Most American parents display an optimism about their children living in a richer, more technologically advanced world and as they grow, that they'll be healthier with a longer life expectancy. All that said, there's also a remarkable pessimism about the moral decline they are bequeathing to the next generation. A new cultural-values survey of 2,000 American adults performed by the polling firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates for the Culture and Media Institute reveals a strong majority, 74 percent, believes moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago. Almost half, 48 percent, agree that values are... continue reading
Most liberal media outlets can't be bothered to visit, let alone cover the Conservative Political Action Conference every winter. But this year's event drew a large amount of publicity. CPAC hasn't been this notorious since reporter/fabricator Stephen Glass made up stories of wild sexual antics and drug use at CPAC hotel rooms and bathrooms ten years ago for The New Republic. The furor surrounded author and columnist Ann Coulter, who cracked that she would like to comment on John Edwards, but "you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'" Coulter's joke was based on ABC's intense... continue reading
There are two men my mother has loved passionately, as her ten children will attest. There is my father, of course, but he always had to compete (patiently) with her crush: John Wayne. Handsome, strong, brave, virtuous, charming and a red-blooded patriot, he was the complete Hollywood package in her eyes, the standard-bearer in the days when Tinseltown unashamedly, and unabashedly, championed America to the world. All that changed with Vietnam. The lines of demarcation between good and evil were blurred - or reversed. Hollywood lurched to that extreme in the '70s and '80s with "Platoon," "Full Metal Jacket," "Coming... continue reading
By L. Brent Bozell III The press releases of the Discovery Channel boast that its parent company, Discovery Communications, is the "number one nonfiction media company." That identifier is now in shambles, and the paper it's printed on fit only to be crumpled and thrown away. The folks at Discovery have rendered themselves carnival barkers peddling sensationalistic garbage, trashy money-making gimmicks dressed up as real journalism. The Discovery Channel is hyping to the heavens its new documentary on "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of "Titanic," has joined filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici in publicizing claims that a... continue reading
In her book reflecting on Pope John Paul the Great, Peggy Noonan told of her parents coming of age in a time when they didn't absorb religious art, but rather celluloid images of movie stars. They left religious faith and devotion to saints behind for icons of a different kind: "Bogie and Gable and Cagney and Bette Davis. We did not as a family go to church. But we never missed the Academy Awards." In our own age, it is so much easier to get lost in celebrity worship. To own a television and to be considered even a novice... continue reading
Al Gore may not have won the presidency (thank God), but over the last two years, he's been given an enormous consolation prize by his friends on the left. He's been designated as the Savior of the Planet. First came the warm wave of supportive publicity surrounding his slide-show documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Katie Couric and Harry Smith and Oprah Winfrey all touted Gore as so warm, so vulnerable and self-effacing, and his predictions so impossibly scary. Last May, Gore and Couric sat together on a sunny day in Central Park and unspooled the doom. Manhattan would be under deep... continue reading
I'll be forever grateful to my parents, authors both, for teaching me to read. Not how to read, just to read. In a simpler time, before the internet, before the electronic video games, before cable, before Ipods, this was not the challenge it is today. We lived in the country with rabbit-eared television sets with access to less than a handful of stations, half of which crackled with snow, and it really didn't matter anyway because we were allowed only two hours' viewing per week - so we read. Hollywood is in the business of entertainment. It has befuddled me... continue reading
In every electoral cycle, the liberal media inform us that the Democratic Party will fight fiercely for the votes of religious Americans and refute the ugly, even slanderous caricature that the Democrats are the party that mocks God, prayer, and everything most Americans hold dear. And then, suddenly the alleged caricature has a name. Meet Amanda Marcotte. Marcotte is a hater - to be precise, a hater of the Christian religion and how it apparently warps society with its oppressive myths. For some mysterious reason, John Edwards, just a few years removed from being inaccurately hailed by coddling correspondents as... continue reading
The Super Bowl draws the largest television audience in America every year and this year's estimated audience - 93 million viewers, the second most-watched Super Bowl in pro football history - was no slouch. Perhaps the oddest thing, then, is TV coverage rarely focuses on the football. Only one network wins the right to broadcast the game. Everyone else, pushed by the weekend's Super Bowl frenzy, is forced to air something - anything - Super Bowl-related. Take NBC, for example. While it had two stories that vaguely touched on football, this was NBC's list of Super Bowl side stories: picking... continue reading
Never try to say ABC anchor Diane Sawyer hasn't been tough on oppressors. In one interview in 1998, she stared one in the face and said, "You've been compared to Saddam Hussein. Nero. To Torquemada, who was head of the Inquisition." Oh, forgive me. That wasn't a dictator she was questioning. It was Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating Bill Clinton's lying under oath. This was a common practice for ABC at the time. Their website had an infamous instant poll asking if there was an "Ig-Nobel" prize, who should win it? The choices were Saddam, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin... continue reading