Category: Lifestyle
My search for America’s last decent public libraries
As an avid library-goer, I’ve watched with interest how American libraries continue to shift and evolve in our new “post-book” world.
That’s right, one thing you notice in libraries these days: There are fewer books. And the ones they do have are checked out less often.
She shrugged and said, ‘Libraries are for everyone. I’m not allowed to tell them to turn their phone down.’
If you can’t find the book you want, you can always reserve it through the library system’s website. But increasingly, those books are not located in a branch library. They are in a warehouse somewhere. In a state of storage.
When you receive these stored books, they often look strange and sickly. Like they haven’t seen sunlight in a while. Like they belong in a museum, an artifact from the past.
Into the future
A couple of years ago, I visited several recently completed public libraries in major North American cities: Seattle, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Calgary, among others. I noticed these libraries had been specifically designed in anticipation of a decline in book-reading.
These new buildings had “craft” areas, or recording studios, or computer labs. They had conference rooms, where they held workshops for seniors to help them use their smartphones, or instruct young people on how to start a business.
Most of these new libraries were socialistic in nature. They were becoming places where people could access social programs and government assistance. You could sign up for job training. You could get help with your taxes.
Prisons and psych wards
Another thing I noticed: The designers and architects of these libraries seemed to believe that rampant homelessness was not a passing trend. In their minds, this was a permanent situation, which libraries would need to accommodate and serve.
Because of this, many contemporary libraries look and feel very different from the classic library environment.
They had removed old, comfortable furniture and replaced it with unbreakable plastic chairs and tables. Reading lamps were gone, with harsh overhead LED lighting taking their place. Charging stations and sleeping lounges were favored over cozy study nooks. Couches or armchairs were made of odor-resistant, easily disinfected fabrics. Outdoor areas were constructed so they could be hosed down.
Because of these changes, many new libraries often looked like a cross between a prison and a psych ward. They’d been designed to house unclean, unpredictable, occasionally violent, and sometimes incontinent humans.
Shhhhhhhh!
One recent incident I found interesting: I was in a local library, and a patron was watching a TV show very loudly on his phone.
A librarian appeared to see what the noise was. I looked at her like, “Can you say something to that person?”
She shrugged and said, “Libraries are for everyone. I’m not allowed to tell them to turn their phone down.”
She wasn’t allowed? I thought to myself.
“But you,” she said, looking at me. “You can say something.”
Looking at the TV-watching patron, I didn’t feel inclined to confront him. But how could it be that the librarian wasn’t allowed to intervene?
In search of the ‘luxury library’
Like I said, I love libraries. I love the quiet. I love the atmosphere. I love being around other studious types like myself.
I’ve kept tabs on the libraries in my own city, frequently visiting some of my old favorites, to check on which ones are making progress and which ones are getting worse. (They’re all getting worse.)
But recently, I stopped doing that. I don’t go to the big central library building anymore. I have seen enough during recent years to know what that looks like.
Now what I do — at home and in other cities I visit — is figure out where the wealthiest parts of town are, and I find small regional libraries in those areas.
In such places, you have the best chance of finding the “original library experience.” Peace. Quiet. Clean carpets. Comfortable chairs.
You encounter kind, thoughtful librarians (as opposed to the PTSD librarians you encounter in the war-zone libraries).
Actual families visit these places. Moms with their kids. Teenagers after school.
There’s no need for armed security at the front door. There are no Narcan canisters rolling around in the bathroom.
What about the children?
But even these places are subject to change, as they continue to expand their purview.
In one such “luxury library” I frequent, the library has become a kind of part-time nursery school. During certain hours, one half of the building fills up with small children. There are toys and games and little play areas set up for them.
Because this small library is basically one giant room, I am exposed to the screams and cries of the children. They run around. Occasionally, I find them hiding under my table as I work.
I don’t mind the children at all. I don’t have children of my own and always enjoy their antics. And the library has to do something with that space, don’t they?
RELATED: When did America’s public libraries become homeless encampments?
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Still searching
Even in these wealthy neighborhoods, it’s clear that the libraries are struggling to find ways to remain relevant to their communities.
They have my sympathies. I don’t want libraries to go away. But what purpose will they serve going forward?
I’d prefer that libraries not become another arm of the “nanny state,” full of progressive propaganda and social activism. (“Drag Queen Story Hour” is trying to make a comeback at one library in my city.)
And what about the homeless? Is it really the fate of our great American library system to become a charging station and nod-out zone for drug addicts and street people?
But such is the nature of our socialist society. Tiny enclaves of luxury. Prisons and psych wards for everybody else.
The only solution I have found is to seek out these “luxury libraries” — and make full use of them. And I recommend that others do the same.
Why 3 kids are easier than 1
Two of our kids went to visit my parents a couple days ago, so my wife and I are home with just our youngest for a few nights. It’s strange. It kind of feels like it felt when we only had our first. It’s so quiet, so insanely quiet.
In fact, I’m laughing as I write this thinking about just how quiet it is compared to normal (read as: insane) daily life. Babies cry and all, but the truth is once you have older ones, you realize that those little cries and protests are really just cute and kind of pitiful, even if they seem furious.
There is something vital in us that seeks out friction and new horizons, physical and mental.
But of course, they don’t feel like that at the time when you are new to everything with your first kid.
Cry babies
I remember one time, probably two or three days after we left the hospital with our son, we called the 24-hour nurse line because we were concerned he might hurt himself from crying so much. She very kindly assured us that everything was fine and that we shouldn’t worry about him hurting himself due to crying.
My wife and I think about that story probably every six months or so. We laugh so hard about how little we knew, how nervous we were, and how loud those weak, little screams from a 5-day-old mouth must have felt to our uninitiated ears. We weren’t used to crying, we weren’t used to holding a little human screaming his hardest. We genuinely thought he might blow a blood vessel or something.
