From ghetto to ghetto In his 1990 essay "Can Poetry Matter?" Dana Gioia mourned the relegation of poetry to an "intellectual ghetto" where poets only write for ...

The space program is so flatly braided into my life that I use it as an alarm clock. When an orbiter (for that is the proper, NASA-ized name for the part ...

This being my first year as a paying Sports Illustrated subscriber, I was watching my mailbox this week with a mixture of curiosity and indignance. It's Swimsuit Issue Season, that dreary ...

Anger Management is silly and funny and deserving of such small words. Director Peter Segal serves up a campy, if homophobic, reply to our therapeutic culture and ...

The "Fab Five" have done a complete make-over of the Vatican this past week prompting His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, to say, "It is as it was." ...

Readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23 Ephesians 2:4-10 John 3:14-21 We've all seen him. The crazy guy at a football game wearing a rainbow wig and holding ...

Sex, drugs, and mandolins. That pretty much describes the first half of Francis of Assisi's life, says best-selling author David Spoto. His book, Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi ...

Type Ngawang Sangdrol's name into any Internet search engine and prepare to be bombarded. A quick Google hunt reveals over 2800 web pages carrying her name?with good reason. Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and ...

Bless me, Father , for I am about to draw a connection between Your Son's Passion-the story of his suffering and death read in Catholic and other churches this Sunday, Palm Sunday -and a "reality" ...

I am going to break one of my own writing rules here, and turn to Hollywood for wisdom: "Why," said George Burns, representing God, "is it so easy to believe in that movie about exorcism, and ...

Bracketology 101 I was introduced to the magic and ritual of March Madness in my grade school years. During tournament time, my dad would take my siblings and me to McDonald's for breakfast before ...

March is nearly upon us, as is the brink of war. Usually when I think of March I tend to think of college basketball and March Madness, also known as the NCAA's ...

One weekend afternoon when I was a kid, the 1958 film The Blob came on TV. Maybe my mother shouldn't have let me watch it. That scene where the terrified crush of young ...

Every January, millions of Americans, as well as millions around the world, will come together in homes, bars, and clubs to celebrate what is called the ...

I hate reality TV. I think reality TV creators pander to the lowest common denominator so often that I'd rather sit and eat paste with kindergarten children than watch one ...

Opening Patty Griffin's newest album Mil Besos ("1000 Kisses") was like opening a book that I wanted to read in one sitting. And I did. I cued the CD player, wrestled the booklet from ...

I will be the first to admit that when it comes to Christmas, I am one big, wishy-washy mess. Christmas, to me, is what Disney World is to some other adults—a time and ...

"How will history remember you?" That is the question that Mr. Hundert (Kevin Kline ) puts to the boys of St. Benedict's Prep School in his classics classroom. He asks himself ...

Yes, it's official. Freddy's dead. That's what I said. This is the story of how I was painfully notified. I was planning to call my cousin Jim to wish him Happy Birthday. Rather than do something ...

Salma Hayek beautifully portrays the joys and anguish of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in Frida (Miramax). The film reveals the gutsy-ness, persistence, brilliance, and pain of one of Mexico's most renowned artists. A ...