The Economist [London], one of the world’s great news organizations, publishes several major survey reports each year — and each is priority reading for the world’s leaders. This is certainly true of the most recent survey, “The World Goes to Town,” a report that should remind Christians of the challenge represented by the modern city.

The public discussion about the power of ultrasound and modern imaging technologies has revealed something fascinating — the pro-abortion movement does not want us peering into the womb. The view inside the womb transforms the moral debate over abortion. Once that image is seen, the vocabulary necessarily changes.

Just a few decades ago, educators and other observers were warning that the American attention span was growing dangerously short. Serious political debate had been sacrificed in favor of “sound bites.” Educators reported that students had difficulty maintaining focus on a subject — even for just a few minutes.

Science and technology, once detached from moral constraints, can and will produce nightmares. Untethered from moral accountability, science becomes a threat to human dignity, rather than a means to knowledge and human happiness.

Researchers at Cornell University are reporting a “statistically significant relationship” between autism and early television viewing in children. The best summary of the findings is available at Slate.com in an article by Gregg Easterbrook.

The threat of nuclear weapons in North Korean is deeply troubling. The very idea that the Hermit Kingdom could be armed with nuclear weapons is enough to send the rest of the world into a state of international anxiety. The political and military dimensions of the Korean quandary are complex and unclear.

The signs are all around us — school buses back on the streets, school supplies on display, families back in town — the new school year is starting all over America. And as the school supplies — we’ve come a long way from loose-leaf paper, number 2 pencils, and class folders.