From The Christian Science Monitor When I first moved to my neighborhood from another state, I was amazed when the shopkeeper at the dry cleaner’s learned my name within just a few visits. I had only been living there for a couple of weeks when one day, I swung open the door and she looked…

From The Christian Science Monitor One day, my daughter’s teacher directed a disapproving tone across the desk at my wife and me. “Your daughter,” she said, “believes that neither of you have a job.” There it was. It was hard to know what to say. Both my wife and I work at home. She is…

Strapped to a chair in a small, grey house on the edge of a Missouri town, 52-year-old David Masters begged for his life to end by lethal injection instead of by gunshot. His three captors, angered that he was three weeks tardy with rent and that he’d made unwanted advances on one of them, obliged…

The Oscars must reinvent themselves again. They knew that going into this year’s show, and made a game effort. The premier brand in entertainment awards, is adapting to a new world. In this new world, you can’t depend on massive, captive audiences. Even if you’re a pop-culture Titan, you’ve got to woo the viewer and…

(Also appeared in the March 24, 2005 Christian Science Monitor) In M. Night Shyamalan’s incredible The Village, there is a small band of people who speak in an archaic register filled with “thee” and “thou,” who settle their policy differences through town meetings, and who live a simple life of chores and small pleasures. The…

[A version of this appeared in the February 22, 2005 edition of The Christian Science Monitor.] This column generated more response than anything I have written in some time. People either loved or hated it. The people involved (Joseph Steffen and Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr.) carry a fair amount of baggage in the eyes…

A new term has crept into our national, colloquial lexicon. And I’m not talking about “you’re fired!” or even “insurgent.” It’s “embolden.” Emboldening is something we are not supposed to do, because those who are emboldened are those who oppose us. It first crept into the national vernacular shortly after 9/11, as new internal security…

This week the President mounts the steps of the Capitol and takes the oath of office. Upon doing so, he gives a speech. It is not a requirement that he do so — but the tradition dates to George Washington. The Inaugural Address is in a rarefied class of speeches, like the State of the…

One of the first times I ever spoke to a real, live reporter, I had made an appointment to see him in his offices. On arrival, I was shocked to find myself stopped and interrogated by a uniformed character in the lobby who checked a list for my name, called up to announce me, and…