Now it’s different. When our 5-month-old cries, we aren’t particularly disturbed or shocked. It’s just what they do. We know the kinds of cries (my wife better than I), and it’s just not a big deal. They aren’t even loud, or at least not compared to the cries from a 2-year-old in the throes of an illogical tantrum.
RELATED: My son and daughter are fundamentally different — and it’s a beautiful thing
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0 to 1
It felt so hard when we only had our son six years ago. That leap from zero to one is a big one. Up until that point, you have basically spent your life being selfish. In your quiet, organized, little apartment where nothing is moved unless you move it, where no one screams for no reason, and where you actually have time to relax, life is very easy. So that leap with your first is big, and the chaos feels like a lot.
But now? This brief return to life as a family of three feels like a vacation. There are no messes unless my wife or I make them. I don’t have to admonish someone every 10 minutes for not doing what they should be doing. I can get so much done, we have so much extra time, and everything is so quiet.
It’s funny how easy that thing that seemed so hard feels now. As we have more kids, we adapt to more chaotic circumstances. We are able to take on more stuff. We are able to manage more people. Our love expands, and so does our bandwidth.
The thing is, we don’t feel it happening when it’s happening. The stress keeps right up, following a straight line so we don’t realize we are becoming more competent, and it isn’t until we are able to visit ourselves in our prior situation for a few days that we are able to really see how far we have come.
Sink or swim
This phenomenon doesn’t only apply to raising a family. It applies to our work, our adventures, and all of everything we do. We adapt to our environment, rise to the occasion, and our capacities expand when needed. If we stop, look back at our lives, and really think about how we have grown, we see that often we’ve grown the most when we have been forced to.
We grow when we take on things we don’t think we can handle. We don’t know how we are going to do it — whatever it is — but we jump in, do it, and two years later, it’s just what we consider to be normal, and we are ready again for a new challenge. There is something vital in us that seeks out friction and new horizons, physical and mental. And so we keep doing that over and over again throughout our lives, and we keep getting stronger and more capable as the years pass, even if we still feel kind of like we don’t know anything at all.
It’s possible to try to avoid struggle and the growth that comes with it. It’s possible to try to take the easy way out. But life finds a way of demanding more of us. Whether we like it or not, we are thrown overboard and told to swim, and more often than not, we find that we can swim quite well.
The harmful entitlement behind ‘affordable child care’
You see it constantly, some version of this claim: “The cost of child care is the single biggest obstacle to working women and families.”
From there come the familiar conclusions: “The state needs to subsidize child care.” “We need affordable day care for working moms.”
No, we don’t.
While claiming to elevate women, feminism has steadily lowered the status of motherhood and homemaking.
What we need is to recognize that it’s not normal — nor healthy — for children to be farmed out to strangers during their earliest years so that Mom can be “more than just a mom” with her career.
Yes, there are millions of families in which both parents must work to keep a roof over their heads. But there are millions more who don’t need two incomes. What gets called “need” is often just lifestyle expectation. What children actually need rarely enters the calculation.
Luxury expectations
Modern expectations in 2026 America look less like necessity and more like luxury — something closer to the “hands-off” child-rearing of aristocratic households than to ordinary family life.
People talk about “affordable day care” as if it were self-evidently necessary. It isn’t. It only sounds that way because repetition has made it seem normal.
Behind it sits an unspoken belief: “It is right and proper — even ideal — to leave our children with hired strangers for most of the day.”
Even 40 years ago, that would not have sounded normal. Most people still believed that all else being equal, children were best raised by their mothers (and with a father in the home). Day care might be necessary — but it was understood as a regrettable second-best option.
Today, even many conservatives won’t question it. To do so invites accusations of harming mothers or failing to support “hardworking single moms.”
But prolonged parental absence is not neutral. Children need their mothers, especially in their early years. We can cite studies, but we don’t need them to see what’s plainly in front of us.
Strikingly, the people who claim to “need” day care are often those who don’t. What they want is a standard of living that would have been considered extravagant a generation or two ago.
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Maxed-out minimums
Take Democrat Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado. She has cultivated an image as a sainted working mother, bringing her small child onto the House floor while lamenting the lack of day care for “working moms.”
There’s just one problem: Congress has had full-time day care on Capitol Hill since 1987.
What’s happening here isn’t necessity — it’s performance. The question she avoids is whether her child’s needs might outweigh the demands of a camera-facing career.
And it’s not just politicians. Middle-class Americans have adopted a set of “minimum” expectations that earlier generations would have recognized as indulgent:
- Two cars (preferably full-size SUVs).
- Separate bedrooms for each child.
- A full slate of extracurriculars.
- No trade-offs between career ambition and motherhood.
- Children’s needs subordinated to adult preferences.
- Government support for single parenthood without fathers in the home.
Modern-day Tudors
In the feudal world, there was a distinction between a woman and a lady. A woman belonged to the working class; a lady to the aristocracy.
Women raised their children directly — feeding them, caring for them, folding them into the rhythms of daily life. Ladies did not.
In the Tudor royal court, for example, a noblewoman did not breastfeed. A wet nurse was hired in advance and took over immediately. Children were raised by nurses, governesses, and tutors, with parents appearing only intermittently.
The result was distance — emotional, developmental, and often moral.
For all our technological differences, the psychology isn’t so different today. The aristocratic habits of detachment have been democratized. What was once a marker of nobility is now treated as a baseline expectation.
There are better models to follow.
An old-fashioned approach
I have a friend, Tasha, a Catholic mother of nine. Her husband works full-time; she manages the home.
They don’t have two SUVs. They don’t have a large house. But they have what they need: a home, a van that fits everyone, good food, clean clothes, and a stable, loving family life.
How does she do it? The way families did for generations — before the late-20th-century promise that women could “have it all” and should expect it immediately.
