by Andrea Breemer Frantz

“It is one thing to adore a painting…but it is quite another thing to learn from a painted narrative what to adore.” - Clifford Geertz, cultural anthropologist, Local Knowledge

For most of my childhood, my mother’s father was primarily two things to me: 1) a magician with uncanny ability to conjure quarters from my ears and candy from nearly anywhere; and 2) a poet whose artful word craftsmanship I did not inherit. Full story »

by Tom Shortell

The Supreme Court ruled Monday it’s unconstitutional to ban the sale of violent video games to children, striking a severe blow to lazy parents across the nation.

In a 7-2 decision that cast aside typical alliances of the court, the court ruled that video games as a medium are protected under the First Amendment as free speech. The decision struck down a 2005 California law that forbid the sale of games “that depicts ‘killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being’ in a way that appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors” to anyone under the age of 18. Full story »

I don’t often do confessional. Yeah, a lot of what I’m going through finds its way into my posts in symbolic fashion, perhaps, but I haven’t done much in the way of personal narrative about my life, even though I have encouraged other writers here to do just that. But maybe this little bit is worthy of a slow news day.

I’m hardly the first guy to get a divorce. My guess is that a lot of other guys in my situation will recognize the sensation of emptiness that consumes the first year (or perhaps longer) after you leave. Once you had a house. Once you had someone to share meals with. Maybe you had a yard and grass that needed mowing and even a small garden to weed. You may have been unhappy and unfulfilled, but you had a life. Full story »

My dad, David Morgan White, died last September. September 12 at just after 10 in the evening, to be more precise. I had been with him for most of the previous 60 hours. It was a long 60 hours–especially the last 12. We gathered on Sunday morning when the doctors removed the IVs that contained the drugs that were keeping his battered heart going: the coumidin, the lasix, and a bunch of stuff I can’t remember. It wasn’t doing him any good any more. He was conscious and looked around at all of us and said, “If you’re ready, I am.” And the nurse disconnected all the drugs except the morphine, which was making his remaining life tolerable.

The doctors told us that he would go quickly without his support meds–they were wrong. A few hours later, just before noon, my dad woke up and looked around at all of us with a rather surprised expression on his face. “What’s taking so long?” he asked. Full story »

Rockingham County, North Carolina

November 1962

“Go call your daddy and Uncle Kenneth,” Papa says, taking his big thermometer from the scalding trough.  “This water’s near hot enough.  We need to get to killing these hogs.”

He gestures toward the pen some thirty feet away.  The hogs grunt and start away as if they understand him.

“Yes sir.”  I rise from my crouch.  I have been tending the fire, making the water hot enough for scalding the hair off the hogs after they are slaughtered.  I trot up the hill to the house and stick my head in the back door.

“Water hot?” asks my uncle.  I nod.  He gets to his feet and pulls on his jacket.  Daddy puts down his coffee mug and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Full story »

This is the road to the house where we lived. It is Father’s Day 2008, and my husband and daughter are already at his parents’ house for the celebration. I am driving, alone, for no reason I care to examine.

Full story »

Today is Father’s Day, and S&R would like to wish a happy one to America’s dads.

At the same time, and in the contrary spirit that often typifies what we do around here, I’d like to be the one who acknowledges that our relationships with our fathers are often less than we’d hope for. Frankly, some dads are complete bastards, and in many cases they’re probably at least a complex mixed bag. And why not – being a parent is hard, I’m told. This basic reality makes the guys who get it right even more worthy of our love and respect.

It’s no worse than fair to say that my own father lived his life out between Mixed Bagville and the untamed Bastardlands, and truth be told I have a hard time remembering him as more good than bad. Full story »

I’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 dark, downtrodden Appalachian hillbilly spirituals, the music of hopeless lives waiting on Jesus because there was nothing else to hope for. Full story »

The comedian Colin Farrell has astutely observed that people always are quick to claim personal characteristics that are the exact opposite of who they actually are. Gregarious party-types often say, “But really, I’m very shy.” Lazy people talk about how hard they work. And of course, racists are forever making sure everyone knows that some of their best friends are black and they’re not prejudiced, but…

All of us do that at one time or another, claim personality traits that are 180 degrees from reality. Maybe we lie to convince ourselves. Or maybe we’re trying to deflect anticipated criticism. If I say I am an idiot before you can say it, then somehow it takes the sting out of it.  “You can’t fire me. I quit” sort of thing.

It’s no coincidence that the best-selling Christian fiction series is called Left Behind.   Full story »

Local and national new outlets are going gaga over THE wedding. A prince and a commoner, was there ever a better fairy tale possibility all slated for worldwide viewing for an estimated two billion? It will be tweeted and texted, Facebooked, Flickred and YouTubed around the planet along with the old style paper and ink and broadcast news coverage. It is a thoroughly modern event with some turn of the century (not the most recent one, the one before that!) pizzazz, as well. Love the horses and carriages touch.

The networks have sent their morning A-teams across the pond to cover it, leaving them a little flat-footed this morning as tornadoes raged through six states, killing more than 240 (and counting).

But there are other, bigger stories slated for Friday that will likely get a lot less coverage: Full story »

by James Corbett

The facts of my case are fairly simple. Chad Farnan, a 15-year-old self-described Christian fundamentalist student in my Advanced Placement European History class, sued me for a “pattern” of statements unconstitutionally hostile to religion. His claim was based on hours of illegal and surreptitious recordings.

