Latest Posts

April 17, 2024

Is Apple a Monopoly?

We all know that person who always seems to have the latest Apple gadget. In many ways, Apple products have become a status symbol. While there is a dedicated and loyal group of Apple fans who believe there are no other options and those who view these products as an external signal to the world that they are superior, most of us consider an array of factors when deciding which products to buy or streaming service to select. Continue Reading...
April 16, 2024

The Religious Ransom of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I’ve watched hundreds of westerns over the years, and 48 years ago even wrote my doctoral dissertation on the politics of the genre from 1948 to 1962. I wasn’t surprised when movie watcher Hannah Long early this year called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) the best western ever made: John Ford’s film makes the top 10 on just about everyone’s list. Continue Reading...
April 12, 2024

“Saint Christopher”: Hitch at 75

He would, of course, have blanched—or barfed—if you had ever addressed him that way (probably the only blasphemy he’d refuse to utter). Yet is it really any more outlandish than the conversations we had about another adamantly avowed atheist? Continue Reading...
April 10, 2024

Beyoncé and the Neglected Downtrodden

Given that contemporary pop music is stagnant, Beyoncé’s country-inspired album Cowboy Carter was bound to be something of a sensation. Its chief significance is not aesthetic—the recordings are simultaneously too slick and underdeveloped. Continue Reading...
April 09, 2024

Man and Machine in World War II

Tom Hanks was the moral conscience of America in the ’90s, so far as Hollywood was concerned, and audiences largely concurred, because he’s like a new Jimmy Stewart: he exudes moral integrity and childlike innocence. Continue Reading...
April 01, 2024

Get Back to Work if You Know What’s Good for You

David L. Bahnsen’s new book, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, proposes a counterintuitive, if not contrarian, thesis. An extremely successful businessman (his firm, The Bahnsen Group, manages over $5 billion in assets) and a bona fide nerd who loves to write about faith, politics, and economics, Bahnsen argues that we’re not overworked—we’re underworked. Continue Reading...