bill Maher has hosted the show “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO. Recently, Maher was joined by Piers Morgan and Gillian Tett, a columnist for the Financial Times, to discuss the topic of abortion. In the clip, Morgan stated that Donald Trump’s recently articulated compromise on abortion is not that different from European countries.

The atheistic Left began their assault on America over seventy years ago. Their progress was quite slow in the beginning, and one must give them credit for their determination. They have not quit to this day! A principal actor in this effort has been the Communist Party USA, but it is only one of numerous Leftist groups seeking to divide and destroy this great nation (They all lean Marxist).