Sunday Reads...

An irregular roundup of thought-provoking reads. Most made me go “hmm…”

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Modern society flatters men into weakness by promising ease; but a man who accepts ease as his master soon finds he has no strength left to resist anything at all. Comfort is the chief corrupter of the age.” — Hilaire Belloc

• A video explainer of the Attack on Pearl Harbor:

• A first-person historical fiction account of one the heroes at Pearl Harbor, here.

• In 1965, the commander of the attack on Pearl Harbor went on the Merv Griffin show, his interview here. 

• Heart warming: Community raises funds to help retire an 88-year old veteran. 

• 
  

• More Peace: Another peace deal led by Rubio’s State Department. 

• Debt millstones: U.S. taxpayers are paying $11 billion a week in debt interest.  Time for austerity. 

• Young(er) voters shift towards socialism as key indicator that universities are effective. 

• IRS:  You literally cannot have an opinion of government that is too low.  The nonsense continues. 

• Meanwhile, tax funded research finds that chimps in the wild drink more alcohol than previously understood. 

• An essay against the model of “platform teaching.”  Well reasoned. 

• Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year - is a phrase - “Rage Bait.”

• A reflection on gratitude and family, here. 

• Porn is rewiring people’s brains.  Does anyone care?

• 2024 was a year or record low mobility within the U.S. 

• GoodReads 2025 best books of the year, noted here. 

• Sign of the Times: The media and people’s positive obsession with a cold blooded killer. 

• Potential vaccine related child-deaths continues to be researched. 

• Remembering the Berlin Airlift, watch here. 

• Four Covid-trends still impacting k12 schooling. 

• Common Sense: The Swiss rejected a climate-change tax-hike in estates. 

• When politics gets deadly - always wrong - but seldom noticed when it’s BLM or Pro-Hamas stochastic terrorists. 

• 12-hour days is the POTUS routine contra MSM narratives to the contrary. 

• YouTube remains the top dopamine addiction of U.S. adults. 

• Good News: Mass killings drop to a 20-year low in 2025. 

• Understanding our discontents: A reflection on the post-liberal disorder. 

• Tolerance, the must-have, often-missing, college skill. 

• WSJ: Workplace diversity needs a new KPI. 

• Another nation banning cell phones from grade and middle schools. 

• Not Good: Young(er) women are less interested in marriage. 

• Testing Fail: Elite colleges are padding their students test times. 

• The best Cookbooks of 2025 per the NYT. 

• A reflection attempting to understand the appeal of Jimmy Donaldson a.k.a. Mr. Beast. 

• Epstein island photos previously unseen. 

• Americans are tuning out to “news” which given its general lack of quality is a bit of a mixed bag. 

• Status is the superpower of the elites and how they maintain power. 

• Dark Side of the Rainbow: LGB people are more prone to exhibit the “dark triad” than heterosexuals per this research. 

• YES: The entire Kill Bill trilogy as a singular movie experience, trailer here. 

• Delayed not forgone: Fertility rates revisited. 

• Ranking U.S. cities by homicide rates:

• Monsters: The Free Press exposes the “experts” driving child abuse and mutiliation. 

• Cult of death: Islamists force 13-year old to execute a man with 80,000 watching. 

• The Book: Why are so many-Bible themed films being made?  Thoughts, here. 

• The masculine draw of Orthodox churches gets NYT attention. 

• The EU - the UK included - crippled their economy and robbed the future of their families on a failed quest to address the “environment.”

• Listen: The “Golden Boy” the first-hand account of an orphan. 

• The most “mispronounced” words of 2025. 

• Watch a narrative on what life is like in the “day of” the life of a medieval university student. 

• 2025 “color of the year” is apparently “Cloud Dance” or what I like to call, “white.”

• How’s your workplace etiquette? Take a quiz.

• Students: Chromebooks versus brains, that data is revealing. 

• Scott Gallway takes on “talk therapy.”

• Rethinking the family income challenges. 

AI:

• AI fueled personalized pricing gets reviewed.  Odd that policy makers who favor “progressive” taxation opposes progressive consumer pricing.  

• Self-driving cars save lives - embrace them or perish. 

• How will critical thinking fare in the age of AI?

• Foretell: The high-end AI powered hearing aid. 

• AI has a force for political manipulation is a thing. 

• If you love humans, you have to embrace Waymo, apparently. 

• OpenAI - the creators of ChatGPT - has a bias and prejudice problem. 

CHINA & RUSSIA:

• Expanding influence: Russia poised to built a navel base in Sudan. 

• China taxes condoms in effort to boost fertility rates. 

• Shocker: Russian Cosmonaut accused of spying. 

• China is flexing navel power in its neighborhood. 

• Investigating how Russia is manning its army in the field. 

• Massive military infrastructure build-up in China’s high altitude interior. 

• Russia makes smart moves aligning with India at the expense of the USA. 

COURTS:

• Supreme perks: Court offices get to select art from the National Gallery. 

ECONOMY:

• Costco joined the group of job-makers suing Trump over his tariff taxes. 

• Manufacturing recession: Nine consecutive months of contraction. 

• 32,000 jobs axed last month per ADP. 

• 2025 has seen the highest job cuts in the U.S. since 2020. 

POLS BEHAVING BADLY:

Dems:

• NYT: How fraud was leveraged for terrorism under the “watch” of Tim Walz. 

• Casinos in NYC, not a positive move. 

• Tim Walz’s mismanagement allowed U.S. taxpayers to fund foreign terrorists. 

• And of course, Rep Omar’s has links to the fraud for terrorists scheme. 

• And other state wide Democrats were interested in protecting the alleged terrorist funders from prosecution 

• Meanwhile, here’s a snapshot of the “justice” vibe in the land of 10,000 lakes. 

• TDS is releasing violent criminals onto American streets. 

• Larry Summers banned for life from the an association of economists for his Epstein connections. 

• Anti-semitism continues unabated in k12 government schools apparently. 

• Pardoned alleged bribed Congressman to seek re-election. 

  • Dem leader praises Trumps pardon of Dem Congressman. 

• Democrat Election Directors hiding voting rolls from the federal government.  U.S. taxpayers provide nearly $1 billion to state’s to conduct elections. 

• Mamdani to end securing homeless encampments in NYC. 

• Under Biden retreat, U.S. taxpayers equipped the Taliban military. 

Reps:

• Have Caribbean boat strikes become indiscriminate?

  • Meanwhile, Americans seem supportive. 

• Media bias tracker launched by the White House. 

• Kash Patal apparently lacks leadership chops, which surprises literally no one.

• ISI turns towards agitprop and away from First Principles education according to this piece. 

• Republican socialism, not good. 

• Inspector General’s report on Hegseth’s texting practices find fault. 

• A local mayor allegedly committed voter fraud. 

TRAVEL:

• Ranking the most “sinful” cities in America. 

• Ranking cities by traffic globally. 

• Not-so-friendly fire: When our Navy fires on its own team. 

• Would you like to increase your k12 schools test scores?  Ban student cell phones. 

• U.S. Kids are now more likely to be fat than underfed. 

• New study confirms that the way media covers “mass shootings” can indeed drive more “copycat” killings. 

• Yikes! Massive fraud discovered in Obamacare subsides program milking U.S. taxpayers of money we don’t have. 

• Frank Gehry died. 

• The history of the modern gift guide, here. 

• Unpacking the 18 year journey to profitability for Spotify. 

• Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - the iconic new journalism profile.  An audio clip, here. 

• The Atlantic’s top 2025 news photos. 

• The history of the modern Christmas carol. 

• "Wake up and Live" the full Hopkins interview, here: