Something Completely Different

EMERGING ISSUES ON THE HILL: Just One-Third Of Young Adults Feel ‘Deeply Cared-For By Those Around Me.’ Is Social Media The Culprit?

A major new survey of nearly 16,000 young adults aged 18 to 35 years old living in 25 countries around the world turned up numerous positive trends but it revealed some genuinely worrisome news as well.

The survey — entitled “The Connected Generation” — was conducted collaboratively by World Vision, the Washington-based “global Christian humanitarian organization” for sponsoring a child, and The Barna Group, the California-based demographic research firm, and was released last month.

The genuinely worrisome news coming out of the survey is the extraordinarily low number of respondents who “often feel deeply cared-for by those around me” (33 percent) and who “often feel someone believes in me” (32 percent). Continue reading “EMERGING ISSUES ON THE HILL: Just One-Third Of Young Adults Feel ‘Deeply Cared-For By Those Around Me.’ Is Social Media The Culprit?”

Can Millennials Really Be The Loneliest Generation Ever, Or Gen Zers The Least Spiritual?

Two new surveys highlight findings that, if accurate and durable, provide some potentially distressing insights about millions of Americans born after 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States.

These findings should be of great interest in the nation’s capital because most of the people now working on Capitol Hill for individual senators or representatives, or for congressional committees, are members of either the Millennial Generation (people born between the years 1981-1996) or its successor generation, Gen Z. (those born in 1997 and forward).

The YouGov survey made public just as Congress began its August recess revealed that “Millennials report feeling lonely much more often than their Gen X and Baby Boomer counterparts. Continue reading “Can Millennials Really Be The Loneliest Generation Ever, Or Gen Zers The Least Spiritual?”

Have You Bowed Down To Your Smartphone Yet Today?

If the question posed in the headline above strikes you as curious or confusing, you aren’t alone. I was initially puzzled by the headline on the essay that prompted this post, too.

Fr. Dwight Longnecker. Screen shot from his personal website.

Fr. Dwight Longnecker was in Italy recently where he paused to look around at the throng of people and noticed how “the universal ubiquity of the smart phone hit home. Everybody has one. Chinese tourists, American sightseers, Muslim women in burkhas, children and old women, beautiful Italian teens, thugs with tattoos, and charming African nuns.

“Everybody has an iPhone and everybody has their nose stuck to the screen. Not only are their noses stuck to the screen, but there seems to be an odd obsession with taking photographs of everything all the time. (Remember when you only had 24 or 36 shots in a roll of film?)” Continue reading “Have You Bowed Down To Your Smartphone Yet Today?”

AND FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT: From Sachi’s Socratic Dialogue With Kurosawa On Evil

By Willow Viney

Sachi was having lunch in the hospital cafeteria with her mentor, Nurse Kurosawa. “Ma’am, please tell me, why does God allow evil? I don’t understand it.”

Kurosawa put down her sandwich. “Hmm, you know that’s a fair question,” Kurosawa tapped her chin in thought, “Let me think for a moment how to answer that for you.”

Sachi waited patiently while Kurosawa looked down while thinking. Then she looked up again. “Hmm, all right. Tell me, Sachi, I have a question for you.” Continue reading “AND FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT: From Sachi’s Socratic Dialogue With Kurosawa On Evil”

It’s Too Late To Apologize, King George III, Old Boy

Imagine if Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston of the Second Continental Congress were doing their thing today instead of in 1776. Naturally, they would make a music video.

And, if they made a music video as a visual accompaniment to their draft of the Declaration of Independence to insure that King George III understood their intent, it might well look and sound like this superb production from Soomo Learning of Asheville, North Carolina.

Today is the day after July 4th, but it’s never too late to learn more about the American founding, especially the source of those inalienable rights that give life to the Declaration of Independence.

Thanks to Instapundit reader Kaymad for introducing me to this really cool piece of creative history instruction:

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