Media & Culture

This Monday marks one of the most significant dates in the calendar year: Opening Day for Major League Baseball. There is, of course, no greater sport than baseball—a fact that is one of those indisputable laws of the universe. It … Continue reading

Each morning my local county newspaper shows up late. Speaking with the delivery man and calling the office hasn’t changed things. So, rather than canceling the 20,089 daily circulation paper I continue reading the local news with my coffee … … Continue reading

Many Americans participated in consumerism-gone-wild sales during the Thanksgiving holiday. Should we be thankful for this retail madness these sales generate? The conversation at my in-laws’ feast was filled with typical Thanksgiving talk: family, God’s blessings and shopping sales. My … Continue reading

A joint book review of Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons and Bill Kauffman’s Look Homeward, America Over a decade has passed since the fall of Soviet Communism, but in America, the two political parties essentially defined by their approach to the Cold War continue … Continue reading

In a fascinating documentary about Dwight Eisenhower, entitled, “Ike: The War Years,” one particularly arresting scene shows the general (superbly played by Robert Duvall) standing before a room filled with reporters, all ravenous to snatch the least lagniappes of hard … Continue reading

Sometimes lack of focus is a good thing. It allows restless eyes to wander across an insane landscape of newspaper headlines that proclaim every absurdity, outrage, and shameless prevarication possible. All of which can leave a stupefied mind to scream … Continue reading

By now, the plot line of Brokeback Mountain  is well known. For those just returning from another planet, here it is: in the early 1960s, two young, male sheep herders, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar become sexually involved for … Continue reading

The Muhammad cartoon incident is the latest chapter in the 30-year-old revival of a world-wide jihad—holy war—against Christians and Jews. This revival was inspired by Osama bin Ladin’s friend and mentor Abdullah Azzam. Azzam was a Palestinian born, Cairo educated … Continue reading

Americans joyfully celebrate the holiday season in a variety of ways while tolerating one another’s religious and non-religious traditions. During the rest of the year, many Americans practice a new kind of tolerance that differs from the country’s historical roots. … Continue reading

This Christmas season is just getting stranger as we go. All over the place people are trying to figure out what to say to each other (“Happy holiday(s),” “Merry Christmas,” “Get out of my way, I want that iPod”) and … Continue reading

While I cannot say I look forward to Christmas, I celebrate it, even if less enthusiastically as time passes. Perhaps it’s the “bah humbug factor” that comes with fading eyesight and the other vicissitudes of what is, however—at least for … Continue reading

Six hundred million and counting. That is the number of dollars that The Passion of the Christ has grossed and the number of reasons why Disney has been marketing its new film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to … Continue reading

Summer’s arrival means one thing to Hollywood: money. For decades summer blockbusters have represented both Hollywood’s largest budgets and revenues. Not looking to impress the Academy with thought-provoking scripts or virtuoso acting performances, movie studios offer roller-coasters not Shakespeare-in-the-park. Perhaps … Continue reading

Are abstinence education programs dangerous’ A recent editorial in the Philadelphia Daily News titled “Real Sex Ed for Real Lives” by ACLU staffers Nancy Hopkins and Louise Melling opines, “If the president gets what he asked for, the federal government … Continue reading

Recently I wrote a column criticizing an event known as “No Name Calling Week.” NNCW is an event created by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network to address name calling and gay public policy objectives all at once. Since … Continue reading

We’re being told by Democrats that the Bush administration’s war against Saddam was illegitimate because it allegedly lacked United Nations approval and sufficient multilateral support. What Democrats are not saying is that the previous presidential administration—a Democratic one—did not meet … Continue reading

First, the background.  In one of the funniest movies ever produced, Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks managed to spoof both Westerns and racial prejudice by inserting an African-American Sheriff into a town called Rock Ridge, a place saturated with citizens who … Continue reading

The principle culprit of the major media’s latest round of non-stop insipid news coverage is of course CBS News and its Sixty Minutes II report based on what the network claimed was a number of documents that cast doubt on … Continue reading

Forty years after we graduated about half the Sheffield High School class of 1964 gathered on a July Saturday night at a local Holiday Inn for our fortieth reunion.  Four decades had passed since I left Sheffield, Alabama. Located in … Continue reading