It’s around 9 a.m. May 1, 1994. My stepmother, Kathie, has spent the night at Forsyth Memorial Hospital with my father, Larry, who will die late this afternoon. Their next-door neighbor, Wayne, is driving her home so she can shower and maybe get an hour or two of sleep. She hasn’t slept much in the six weeks since Daddy was
Read moreI’ve noted a couple of times as I have worked through the original 30-Day Song Challenge and The Sequel how powerfully I associate music with family and my childhood. If you’d grown up where I did, you’d perhaps understand why the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? was more than just a really good comedy. The soundtrack was loaded with
Read moreIt’s been a tough week in the Famous Death Department. First we lost Dandy Don Meredith, whose work with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford in the Monday Night Football booth was one of the most important factors in the explosion of the NFL’s popularity over the past several decades. Then Elizabeth Edwards left us the other day. I try to
Read moreWhat the hell is up with 2010? And will it ever end? This has been the worst year of my life. I guess those who were there to see the trainwreck that was 1988 might argue that it was marginally worse, but the point is that this year has sucked from the outset. It began with the collapse of my
Read moreTiger Woods wrapped up the 2010 Open Championship at St. Andrews tied for 23rd and 13 strokes off the pace, “his worst finish at a major in which he completed 72 holes since a tie for 24th at the 2004 PGA.” You might remember that Woods had a little domestic dustup last November, and since then he hasn’t exactly been
Read moreSo, Rush Limbaugh just got married. Congrats, Rush – we wish you well. We wanted to note this momentous occasion because, as you know, Rush is a big proponent of family values, and few things say family like walking down the aisle and publicly expressing your lifelong commitment to the person of the opposite gender that you love. Especially when
Read moreThey say money can’t buy happiness. The same also goes for celebrity, and even the status that accompanies being among the best in the world at your profession. We’ve had ample demonstration of this in recent days. Robert Enke, the goaltender for Hannover 96 (who currently hover in the middle of the German Bundesliga standings) and a potential member of
Read moreYou’re honey child to a swarm of bees Gonna blow right through you like a breeze Give me one last dance Well slide down the surface of things You’re the real thing Yeah the real thing You’re the real thing Even better than the real thing – U2 Fantasy stories, myths, legends, tall tales, fairy tales, horror, all these have
Read moreIf you’ve been off-planet for the last few months you may have missed the news: Jon & Kate have split, and in the process migrated from the relative banality of the TV listings over to the hyper-banality of the tabloids. I’m still not sure what the future holds for the popular “reality” show, but whatever it is, Gosselin family 2.0
Read morePart two in a series How did it happen? Why did it happen? There’s simply no way to measure how many hours have devoted to these questions in the ten years and four days since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire at Columbine High School, and while we don’t (and never will) have all the answers, we do have
Read moreWell, here’s a fine howdy-do: Rick Warren, pastor of the mother of all mega-churches, has been tapped to channel Jesus conduct a seance deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Because Warren is, you know, a “moderate.” …in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell research were “non-negotiable” issues for Christian voters and has admitted that the
Read moreJesus’ General is rolling this morning. His shot at David Vitter is pretty funny, too.
Read moreWelcome to part three of S&R’s first annual year-end round-up. I’ll begin by apologizing for my colleagues, who have wasted a lot of their time (and yours) yammering about “important” issues. Of course, I admire their intellectual gravity, but let’s be honest – that sort of seriousness is really misplaced when the intended audience is the American public. As we
Read moreThe gig is up for Warren Jeffs. ST. GEORGE, Utah (Reuters) – U.S. polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed “prophet” of a sect of breakaway Mormons, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years to life in prison for having forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin.The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or
Read moreIn my most recent post, one commenter repeatedly insisted that I offer a solution or an alternative for the problems I was pointing to. As I noted there, I never suggested that there was a problem, and even if there were, it’s hardly my job to be proposing a lot of solutions that aren’t going to be acted on. If
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