She shops carefully. Buys in bulk. Reuses what she can. She hasn’t outfitted each child with personal screens to keep them isolated. Her household is structured around shared life, not individual consumption.
Degraded status
While claiming to elevate women, feminism has steadily lowered the status of motherhood and homemaking. For decades, we’ve heard that women are “more than just mothers,” that raising children prevents them from “being someone.”
Consider what that sounds like to a child.
The desire for status is natural — for men and women alike. Motherhood once carried that status. As it has been stripped away, many women seek it elsewhere.
But the substitute — career-first identity combined with outsourced child-rearing — is narcissistic, materialistic, and ultimately unsatisfying. It can be hard on families and hard on children.
It’s also hard on mothers themselves. I’ve known many women who report that their contentment increased when they let go of “girlboss” career-woman expectations to concentrate on raising their children and making the home a nurturing place for their families.
Where now?
How do we fix this? I don’t know. Many Western families can’t get by on a single income. Men who want to be good providers can work hard and it’s still not enough. Some mothers need to work.
But we can acknowledge that economic reality without accepting how it has distorted us. We can stop demanding a government solution to what is fundamentally a problem of values. We need to reacquaint ourselves with what we really are as men and women and what we really need. I can’t give a road map for how to achieve this. But it has to start by hauling our aristocratic assumptions into the sunlight and seeing them for what they are.
Peter Hitchens: Leftist gadfly who found wisdom in fear of God
The late Christopher Hitchens had no shortage of objections to Christianity. But he reserved special contempt for hell — a doctrine he believed reduced faith to fear and the divine to a “celestial dictatorship.” A God willing to resort to such primitive extortion was hardly worthy of man’s admiration, let alone worship.
Hitchens also certainly knew that bringing up eternal damnation was a good way to unsettle his Christian sparring partners, who often seemed vaguely embarrassed by the punitive side of the faith.
‘I am no longer shocked by the realization that I may be judged,’ he wrote later. ‘It has ever after been obvious to me.’
Peter Hitchens had no such compunctions. Although he was every bit the cosmopolitan sophisticate his older brother was, it was precisely fear — base, desperate, and visceral — that led him back to the Anglicanism of his British childhood.
He was well aware of how unfashionable a motivation this was. “No doubt I should be ashamed to confess that fear played a part in my return to religion,” he later wrote in his 2010 memoir “The Rage Against God.”
The gift of fear
But it was the truth, and he was too rigorously honest to pretend otherwise. Besides, moments in his career as a globe-trotting journalist — crashing a motorcycle, dodging gunfire, confronting an angry mob — had taught him that fear could be a gift, a way of focusing the mind on what was essential to survive. Who was to say that it couldn’t produce the same clarity in matters of the soul?
The crucial moment happened not in some far-off danger zone, but on a vacation in Burgundy with his then-girlfriend.
There, seeking a break from fine food and wine, he dutifully made a brief cultural excursion. Standing before the famous Beaune Altarpiece, 15th-century painter Rogier van der Weyden’s massive polyptych depicting the Last Judgment, Hitchens initially expected very little.
Instead, he found himself rooted to the spot, mouth agape in terror.
The figures in the painting did not seem distant or medieval. “They were my own generation,” he wrote. Naked and therefore stripped of period detail, they seemed unnervingly modern — recognizable, immediate. “They were me and the people I knew.”
One detail stayed with him: a figure recoiling in terror, “vomiting with shock and fear at the sound of the Last Trump.”
Good and evil
The encounter forced him to confront something he had spent years dismissing — that the Christian account of judgment, of good and evil, might not be a relic of the past but a description of reality.
Raised in the Church of England, Hitchens discovered atheism as a teenager. As the 1960s gave way to the ’70s, this adolescent rebellion gave way to an enthusiastic embrace of revolutionary politics with confidence. Reason and progress, Hitchens believed, could create a far more durable moral order than religion ever had. Like many of his generation, he assumed that once Christianity faded, nothing essential would be lost.
Experience had already chipped away at this faith in humanity. His reporting had taken him to societies where ideological systems had already tried to replace older moral frameworks. What he found — especially in the Soviet sphere—was not liberation but repression. Systems that promised a new moral order instead revealed how fragile moral claims become when they rest on nothing beyond power.
Then came that worn yet still vivid tableau, before which the 30-something Hitchens “trembled for the things of which my conscience was afraid.”
RELATED: Chuck Norris: Martial arts legend who submitted to a mother’s prayers
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Inevitable judgment
“I am no longer shocked by the realization that I may be judged,” he wrote later. “It has ever after been obvious to me.”
That recognition did not produce instant conversion. But it changed him. A year later, faced with a private moral decision, he found himself held back — by the same fear of doing wrong. “Without Rogier van der Weyden,” he wrote, “I might have done that thing.”
Hitchens did not return to Christianity for comfort. His account of faith is unsentimental, grounded in the belief that moral reality is not something we create and certainly not something we can escape.
The latter fact can chafe, leading to a rejection of God that is nowhere near as rational as its proponents would like to think. Instead, argues Hitchens, it amounts to a wishful thinking no less deranging than any “pie in the sky” sentimentality.
The most urgent question
That conviction has shaped his public life ever since.
Today, Hitchens defends Christianity not as a private belief or cultural artifact, but as the foundation for any coherent understanding of justice, responsibility, and human worth. Remove it, he argues, and what remains is not freedom but confusion — and, eventually, coercion.
The two brothers — one a leading “New Atheist” and author of “God Is Not Great”; the other the most outspoken defender of Britain’s disappearing Christian heritage — may not seem to to have had much in common.
But what they did share is a willingness to challenge a sacred assumption of modern life: that faith is optional, interchangeable, and purely subjective.
To both Peter and Christopher Hitchens, the question could not be more urgent. To ignore it leads to hell — either here on Earth on in eternity. Wherever we think we’re headed, the beginning of wisdom is to undertake the journey with our eyes open.
