First it was 60 Minutes two weeks back. Today NPR’s All Things Considered has made the Dixie Chicks out to be martyrs because of lead singer Natalie Maines’s comment on a London stage in 2003, just before the Iraq war,…
Michael Novak on National Review Online perpetuates the false claim that The Da Vinci Code is the product of secularists. But people who want to reinterpret Christ aren’t secular; they want to believe, and find meaning in their lives, but…
Let’s talk about the neoconservative network, and make a few connections, then a theoretical leap. Start at the top. Lately Vanity Fair has reported that Vice President Dick Cheney travels everywhere with a biological and chemical suit. No more specifics…
I’m confused. One of my favorite ads is the series promoting sexual tourism in Las Vegas—”What Happens in Las Vegas Stays in Las Vegas.” Some of these are clever. Like the group of bridesmaids who start rolling their eyes and…
We’re pathetic. Brian Williams is in Africa for NBC Nightly News to report on the AIDS crisis and the focus of his piece is Bono of U2, his visit. What a great man he is, what an investment he’s made…
In a lot of media outfits, when a big guy retires they put together some sort of festschrift, a fake front page, a book of testimonials, and give it to the guy at his retirement dinner. On 60 Minutes they…
It struck me today (i.e., I heard someone else saying) that the controversy over The Da Vinci Code only demonstrates the religious need that people feel, how unsecular most of us are. The book is hugely successful not because it…
One of the amazing/humbling things about blogging is how smart the readers are. As a traditional journalist, I always got to be smarter than my readers; no more. I’ve been corrected on intellectual points again and again, and the correctors…
The American Enterprise Institute has been all over the New York Times this week. First it was Sally Satel, resident scholar, on the Op-Ed page Monday, saying Let’s have a free market for the sale of human organs. Then yesterday…