Idol Chatter

Donna Freitas is a gifted writer of spiritual insight, but her recent blog posting is dead wrong (literally) on both “24” as well as Shel Silverstein’s wonderful book, “The Giving Tree.” If you missed it, “24’s” two-night debut again showcased Keifer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer sacrificing himself for the sake of a greater cause. Donna may…

Last night’s Golden Globes ceremony included the usual reams of thank you’s to casts and crews and lawyers and spouses and moms and kids and agents and Helen Mirren. The most moving speech by far was from the sincerely enthused America Ferrera of Ugly Betty, who thanked the girls who tell her she makes them…

I looked forward to Sunday night’s long awaited “24” premiere on Fox with the same eagerness as the show’s most dedicated fans. But I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at the onset of what promises to be yet another season of Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) playing the role of “sacrificial lamb.” As usual, the show dropped…

The sexual-abuse scandal that once looked to bring the Catholic church’s hierarchy in Boston crashing down has died away. The former Boston archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, is comfortably esconced in a favorable position in Rome, and few of the radical propositions to end abuse–popularly elected bishops or married priests–have come to pass, or are on…

The passing of a great man’s widow is often taken as a second opportunity to mourn the man himself, but when Alice Coltrane, widow of the sax giant John Coltrane, died late last week, it was her accomplishments, and her spiritual path, that filled her obits. A jazz pianist and harpist–the latter putting her in…

On January 25th, HBO will air the documentary “Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi,” which follows key people among the Christian evangelical right in America. Yes, Alexandra Pelosi, the filmmaker in question, is one of those Pelosis–her mother is none other than Nancy–and yes, one of those kep people she happened to…

All through the elephant-dung Virgin Mary dust-up and the “Piss Christ” controversy, one might have drawn the conclusion that Catholic League president Bill Donohue just didn’t get modern art. Who would want to tackle the task of explaining to Donohue how Western art at the turn of the 2000s had come to “appropriate” icons, materials,…

Yvonne De Carlo died of natural causes on Monday at the age of 84. The name isn’t familiar to you? Remember the quirky matriarch of the Munsters clan, Lily Munster? De Carlo breathed life into that television character–the serenely smiling mother to Eddie and wife to the bumbling, loveable, big-hearted Frankenstein-ian monster, Herman. Though only…

While many in the press have continued to heap accolades on NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” as the best new series of the fall season, I withdrew my enthusiastic support after the show took a wrong turn and starting heading into tacky teen soapdom in the vein of a series like “The O.C.” But I am…


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