Recent research from LifeWay Christian Resources reveals that 91% of Americans celebrate Christmas. And nearly all of those (72%) agree that the holiday recognizes a real, historical event, the birth of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Americans can tell the story with confidence. Only about 22% nod to that. But even so, most Americans embrace the facts of history, and that it happened the way…
Morrill and Karen Worcester own a wreath company in Maine, and in 1992 they ended the year with a surplus of wreaths. That sparked an idea. Why not use the wreaths to honor our nation’s veterans? With help from their Senator, they arranged for the wreaths to be placed on graves in one of the older areas of Arlington National Cemetery. Other organizations and individuals stepped up to help, and the practice continued quietly until…
Even a web site like “Mercury: Your Daily Emerald Blog,” which is a hodgepodge of New Age, self-centered tripe, can get it right now and then. Or, at least, come close. A 2016 blog on the site offered “7 Lessons from Famous People About Forgiving Others.” The “famous people” ranged from Jennifer Aniston to Joel Osteen to Oprah Winfree to Nelson Mandela. And the reasons the celebrities talked about forgiveness varied as much as the…
Should we critique VP Kamala Harris’ leadership the way we would critique other leaders? Jen Psaki doesn’t think so. In a podcast on November 17, Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, defended her recently tweeted position that Harris is a great leader by claiming that Harris’ critics are largely racists and misogynists. “I do think that it has been easier and harsher from some in the right wing who have gone after her because she…
This week, gather with family. Wrap yourself in Thanksgiving warmth. Pause to reflect, watch football, and eat. And try to be grateful. Not just acknowledge Thanksgiving Day, but actually try to be grateful. Because, you may have noticed, it seems like we are not really very grateful these days. There might be a reason for that. In the last of his letters preserved in the Bible, Paul described to his young friend Timothy characteristics of…
Prior to the pandemic, online education was already thriving. And industries that require mostly computer work were seeing the benefits of letting people labor from home. But the pandemic pushed the workforce to remote platforms and accelerated the progress in both education and industry toward remote work. And along with it, something else escalated. Cheating. The increase of online and remote work has resulted in an equally astounding escalation in unethical behavior. People who work…
William Shatner spent three seasons as Capt. James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek TV series. But pretending to be a space traveler doesn’t compare to the real thing. October 13 Shatner rocketed from earth for 11 minutes and traveled 66 miles as one of the crew of four on Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin rocket, making him the oldest person in history to journey into space. And when Shatner emerged from the space capsule,…
September 28, Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke at George Mason University to commemorate National Voter Registration Day. Following her talk she took questions from the audience. That’s when a female student grumbled about the money the U.S. is providing to Israel and Saudi Arabia. “I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers” about the Palestinian cause, the student said. She noted that “just a few days ago there…
Major American businesses are scrambling to prove how woke and virtuous they are. The simplest way to do that is to bow to the whims of Critical Race Theory. So, in August, Bank of America, Lowe’s Home Improvement, and Truist Financial sponsored a United Way “Racial Equity 21-Day Challenge.” The “challenge” claims that America is systemically and institutionally racist and encourages participants to get “woke at work” while urging white people to “cede power to…
In May, The Late Show host Stephen Colbert interviewed Ringo Starr as the former Beatle approached his 81st birthday. In the segment called “The Colbert Questionert,” he asked Starr a series of mundane and trivial questions designed to evoke deep and thoughtful answers. Of course, the whole thing was for comedic effect, so the questions were things like “Best sandwich?,” What is the scariest animal?,” “Most used app on your phone?,” and “What number am…