What are we to do over Chrissie Hynde's distress over the fact that her city was gone? And back when I was a kid, there was a singer named Joe South, who had a similar song -- "Don't it make you want to go home?" "There's a six-lane highway down by the creek where I went … [Read more...]

When I first heard the wowza reviews of the eye candy show in Avatar (from what I hear, Pocahantas with Blueskins instead of Redskins), the first thing I thought of was a passage from Lewis who, about seventy years ago, saw all of this coming. How long would it take for bent men … [Read more...]

Gore Vidal has come out with a ringing defense of Roman Polanski -- he says the 13-year-old recipient of Polanski's attentions (back in the day) was a hooker. And this makes everything better . . . how exactly? Polanski hired a 13-year-old hooker? And then drugs her? Most men who … [Read more...]

In my earlier post on Porn as Liturgical Corruption, I described a process whereby a minister who has a private problem with porn makes more and more room for his own compromises in his preaching. This is of course one response, but there are others. One commenter asked about … [Read more...]

This is just a short sketch of something that requires much fuller treatment. On top of that, this is a statement about just one aspect of this problem, and not an attempt to minimize the other problems that might be in play. Pastors are usually husbands as well, and this means … [Read more...]

Modern evangelicalism is a day-old doughnut, but this may require further explanation. We flatter ourselves by saying that evangelicalism is over here doing its thing, and American culture is over there marching to a different drummer entirely. If we are convicted by our sins … [Read more...]

There is something different about these latest examples of sexual hypocrisy. We are used to sexual shenanigans, and we are used to people lying to cover them up. We are also used to the double standard -- if a Republican congressman were to do to a fetching staffer what a … [Read more...]

In a previous thread Jane Dunsworth asked the question when it comes to all questions of "reading culture." How do you tell the difference between some manifestation of lowlife culture and that same thing (apparently) adopted and carried out by someone whose respectability is … [Read more...]

So let's talk about nose rings for a minute. In our recent discussion of tattoos, the nose ring question developed into a significant sideshow, and so a few specific words should be addressed in this direction as well. The first thing to point out (and which I have pointed out … [Read more...]

To pick one of Calvin & Hobbes many high points, I would recall the time when Calvin was industriously pounding nails into the coffee table. His mother comes tearing up to him, screaming, "What do you think you're doing?!" He looks and her and looks at the table and says, "Is … [Read more...]