"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
David Brooks had a pretty fantastic column today, saying that the squishy, therapeutic religion exemplified by Mitch Albom's "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is more of a danger to American society than the muscular Christianity on display in Mel Gibson's movie. Brooks, who is Jewish, does not defend Gibson's film, but he does say that the narcissism and spiritual sloth that characterizes popular religion in America today corrodes public virtue. I wanted to shout, "Hallelujah!" when I finished that column. I was raised Methodist, and have passed through the Southern Baptist church and the Episcopal Church before I finally ended up in the Roman Catholic church 11 years ago. With the possible exception of the Southern Baptist church, I don't recall ever having heard any kind of Christianity preached that wasn't essentially a spiritualized gloss on Dr. Phil-ism. The happy exceptions are so rare I'd sooner expect to find rashers of bacon in the Riyadh IHOP than hear something substantive and challenging.
WARNING: Most of the analysis and reporting you are now reading, watching and hearing about the presidential race is wrong — and it will continue to be wrong.
On the three major issues of year — the War on Terror, the economy and now gay marriage — the political press in the United States is opposed to President Bush's stances and opinions. Not just opposed, but passionately opposed in almost every particular and with lock-step unanimity. That opposition is leaching into the coverage of the race and making it almost impossible for readers and viewers to draw an accurate picture of the current state of political play.
Let's start with gay marriage. Reporters and editors and producers don't just favor gay marriage; they don't work with or socialize with anybody who opposes gay marriage. They might have a relative or two who does, but who listens to relatives? (Via ELC)
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