BOX OFFICE KRYPTONITE: ‘Supergirl’ star flames fans ahead of premiere
How much would you pay for a TED Talk interrupted by classic rock tracks?
Bruce Springsteen fans are answering that question in real time. The Boss’ current tour is No Kings on steroids, letting the rocker rage at President Donald Trump at every step of his 20-date slate.
The left’s attempt to cancel JK Rowling suffered yet another humiliating defeat. Two, actually.
He’s calling it the “Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour.” Sure — if by “dreams” you mean the kind of overheated persecution fantasies that regularly drive the ladies of “The View” into a frenzy.
Boss-aholics are shelling out thousands to hear Springsteen crank it up to 11 on the orange man bad meter. Normal folks can simply go on Bluesky or watch “Morning Joe.” The true-blue Springsteen fans get lectures, plus songs honoring Renee Good, the woman who allegedly steered a car into an ICE agent.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for songs honoring Laken Riley or Sheridan Gorman, though …
‘Cannes’-do attitude
It can’t be worse than “Battlefield Earth,” right?
John Travolta shocked Hollywood this week by getting his directorial debut into next month’s Cannes Film Festival.
Travolta, whose career has sunk to direct-to-VOD titles in recent years, will screen “Propeller One-Way Night Coach” at the august film festival.
The film is based on his 1997 book about the glories of aviation. Travolta, a pilot himself since his early 20s, drew upon his own memories of flight for both projects.
Travolta’s film will touch down May 29, not in theaters, but on Apple TV+.
RELATED: Netflix ‘Manosphere’ doc: Virtuous voyeurism and dull TV
Netflix
‘Steeled’ for success?
If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.
Milly Alcock, taking a page from the Rachel Zegler playbook, just put Geek Nation on notice. Watch “Supergirl” at your own peril.
The rising star plays the Girl of Steel in the June release, a project hot on the heels of last year’s “Superman” reboot.
And she’s making sure to attack potential fans weeks before the film’s debut. Here, she tells Vanity Fair why working on “House of the Dragon” made her a target for the very people who consume her content.
“It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on. … We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
Worst sales pitch ever? Maybe not. We’ve already seen Zegler mock anyone who actually liked the iconic Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and look how that turned out. Bombs away!
Before that, those Lady “Ghostbusters” made the 2016 reboot a culture war battle, and that movie dramatically underperformed.
More recently, the creator behind “The Acolyte” attacked fans for not loving the show’s uber-woke storytelling.
Keep it up, Hollywood. At some point, putting the consumer on blast will no doubt pay off …
Wake up, Streeple!
Stephen Colbert isn’t content personally twisting the truth from his “Late Show” perch. This week, he teed up Oscar winner Meryl Streep to do the honors.
The “Devil Wears Prada 2” star visited the soon-to-be-history show, and at the end of the chat Colbert asked her if there was anything else she wanted to share.
Late-night shows routinely do “pre-interviews” where the guest sketches out the stories and anecdotes he or she will share when the cameras click on.
So Streep launched into a fake news scare tactic, saying the GOP’s SAVE America Act would disenfranchise female voters.
If that passes, all the married women that have changed their names are going to have to go to the registrar and prove that they are who they are. In other words, to your voting registrar. This is what I understand.
Streep, needless to say, understands incorrectly. That final “Late Show” broadcast can’t come soon enough, can it?
Rowling canceled? JK!
The left’s attempt to cancel J.K. Rowling suffered yet another humiliating defeat. Two, actually. Last month, the first trailer for the upcoming “Harry Potter” series shattered records for the streaming giant.
Now, we’re getting a “behind-the-scenes” peek at the December release coming April 5. “Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic” will air at 3 p.m. ET on HBO Max.
It’s a brilliant way to build anticipation for the series and get some serious eyeballs. It also points to the utter failure of the left’s smear campaign against all Rowling-related projects.
Progressives have been raging against the British author since she defied the trans movement’s agenda on select issues. She’s all for the trans community but not a fan of trans women competing against biological women, for example.
For that, she’s faced a six-year cancellation attempt, often hyped by the legacy media. Will somebody tell them it’s not 2020 anymore?
To paraphrase 1982’s “First Blood” … “It’s over, wokies. It’s over.”
Understanding gas tax hikes — and how your state is affected
As 2026 begins, fuel taxes are shifting across the country — and many drivers won’t notice until they fill up. Some states are adjusting rates by a cent or less, while others are imposing major increases or overhauling how fuel is taxed altogether. Much of it is happening quietly through automatic systems that rarely make headlines.
Fuel taxes rarely dominate headlines, but they remain one of the most direct ways government policy intersects with everyday life. Unlike income or property taxes, fuel taxes are paid in small increments, embedded into a necessity for most Americans. That makes them politically sensitive, economically significant, and easy to overlook — until prices jump.
The broader question is whether fuel taxes remain a sustainable way to fund transportation in an era of increasing vehicle efficiency.
Over the past year, more than a dozen states adjusted their fuel tax systems. Some increased rates to shore up transportation budgets strained by inflation and aging infrastructure. Others reduced taxes to ease costs for consumers and commercial operators. As 2026 begins, another wave of changes is rolling out, driven largely by automatic formulas rather than new legislative votes.
The result is a patchwork of increases, decreases, pauses, and structural overhauls that reflect broader debates about infrastructure, accountability, and the future of road funding.
Small changes — for now
Several states are seeing modest adjustments as of January 1. Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and North Carolina are implementing small increases of about 1 cent or less per gallon. New York, Utah, and Vermont are seeing slight decreases, also under a penny.
These changes are not the product of last-minute political deals. Instead, they stem from automatic adjustment mechanisms written into state law, often tied to inflation, fuel prices, or construction costs.
Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia also allow automatic adjustments, but their fuel tax rates remain unchanged at the start of 2026. That stability does not mean those states are immune from future increases — only that the formulas did not trigger a change this cycle.
Automatic adjustments are becoming more common because they provide predictable revenue without forcing lawmakers to cast politically risky votes. Critics argue they reduce accountability and disconnect tax increases from voter oversight. Supporters counter that they keep transportation funding aligned with real-world costs, especially as materials and labor become more expensive.
While these small changes may barely register for individual drivers, larger shifts in several states deserve closer attention.
Michigan’s major overhaul
Michigan is implementing the most significant fuel tax change taking effect this year. Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed a nearly $2 billion transportation funding package into law that fundamentally changes how fuel is taxed in the state.
Currently, Michigan drivers pay a 31-cent-per-gallon state excise tax on fuel, along with a 6% state sales tax on gasoline and diesel. The problem with that structure is where the money goes. Much of the sales tax revenue flows into the state’s general fund rather than being dedicated to roads and bridges.
Under the new law, the sales tax on fuel is eliminated and replaced with a higher fuel excise tax. The goal is to ensure that all fuel tax revenue is dedicated to transportation projects, aligning with Michigan’s constitutional requirement that fuel taxes be used for infrastructure.
The tradeoff is cost. As of January 1, the fuel excise tax jumps from 31 cents to 52.4 cents per gallon. For drivers, that represents a substantial increase at the pump, even as state leaders argue the new system is more transparent and constitutionally sound.
Supporters say the change corrects a long-standing mismatch between how fuel is taxed and how the money is spent. Critics counter that drivers are still paying significantly more, regardless of how the tax is labeled, at a time when vehicle ownership costs are already rising.
RELATED: America First energy policy is paying off at the pump
New Jersey’s variable approach
New Jersey is also raising fuel taxes under a law passed in 2024 that allows annual increases through 2029 to meet transportation funding targets. The state uses a layered tax structure that combines a petroleum products gross receipts tax with a fixed motor fuels excise tax.
As of January 1, the petroleum tax on gasoline rises by 4.2 cents, from 34.4 cents to 38.6 cents per gallon. When combined with the fixed 10.5-cent motor fuels tax, the total state gasoline tax reaches 49.1 cents per gallon. Diesel taxes rise by the same amount on the petroleum side, bringing the total diesel tax to 56.1 cents per gallon when paired with its fixed excise tax.
New Jersey’s approach reflects a broader trend toward variable fuel taxes designed to stabilize transportation funding. By tying part of the tax to revenue targets or fuel prices, the state aims to avoid sudden funding shortfalls. The downside, particularly for commuters and commercial operators, is reduced predictability at the pump.
Oregon hits pause
Oregon tells a different story. A scheduled 6-cent gas tax increase set to take effect January 1 has been put on hold.
Lawmakers approved the increase during a special session, raising the gas tax from 40 cents to 46 cents per gallon as part of a broader transportation funding package. After Governor Tina Kotek (D) signed the bill into law, opponents launched a statewide petition drive to delay the increase until voters could weigh in.
Organizers gathered nearly 200,000 signatures — enough to force the state to pause the tax hike until the November 2026 election. As a result, the gas tax increase is suspended, along with planned hikes to passenger vehicle registration and title fees. Other elements of the transportation package will still move forward, including a change that applies the motor vehicle fuel tax to diesel.
Oregon’s situation highlights the growing tension between legislative action and direct democracy when it comes to fuel taxes. Even when increases are framed as infrastructure investments, fuel costs remain politically sensitive, and voters are increasingly willing to push back.
The rise of automatic fuel taxes
Behind these headline changes lies a complex web of automatic adjustment systems that now shape fuel taxes in roughly half the country. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 25 states use some form of variable fuel tax rate.
These systems vary widely. Some states set fuel taxes as a percentage of the wholesale price. Others combine a flat excise tax with a price-based component. Many tie adjustments to inflation, using measures such as the Consumer Price Index or highway construction cost indexes.
Timing also varies. Indiana updates its fuel sales tax monthly. Vermont adjusts quarterly. Nebraska recalculates every six months. Several states, including Alabama and Rhode Island, make changes every two years.
Annual updates are the most common and occur in states such as California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
For policymakers, these mechanisms offer a way to keep transportation funding solvent without reopening contentious debates year after year. For drivers, they can feel like stealth tax increases — predictable, recurring, and largely disconnected from economic conditions at the household level.
Are fuel taxes still sustainable?
The broader question is whether fuel taxes remain a sustainable way to fund transportation in an era of increasing vehicle efficiency. As cars travel farther on less fuel, states collect less revenue per mile driven, even as infrastructure costs continue to rise.
That gap is driving experimentation with mileage-based user fees, higher registration costs, and targeted fees for specific vehicle types. Despite those efforts, fuel taxes remain the backbone of transportation funding — and recent changes suggest states are not ready to let go of them.
For consumers, the short-term impact is straightforward. In some states, filling up will cost a bit more. In others, it may cost slightly less or stay the same. Over time, however, the cumulative effect of these policies reaches far beyond individual drivers, influencing shipping costs, retail prices, and household budgets.
Fuel taxes may be collected a few cents at a time, but they represent billions of dollars and fundamental choices about how roads are built, maintained, and paid for. As 2026 begins, drivers would be wise to pay attention. What looks like a small adjustment today often signals a much larger shift tomorrow.
Modern life isn’t so bad (even if my furnace is out again)
Every year, at the coldest time of the year, our furnace goes out. I’ve written about it before, I’m writing about it now, and I’m sure I’ll write about it again. Benjamin Franklin said, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” I say, “In this world, nothing is certain except winter — and our furnace breaking.”
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about modernity: not just as an era, but as a way of life, and as a particular relationship we have with technology and the natural world. Winter has a way of provoking those thoughts. It’s unforgiving outside and warm inside, and that contrast shapes not only our environment but our state of mind. Winter invites introspection whether we ask for it or not.
