Some Christmas memories begin in childhood. But one of my favorite traditions began well into adulthood, in bed on Christmas morning, while waking up to NPR. That was the year I was introduced to the writer David Sedaris, as I listened for the first time to his recollections of the holidays in what has become an NPR Christmas morning tradition, The Santaland Diaries. I smiled, then giggled, and eventually belly laughed as he described the challenges of being Crumpet the Elf at a large department

I am a 46-year-old Star Wars fan. I have read all the new books and watched all the animated series. I preordered Disney+ several months early just so I could watch The Mandalorian on day one. And I own the new video game where I get to be a Jedi who escaped the purge. My first memory of Star Wars is watching The Empire Strikes Back at the drive-in theater in the back of the station wagon. I got scared and cried during the Dagobah scene. I grew up playing with the toys. I waited in line at the

Outgoing Kentucky governor Matt Bevin is using his final days in office to make a powerful statement. On Nov. 22, Bevin announced he was pardoning Paul Hurt, a man serving life in prison for sexually abusing his six-year-old stepdaughter. If there is one thing I thought we could agree on, even in a country as divided as ours seems to be, I thought we could all agree that the abuse of children is a heinous crime for which people should be punished. The facts around Hurt’s case are complicated and

A few days ago, I posed this question to my students: “How much could another person come to know about you by both looking through your phone and knowing who your friends are?” Their answer was no surprise: a lot! That brings me to a man who is likely unknown to most Americans: Roy Cohn. Cohn died in 1986, but his unsavory shadow still casts a pall across this country’s political landscape. Cohn first gained notoriety when he became chief counsel for one Senator Joseph McCarthy during the

Have you heard about TikTok? TikTok is a video-sharing application developed by the Beijing-based Internet start-up ByteDance. The app has been wildly popular with teenagers all over the world. How popular? 1.2 billion installs as of June 2019, making TikTok the first Chinese app to achieve international scale. But the app is not without its critics, and it is getting some push-back from U.S. lawmakers. So what’s the problem? Like all social media platforms, TikTok collects, stores, and

We are all shaped by experiences in our families - in positive as well as challenging ways. Thanksgiving Day offers an opportunity to bring those memories to life, especially if they’re positive ones. A dear memory of family Thanksgivings in a small Wisconsin town was to sing a prayer of thanks before we sat down to a sumptuous feast. The familiar doxology, “Praise God from whom all Blessings Flow” was our traditional choice. Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him all creatures here

The media is one of the most powerful and influential institutions in America. Media outlets have the ability to shape narratives and conversations with limited or an overabundance of information. Conservative, moderate and liberal outlets create storylines through varying perspectives. What is more intriguing to me is what appears to be an implicit racial bias on the part of many media outlets. Documentaries like Michael Moore’s 2002 “Bowling for Columbine” and Ava Duvernay’s 2016 “13th,” do an

Since the 1921 publication of Max Weber’s Economy and Society throngs of writers have analyzed the problem of bureaucracies. Bureaucracies. You know? “I have to fill out a form, to fill out a form, for this request?” I’m a university professor and I can assure you that in higher education, bureaucracy is creeping. Bureaucracies don’t exist to fix the problems they allege to address but only to ensure the impossibility of further discussion about them. The first line of creation of a bureaucracy

It’s my perspective that we have quite a lot of God-fearing perspectives on this here radio station…and it’s about time that we restore some balance. Without fear of reprisals, I am an atheist. It’s no big deal…I just don’t have the faith that you religious types do. Whenever I hear/see someone who wears their religion on their sleeve, to my Midwestern mind, it’s quite off-putting. I keep my atheism to myself. I am sure you’re thrilled. I was taught that religion was a personal thing, held tight

My wife likes to keep the l ight on and read every night, so my daughter, ever thoughtful, bought me a sleeping mask. My wife, she who will not turn out the lamp , finds this amusing and calls me “Miss Dorothy Kilgallen .” To what is my wife referring? Well, Miss Kilgallen was once a famous columnist who also appeared on a once-famed TV quiz show called “What’s My Line.” This required her to wear an eye mask once a week. It’s a long story, and I don’t have time to tell it. That’s why the Good