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…

From The Christian Science Monitor, January 7, 2005 Skating over the holidays at New York’s Rockefeller Center, America’s skating rink, one can’t help noticing in the crowd of tourists and locals that everywhere someone is peering into a little screen in a gloved hand. A boy waiting in line one switchback ahead plays a Game…

On a cold Saturday morning, walking with my son’s Cub Scout pack as we collected cans of food for the needy, I saw a pickup truck I liked. It was early, and the few residents we saw out and about looked a bit the worse for wear, many hotfooting it out in pajamas across cold…

Time was when I traveled upwards of 100,000 miles each year for work. I spent a lot of time in airports, getting on planes, getting off of planes, waiting for planes. This spanned both before and after the many changes that 9/11 wrought on the experience of air travel in the United States. Security is…