You don’t actually want to go back to 1198 or 1598. At most, you want to go back to 1998 — before things took such a strange turn.
It also reminds us of something more basic: Winter wants to kill us.
Cold truth
Without insulated homes, reliable transportation, and warm clothing, many of us simply wouldn’t make it. Maybe that isn’t true everywhere. It’s not true in places with mild winters. But it is true here, where the temperature tonight is expected to dip to ten below zero. In places like this, modernity doesn’t just make life comfortable — it makes it possible.
That’s easy to forget. I turn the thermostat up and the furnace obeys. I want it to be 67 degrees, and it becomes 67 degrees. No delay, no doubt. I can count on warmth in the same way I count on the sun rising tomorrow — until I can’t. Then the house turns cold, the basement office becomes unusable, space heaters migrate upstairs, and our seemingly invincible HVAC world collapses all at once. Annoyance quickly turns into perspective.
The furnace, of course, is only one small example. This isn’t really about heating systems or cold weather; it’s about how easily we take the blessings of the modern world for granted.
RELATED: Why does our furnace go out every winter? (and other burning questions)
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No thanks
We all do it. Whatever we have now quickly becomes the baseline. We stop remembering what life was like without it. You see this with people who move to America from poorer parts of the world. After a decade, they are often just as accustomed to convenience as those born into it. You might expect memories of hardship to linger, but they rarely do. Perhaps death once sat closer to daily life, even in developed societies, and kept gratitude sharper. Perhaps something else has changed. Either way, ingratitude seems to come naturally to us now.
Medicine is a clear example. How many of us would be dead without modern medical care? Many. Imagine surgery without anesthesia. Imagine life without optometry or dentistry. It’s not a romantic picture.
The same goes for something as mundane as mail. People love to complain about the USPS, but in much of the world, a functioning postal system barely exists. I know someone who lived in Africa building embassies for the U.S. government, and he told me that local mail simply wasn’t usable. Here we send letters, order books, ship packages, and trust that they will arrive — and that if they don’t, someone will make it right. That trust is a modern miracle we barely notice.
Horse power
Or consider transportation. We can wax poetic about the romance of horse-drawn travel, but the truth is, we would hate it. It might charm us for a day or two, but before long, we’d be desperate to return to cars, trains, ferries, and planes. Modern speed isn’t just convenient — it reshapes what a human life can contain.
Lately I see a lot of anger directed at modernity itself. Some of it is understandable. There are technological and medical “advances” that drift away from the good and toward the destructive. That frustration is real, and I feel it too. But rejecting the modern world wholesale is neither wise nor serious. You don’t actually want to go back to 1198 or 1598. At most, you want to go back to 1998 — before things took such a strange turn.
Our task, then, isn’t to flee modernity, but to refine it. We cannot escape it — and we shouldn’t want to. The better path is gratitude without naivety: thankful for the blessings, alert to the dangers, and willing to curb excess without denying reality. If we do that, we may yet manage to build not just a modern world, but a good one.
Why the FBI ditched Chevy Suburbans for BMW SUVs
The FBI is abandoning General Motors.
For generations, the black Chevrolet Suburban has been a rolling symbol of federal authority. Its size, shape, and presence are instantly recognizable — whether pulling up to a courthouse, idling outside a hotel, or leading a motorcade through city streets. That familiarity, however, is precisely why the FBI’s recent decision to move away from armored Suburbans in favor of BMW X5 Protection SUVs deserves a closer look. Despite the political noise surrounding the change, the rationale behind it is not ideological. It is practical.
While BMW is a German brand, all BMW X-series SUVs — including the X5 — are manufactured at the company’s Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant.
Under FBI Director Kash Patel, the bureau has reportedly ordered a fleet of armored BMW X5 Protection SUVs to replace the Chevrolet and GMC models traditionally used for executive transport. The reasons cited by the FBI are straightforward: The BMWs cost significantly less, attract less attention, and are built in the United States. Taken together, those factors point to a procurement decision driven by economics and operational efficiency — not symbolism or brand preference.
Frugal fleet
According to FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson, vehicle fleet decisions are routinely reviewed based on security needs, usage patterns, and budget considerations. In this case, the BMW X5 Protection was selected after comparing costs and capabilities with other armored options. Williamson said the move could save taxpayers millions of dollars by choosing a less expensive vehicle while still meeting the bureau’s protection requirements.
The cost differences are hard to ignore. Government-spec Chevrolet Suburban Shield vehicles produced by GM Defense have been reported to cost anywhere from roughly $600,000 to as much as $3.6 million, depending on armor level, drivetrain configuration, and mission-specific equipment. Even conservative estimates put a new armored Suburban at around $480,000 per vehicle. By contrast, the BMW X5 Protection VR6 is generally priced between $200,000 and $300,000 — less than half the cost of many armored Chevrolet and GMC alternatives.
When multiplied across an entire fleet, those numbers add up quickly. Savings of $200,000 or more per vehicle matter for an agency under constant pressure to justify spending. From a taxpayer perspective, the question is simple: If the required level of ballistic protection can be achieved for significantly less money, why wouldn’t the FBI pursue that option?
The BMW X5 Protection VR6 is not a standard luxury SUV fitted with aftermarket armor. It is engineered from the factory with integrated ballistic protection designed to meet VR6 standards, including resistance to high-powered rifle fire and explosive threats. These vehicles are already in service with governments and diplomatic protection units around the world, including the U.S. State Department, which uses armored BMWs to protect American diplomats in high-risk regions. This is a proven platform, not an experiment.
Stealth mode
Cost, however, is only part of the story. The FBI has also indicated that the BMWs are less conspicuous than traditional government vehicles. That claim may seem counterintuitive until one considers how closely the Suburban is associated with federal authority. A line of black Suburbans with dark glass immediately signals government transport. Their presence often draws attention.
