Local Opinion Editorials

A STORY OF AUTISM, FAITH, AND DETERMINED PARENTING
By Karla Akins, Kregel Publications, PB, 219 pages

Karla Akins and her husband adopted premature twin boys, Isaiah and Isaac, when they were only a few days old. As the boys grew, she noted certain distinct signs of abnormality in the way the boys

If you could accomplish all your financial goals just by putting your paycheck into the bank every couple of weeks, you wouldn’t need the services of a financial advisor. But life isn’t that simple – and so, at some point, you may realize you need some professional assistance. But when?

Actually,

In 2016, I got to visit The Winchester Mystery House. It was a long-time dream to go see Sarah Winchester’s 160 room mansion outside of San Jose, California, and it far exceeded my expectations. Winchester was the heir to her husband’s wealth earned from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company as

Like everyone, you want to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle when you retire. But a successful retirement doesn’t just happen – it requires a lot of planning. And that’s why it’s a good idea to draw up a “pre-retiree checklist.”

Such a checklist might look like this:

Twenty years before retirement:

LITURGY OF THE ORDINARY
By Tish Harrison Warren
InterVarsity Press
PB, 153 pages

Living as humans takes more maintenance than most folks are willing to admit. That being said, maintenance time is often wasted time. Warren gives an example of this in her own life in her opening chapters. The early moments

SPEAK THE TRUTH: HOW TO BRING GOD BACK INTO EVERY CONVERSATION
By Carmen LaBerge
Regnery Faith
HB, 222 pages

LaBerge addresses the silence and fear that prohibits biblical worldviews from being introduced in controversial conversations. How does the gospel fit into the topic of abortion? Marriage?

On February 4, the eyes of most of the country – and much of the rest of the world – will be on Minneapolis, site of the most-watched football game in the U.S. As a fan, you can admire the way quarterbacks in the Big Game direct their teams. But as an investor, you can learn something from the

With the arrival of the New Year, many of us will pause and ponder the age-old question: “Who knows where the time goes?” And, as is always the case, none of us really do know. However, wherever the time goes, it will usually be a key factor in your success as an investor.

Time can affect how you

My freshman year of college, a friend and I dressed as Nancy Kerrigan (me) and Tonya Harding (Kathleen) for Halloween. We rollerbladed around campus and parodied a “major”, often-satirized news story from our youth. After watching I, Tonya, I feel like I owe Tonya Harding a bit of an apology.

With the weather turning colder, this month is the perfect time to bundle up and enjoy a good movie. This week, I weigh an option for the theater, a rental and a holiday classic in re-release.

In The Tribes of Palos Verdes, Phil (Justin Kirk) and Sandy Mason (Jennifer Garner) move to Palos Verdes,

To help achieve your long-term goals, such as a comfortable retirement, you should save and invest regularly. But that’s only part of the picture. You also need to protect your financial assets in various ways. One such method is guarding your personal information – especially any information

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) grows so frustrated with the police’s lack of progress toward solving her daughter, Angela’s, brutal murder that she buys three billboards just outside of the small town she lives in and posts a blunt message asking

You may spend decades contributing to your IRA and 401(k). But, eventually, you’ll need to use this money. Before that day arrives, you’ll want to be familiar with the rules governing withdrawals – and you’ll want to know just how much you should take out.

To begin with, withdrawals from traditional

ALL SHE LEFT BEHIND: A STORY HELD TOGETHER BY DYNAMIC CHARACTERS
by Jane Kirkpatrick Revell
PB, 343 pages

Romances, especially Christian romances, often grow stale with their stubborn sameness. Jane Kirkpatrick, however, injects new life into the genre with All She Left Behind.

The story follows Jennie,

As you know, we’ve been enjoying a long period of steadily rising stock prices. Of course, this bull market won’t last forever – and when it does start losing steam, you, as an investor, need to be prepared.

Before we look at how you can ready yourself for a new phase in the investment environment,

It is not an easy task to create a film about young people that is funny and imaginative while also doing justice to the deep and complicated emotions around making and keeping friends and navigating family dynamics. Wonder delivers on all these elements while also featuring a touching, but not overly-simplified

Thanksgiving is almost here. Ideally, this day should be about more than football and the imminent arrival of Black Friday mega-sales. After all, the spirit of the holiday invites us to be grateful for what we have and for the presence of our loved ones.

But it’s important to look beyond just one

Gender Roles and the People of God
By Alice Mathews
Zondervan, PB, 238 pages

Mathews approaches one of the church’s most controversial topics: the role God has given women in the church, the home and the world. But, by stripping the book’s perspective of language barriers and cultural differences,

I normally find the collaboration between the Coen Brothers and George Clooney at least charming, even when the result is lackluster. Their latest film, Suburbicon, however, is so aggressively bad that it was hard to find any redeeming qualities.

Suburbicon is set in the 1950s in Suburbicon, an everytown

Halloween is almost upon us. Of course, on Halloween night, you may see a parade of monsters, demons, Transformers and other frightening individuals stopping by your house, exercising their right to demand candy. Fortunately, their appearance will be unlikely to cause you unpleasant dreams. But some

Vain Empires
By Brandilyn Collins
Challow Press
PB, 315 pages

Vain Empires begins when six contestants arrive on the set of a reality show that offers the fulfillment of all their dreams as the prize. All it takes to win is to learn which of the seven deadly sins each of them represents. Simple, right?

Happy Death Day can easily be described as Groundhog Day meets Scream, and at the story’s end it acknowledges its similarity to the Bill Murray comedy, but the movie does not suffer from a lack of creativity. Instead, it adeptly puts a funny, thrilling spin on familiar plots.

In Happy Death Day,