Literary scholar Karen Swallow Prior is kind enough to credit me for mentoring her through graduate school. I’m proud to see that she has become a “public intellectual,” writing regularly for both Christianity Today and The Atlantic. You have got to read her essay about
An outbreak of measles that started in Disneyland is being blamed on parents who do not believe in vaccinating their children. These folks, who come from both sides of the political spectrum, fear a link–first raised by scientists but then retracted– between vaccination and autism,
Many have been saying that America is in decline, that our political, cultural, and economic contributions are slipping. China, some say, is the up-and-coming nation. Others say that the age of the dominant world power is over. But an op-ed piece by former General David
In this age of smart phones, we should honor the smartness of Alexander Graham Bell, who not only invented the telephone but made many other contributions to audio technology by figuring out how to translate sound waves into electronic signals. Now researchers have discovered and
In the once firmly Lutheran nation of Iceland, some residents are erecting a temple to the Norse gods. (more…)
The collapse of the housing market a few years ago was caused, reportedly, by predatory lending practices on people who couldn’t really afford to buy a house, coupled with shady investment instruments from the world of high finance. But a new study is questioning that
Lots of people have been hailing the medical uses of marijuana, leading a number of states to legalize the drug if you have a prescription. Now Israeli researchers (Israel being the world’s leader in research into medical marijuana) has developed a strain that gives the
In an article about a prominent non-denominational pastor who has decided that he needs to go to seminary, the writer, Michelle Boorstein, discusses non-denominational churches as an example of the larger phenomenon of “the dissolution of religious structures.” Now we usually think of the decline
Though some polls showed that he would be a front-runner and though he has been acting and talking like a candidate, Mitt Romney said that he won’t be running for president in 2016. Who else should make the same decision? (more…)
Candy sales have been soaring ever since marketers started putting their wares by checkout counters. Such “impulse buying” increases the longer customers have to wait in line to get to the cash register. Now, though, self-service checkout, online retailing, and other technological developments mean that
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In