The BMW X5, even in armored form, blends more easily into traffic — particularly in urban and suburban areas where luxury SUVs are common. It does not carry the same visual shorthand of authority. From a security standpoint, reducing predictability and visibility can be an advantage. A vehicle that does not immediately announce its purpose may attract less attention and lower risk in certain situations.
Critics argue that the publicity surrounding the purchase undermines any claim of stealth, and that may be true in the short term. Over time, however, the novelty fades. What remains is a vehicle that looks like countless others on the road, rather than one that announces its role at a glance.
RELATED: A federal ‘kill switch’ for your car is coming — and neither Democrats nor Republicans will stop it
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American-made
Another point often lost in the debate is where these vehicles are built. While BMW is a German brand, all BMW X-series SUVs — including the X5 — are manufactured at the company’s Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant. It is BMW’s largest production facility worldwide and one of the most significant automotive exporters in the United States by value. The armored X5s used by the FBI are built by American workers on American soil.
That reality complicates claims that the FBI is abandoning American manufacturing. Both the Chevrolet Suburban and the BMW X5 are products of U.S. factories, assembled by U.S. labor, and supported by domestic supply chains. The distinction lies not in where the vehicles are built, but in how much they cost and how effectively they meet the agency’s needs.
Government fleets have always been guided by pragmatism. Federal agencies regularly reassess equipment based on performance, cost, and evolving threats. The FBI’s decision fits squarely within that tradition.
The emotional attachment to the Suburban is understandable. Introduced in 1935 as the Carryall Suburban, it is the longest-running nameplate in American automotive history and has served military, law enforcement, and civilian roles for nearly a century. But symbols come at a price, and in this case that price appears to have climbed sharply.
Time will tell
Imagining a single Suburban costing as much as $3.6 million is enough to give any budget analyst pause. Even at the lower end of reported figures, the cost difference between an armored Suburban and an armored BMW X5 is substantial. In an era of heightened scrutiny over federal spending, paying more than double for a vehicle that may also be more conspicuous is difficult to justify.
That does not mean the BMW choice is without trade-offs. Long-term maintenance costs, parts availability, and service complexity will ultimately determine whether the savings persist over the full life cycle of the vehicles. German engineering can be expensive to maintain, but heavily armored Suburbans are also highly specialized machines with their own costly upkeep requirements. The true comparison will emerge over time.
What is clear now is that the decision is rooted in cost control and operational considerations — not political signaling. The FBI did not choose BMW to make a statement. It chose BMW because the vehicles were cheaper, less visually obvious, and built domestically.
For taxpayers, the takeaway is straightforward. If a federal agency can meet its security needs while spending significantly less money, that is not a controversy. It is what responsible stewardship is supposed to look like. The badge on the grille may spark debate, but the math behind the decision tells a far more practical story.
Massachusetts on track to set mileage limits for drivers
A bill advancing through the Massachusetts Senate would make reducing how much people drive an explicit goal of state transportation policy. It is called the Freedom to Move Act.
The bill, SB 2246, does not impose mileage caps on individual drivers. There is no odometer check, no per-driver limit, and no new fines or taxes written into the legislation. Instead it directs the state to set targets for reducing total vehicle miles traveled statewide — targets that would be incorporated into transportation planning, infrastructure investment, and long-term emissions policy.
When reducing driving becomes a formal state objective, personal mobility inevitably becomes something to be managed.
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts, as it is in many states. From that perspective, lawmakers argue the bill simply aligns transportation policy with existing climate mandates. The state already has legally binding emissions reduction goals, and supporters say those goals cannot be met without addressing how much people drive. SB 2246, they argue, is about planning — not punishment — and about expanding alternatives rather than restricting choices.
Planning … or punishment?
The bill also establishes advisory councils and requires state agencies, including the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, to factor VMT reduction into project development and funding decisions. In theory, this means greater emphasis on public transit, transit-oriented development, walking and biking infrastructure, and land-use policies designed to shorten commutes. Supporters emphasize that the legislation does not ban cars, restrict ownership, or mandate lifestyle changes. It simply provides a framework for offering residents more options.
The practical implications, however, deserve closer scrutiny — especially outside the state’s urban core. In greater Boston, where transit access is relatively dense, reducing car trips may be feasible for some commuters. In suburban and rural areas, the reality is very different. Many residents drive long distances to work because there are no viable alternatives. Families juggle school, child care, medical appointments, sports, and jobs across multiple towns. Small businesses rely on vehicles for deliveries, service calls, and daily operations. For these drivers, “driving less” is not a preference — it’s a constraint imposed by geography.
Future restrictions
Critics also worry that while SB 2246 does not cap individual mileage today, it lays the groundwork for future restrictions. Once statewide VMT reduction targets are established, pressure will mount to meet them. That pressure could influence everything from road funding and parking availability to congestion pricing, zoning decisions, and the collection of driving data. Even without explicit mandates, policy signals matter. When reducing driving becomes a formal state objective, personal mobility inevitably becomes something to be managed.
There is also the issue of trust and execution. Massachusetts has struggled for years to maintain and modernize its public transportation system. The MBTA’s well-documented reliability problems have eroded confidence among riders and taxpayers alike. Promising expanded transit options while existing systems remain fragile leaves many residents skeptical that alternatives to driving will arrive quickly — or equitably.
RELATED: EPA to California: Don’t mess with America’s trucks
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National trend
From a broader policy standpoint, SB 2246 reflects a national trend. States and cities across the country are experimenting with VMT reduction as a climate strategy, encouraged by federal guidance and funding priorities. The premise is that cleaner vehicles alone are not enough and that total driving must decline to meet emissions targets. Whether that assumption holds as vehicle technology evolves — including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and increasingly efficient internal combustion engines — remains an open question.
