Looking for Abortion Truth in Big Media

August 28, 2015 By Samuel James

As a general rule, I don’t think conservatives should constantly harp about the bias of mainstream news. That’s not because I think the bias isn’t there (it absolutely is, as anyone who watches 1 hour of Fox News and MSNBC can immediately perceive). Rather, it’s because I think the bias of mainstream news is much better explained by a religiously traditional, conservative worldview than it is by a secular progressive one. Instead of constantly crying foul when journalistic bias manifests itself–and... Read more

The Phantom Females of Ashley Madison

August 26, 2015 By Samuel James

I wasn’t planning to write about the Ashley Madison hack. For one thing, the story is its own proverb: Secrets have a way of spilling. For another, it’s difficult to find a moral angle on the story that doesn’t make me either sympathethic to adulterous men or a champion of militant hackers. There aren’t any heroes here, just different flavors of villains. But Annalee Newitz at Gizmodo has written an incredible, mind-boggling piece on the website itself. Here’s the short version:... Read more

I Protested Planned Parenthood

August 24, 2015 By Samuel James

I asked my friend Sean Perron to write about Saturday’s Planned Parenthood protest. Sean works for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. He blogs at Unspoken. By Sean Perron Friday night my wife and I shook up the car paint. Jenny took out the red and white window paint and spelled a message on the back window of our Impala. Jenny hopped off the trunk of our car and we took a couple of steps back to examine her art. The... Read more

At Planned Parenthood, Beating Hearts Are Stopped

August 19, 2015 By Samuel James

The newest video from the Center for Medical Progress is a horror beyond a nightmare. Holly O’Donnell, an ex-“procurement technician” who worked to “harvest” fetal parts for Planned Parenthood, testifies that she witnessed nearly-intact unborn children be delivered–with hearts that beat even as they were dissected. From the CMP’s press release: O’Donnell describes the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘I want to... Read more

A Conversation With TobyMac

August 18, 2015 By Samuel James

It’s an unfortunate reality of Christian music that most of its truly talented artists either abandon the CCM genre for mainstream exposure or flame out in the abyss that separates “family friendly” radio airwaves from artistic flourishing. The Christian music industry, as a whole, does not tend to be friendly to bands and artists whose honesty and musicality exceed their willingness to coddle audiences. That’s what makes the career of TobyMac so unique. Perhaps more than any other artist, Toby... Read more

Tinder Mercies–Or, How Porn Destroyed Sex

August 15, 2015 By Samuel James

You’ve probably already seen the Vanity Fair piece on how the dating/hookup app Tinder is changing “mating rituals” for young Americans. The article is harsh and at times graphic, so read with care and discretion. Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t link to it. But what this article describes is nothing less than a voluntary sex market; the way the young men in the piece describe the joy of seeing all their sexual conquests mount up, you’d think it was prostitution... Read more

Three Cheers for the Homeschoolers

August 13, 2015 By Samuel James

When you hear the word “homeschool,” what do you think? Do you think of underground bunkers filled with fringe evangelical families trying avoid any infecting contact with the outside world? Do you think of rural nightmares where parents stash children in home like pets and feed them anti-government conspiracies? If you do, you desperately need to read Matthew Hennessey’s exceptional article on the rise of urban homeschooling. It’s a lengthy piece, but worth every second of your attention. Matthew’s work will... Read more

“I Don’t Know If I’m Pro-Choice Anymore”

August 10, 2015 By Samuel James

Your must read of the day is by Ruben Navarrette Jr. at The Daily Beast . His confession: Being pro-choice in the face of the Planned Parenthood videos is “getting harder to do.” From his column: It’s jarring to see doctors acting as negotiators as they dicker over the price of a fetal liver, heart, or brain, and then talk about how they meticulously go to the trouble of not crushing the most valuable body parts. This practice is perfectly legal, and... Read more

Keep Teenagers Weird

August 9, 2015 By Samuel James

Last summer, Jan Hoffman wrote a piece for The New York Times on the disparity in quality of life between the “cool kids” in middle and early high school, and the regular joes and misfits who idolized them. “Cool at 13, Adrift at 23” cited a study which reported on a group of American kids from age 13 all the way to age 23. Among other things, the study discovered that the kids who enjoyed popularity and social ease in their early... Read more

Weekend Roundup 8/1

August 1, 2015 By Samuel James

“Iraqi War Veteran’s Perspective on Police Militarization,” Alex Horton The culture that encourages police officers to engage their weapons before gathering information promotes the mind-set that nothing, including citizen safety, is more important than officers’ personal security. That approach has caused public trust in law enforcement to deteriorate. It’s the same culture that characterized the early phases of the Iraq war, in which I served a 15-month tour in 2006 and 2007. Soldiers left their sprawling bases in armored vehicles,... Read more