In the recent comedy Nurse Betty, Renee Zellweger plays Betty Sizemore, a waitress at a diner in a small town in Kansas. Betty is…

It is impossible to think about “growing up” in modern America without considering the role of the “youth culture” which every young person—even those…

More people these days talk a lot about stories, when you might be expecting them to talk about truth. At a Borders gathering earlier…

There are few issues that have generated more political heat and extreme rhetoric, more anger and hatred, confusion and pain, than the issue of…

For a long time I found it perplexing that some of the most politically chaotic regions of the world are also places either where…

I remember three things about the church I attended from 1976-1979. The first involves scary pastor-portraits in the hallway. The second, roller skating to…

In Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor notes, car ownership is a matter of faith. Lutherans drive Fords, bought from Bunsen Motors, the Lutheran car dealer,…

In the past few years there have been several movies whose soundtracks made more money than the movies themselves. While it’s true that there…

I’m not tense, just terribly alert. It’s as BAD as you think and they ARE out to get you. Suburbia: where they rip out…

Unless you never talk about art with people, or carefully limit all discussions of aesthetic taste to those who are precisely like yourself, you’ll…