Supporters argue that thoughtful planning now can prevent more disruptive measures later. By gradually reshaping transportation and development patterns, they believe emissions can be reduced without dramatic lifestyle changes. Opponents counter that history suggests incremental planning often leads to more intrusive policies — especially when initial targets prove difficult to meet.
What makes SB 2246 significant is not what it does immediately, but what it signals about the future of transportation policy. It reframes driving not simply as a personal choice or economic necessity, but as a behavior the state has an interest in reducing.
As the bill moves to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, lawmakers will have to weigh climate goals against economic realities, regional disparities, and personal freedom.
Massachusetts residents should pay close attention. SB 2246 may not tell you how many miles you can drive today — but it helps define who gets to decide how transportation works tomorrow.
Do you follow a diluted Jesus — or the full-strength one?
One of the most revealing features of modern Christianity — across Catholic, Protestant, and nondenominational churches alike — is how Jesus is so often presented: gentle, affirming, and above all reassuring. He is described primarily as the “Prince of Peace,” a title that appears only once in scripture (Isaiah 9:6), or reduced to a generalized ethic of niceness often summarized as “Jesus is love.”
The problem is not that these ideas are false. It is that they are radically incomplete.
Jesus prays for His followers, not for the world as such. He commands love of neighbor, but He never pretends that truth and allegiance are optional.
Scripture presents God as merciful, gracious, and abundant in goodness and truth (Exodus 34:6), but the same passage insists that He “will by no means clear the guilty.” Love, in the biblical sense, is inseparable from justice.
When Jesus commands His disciples to love one another, the apostle Paul clarifies what this means: to fulfill the law and do no harm to one’s neighbor (Romans 13:8-10). Love is not affirmation of wrongdoing; it is obedience to God’s moral order.
This distinction was not always obvious to me.
Scriptural reckoning
For much of my life, I was a Christian in name only — attending church, absorbing familiar slogans, and assuming that the moral core of Christianity consisted of kindness paired with a firm prohibition against judgment or righteous anger. That changed four years ago when I began reading scripture seriously, first through a Jewish translation of the Old Testament and later through a King James Study Bible in weekly study with a close friend.
We made a simple but demanding commitment: start at Genesis and read every verse, in order, without skipping the difficult passages. We are now in Matthew 6. This approach differs sharply from curated reading plans that promise familiarity with the Bible while quietly filtering out the parts that unsettle modern sensibilities.
Reading scripture this way forces a reckoning.
Anger management
Consider Matthew 5:22, where Jesus warns against being angry with one’s brother “without cause” — a qualifying phrase absent from many modern translations. That distinction matters. Without it, the verse suggests that all anger is sinful. With it, scripture acknowledges a truth borne out repeatedly: Anger can be justifiable, but it must be governed.
Jesus Himself demonstrates this. He overturns tables in the Temple (Matthew 21:12). He rebukes religious leaders sharply. He experiences betrayal, grief, and indignation — yet never loses control. The lesson is not emotional suppression, but moral discipline.
Reading the King James Bible makes these tensions impossible to ignore. Its language is austere and elevated, but more importantly, it preserves a view of humanity that allows for courage, judgment, and resolve alongside mercy. This stands in contrast to many modern ecclesial presentations of Christ, which portray Him almost exclusively as a comforting presence whose primary concern is emotional reassurance.
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No more Mr. Nice Guy
But Jesus explicitly rejects this reduction. In Matthew 5:17-20, He states plainly that He did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. The New Testament does not replace the Old; it completes it. The Old Testament establishes the moral and civilizational framework. The New Testament builds the interpersonal life of faith upon it.
Jesus is eternal (John 8:58), one with the Father and the Spirit (John 14). He is not absent from the demanding and often terrifying episodes of Israel’s history. The same Christ who calls sinners to repentance is present when God judges nations, disciplines His people, and establishes His covenant through struggle and sacrifice.
This continuity matters because it exposes the weakness of a Christianity that treats faith primarily as therapy. Churches shaped around likability and marketability inevitably soften doctrine. Hard truths drive people away; reassurance fills seats. The result is a faith that speaks endlessly about peace while avoiding the cost of discipleship.
A pastor at my church recently put it well: It is better to hold a narrow theology — one that insists scripture means what it says — and to extend fellowship generously to those who submit to it, than to hold a broad theology that can be made to say anything and therefore demands nothing. Jesus prays for His followers, not for the world as such (John 17). He commands love of neighbor, but He never pretends that truth and allegiance are optional.
This is why Jesus’ own words about conflict are so often ignored. In Luke 22:36, He tells His disciples to prepare themselves, even to the point of acquiring swords. The passage is complex and easily abused, but its presence alone undermines the notion that Jesus preached passive moral disarmament. Scripture consistently portrays a God who calls His people to vigilance, readiness, and courage — spiritual first, but never abstracted from the real world.
Cross before comfort
Many of Jesus’ parables involve kings, landowners, or rulers — figures of authority, stewardship, and judgment. The Parable of the Ten Minas in Luke 19 is especially unsettling. There Jesus depicts a king rejected by his people, fully aware of their hatred, and describes the fate rebellion would merit if this were a worldly kingdom. The point is not to license violence, but to make unmistakably clear that rejection of Christ is not morally neutral.
Modern Christianity often flinches at this clarity. It prefers a Jesus who reassures rather than commands, who affirms rather than judges. But scripture presents something sterner and more demanding. Jesus does not seek universal approval. He seeks faithfulness. He does not promise comfort. He promises a cross.
As the late Voddie Baucham frequently observed, the cross is not a symbol of tolerance; it is a declaration of war against sin.
The question Christianity ultimately poses is not whether Jesus is kind — He is — but whether He is Lord. And if He is, discipleship is not a matter of sentiment, but allegiance.