In my attorney’s opinion, the law was on our side, so he advised me to seek a summary judgment. I now believe that was a critical error because when a defendant requests a summary judgment rather than a jury trial, the law requires that all the facts presented by the plaintiff be accepted as truthful. No fact may be disputed, only the law. My attorney believed a fair application of the Lemon test would turn in my favor, but the test fails in a case such as mine both as a matter of law and of logic. Had I gone to court, I could easily have demonstrated that Chad and his mother are Full story »

Everything starts somewhere. For us, getting in shape started with bread pudding.

“I don’t think it’s normal to eat that much bread pudding,” I said. “I wonder if anybody else celebrates International Bread Pudding Day?”

“I’m still not convinced that holiday exists,” said Nancy, “But it is winter in Connecticut, and you need your winter fat.”

“Har, har. My feet are cold. Do I have socks on? I don’t think I can move.”

And I didn’t move for hours. I sat there like a gorged tick. Later that evening, I was able to push myself upright and stagger to bed. I’m lying. I staggered to the refrigerator for a few more bites of bread pudding. Hey, IBP day only comes once a year. The next morning everything had changed. Full story »

Savannah’s acting city manager found a loophole in the city’s ordinance banning local Girl Scouts from selling their cookies in front of founder Juliette Gordon Low’s historic home.

The loophole is another city ordinance that allows the city manager to permit sidewalk sales at city residences.

Common sense did prevail. Local Girl Scouts will be at their tables selling cookies at busy Oglethorpe and Bull Streets this weekend. The Girl Scouts still have to pony up to their civic responsibilities as part of the deal as noted in the letter from the city manager.

Kudos to acting city manager Rochelle Small-Toney.

In the “you’ve got to be kidding department,” Savannah, Georgia area Girl Scouts and brownies can no longer sell their cookies in front of the Juliette Gordon Low Home. Low was the founder of the Girl Scouts of America.

Why? Because under a Savannah ordinance, the cookie sale is considered street peddling, a violation. The ordinance reads: “Sec. 4-1001. To be used for public purpose only. No person shall use the streets, sidewalks, lanes or squares of the city for private purposes of any sort. They shall be used only as public ways and for the public purposes for which they are intended.”

Full story »

As the griddle began to heat up, it made a single loud crack. Then it sat silent for a couple minutes as I mixed my batter, then it cracked again.

Nothing broke. My griddle just likes to protest every time it wakes up.

I watched the little orange light next to the heat controller: It would go out once the griddle heated to 400 degrees.

I still had a few lumps in my batter to mix out, so I was in no big rush. I mix mine from a box of Bisquick. Nothing fancy. A couple eggs. A cup of milk. I’m golden.

I don’t do pancakes from scratch the way my dad’s mother used to. Full story »

by Kate Torok

I was going through some drawers in our hutch about two months ago, reorganizing and cleaning, finding all sorts of things. Candles, old Valentine’s Day cards, pictures, a frame we never used, and the—I found it. It was a crumpled up, torn-off, semi-folded piece of paper, and written on it, were my New Year’s Resolutions for 2010. Suddenly, I remembered the night I wrote it back in 2009. I remember being fired up that I WOULD achieve all of the things on my list.

And looking back, sadly, I achieved none.

At the risk of you losing you now because I’m not going to get into the list itself, let’s just say that I always aim pretty high. I have a “go big or go home” attitude. And to that end, I wrote things down that, in retrospect, I can now say I didn’t have a shot in hell at completing.

So, in the spirit of not dwelling on the past, and only looking forward—here is my New Year’s resolution list for 2011:

1. Read more. Full story »

by Kate Torok

There we were, sitting in Mrs. Farrington’s music class, watching Christmas movies and singing, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go!” It was a half-day at school, the day before Christmas vacation. And the teachers pooled us all in the biggest room in the school and killed time with these kinds of activities. Everyone was ready for the long and jolly week ahead. I remember my 2nd grade adrenaline pumping through my small veins, so excited to go home early. Not only were thoughts of sugarplums dancing in my head, but I couldn’t wait to go to Grandma’s house and see all of my cousins. Oh, and the presents. In my mind, Santa and I were tight. So I scored big every year. The thoughts of sledding during the day for hours, helping my mom bake the 15 dozen cut-out sugar cookies on Christmas Eve, drinking hot chocolate, and running downstairs on Christmas morning were enough to make me smile for weeks to come.

Christmas as a child really was so magical, and I remember how devastated I was when the reality finally struck: there was no Santa. Full story »

Oh dear Peter Preston in The Guardian. Talk about missing the point!!

The thing is that YES – solving the problem of runaway climate change is dependent on limiting and reducing the population. But NO that doesn’t mean adopting a China-style one child policy or running around like crazed eugenicists sterilising anyone without a degree. And it also doesn’t mean doing away with child benefit. Because (surprise Peter!) child benefit is not paid to encourage people to have children. It’s not a reproduction bribe. Who the hell would decide to raise a child for 18 years in return for £15 a week? It’s paid to help parents afford to raise their children well. Once you’ve fed, clothed, housed, educated and entertained your child you’re not necessarily going to have much change left to treat yourself to nights out and designer clothes…

But here’s the good news. There are millions of women around the world and right here at home who desperately want to have less or no children, to have children later in life and to control their own fertility. Full story »

When we first married in 1995, Nancy and I put our unattainable romantic crushes out on the table. I told her that I had a thing for the figure skater Dorothy Hamill. True, I’ve never met Dorothy Hamill, nor have I ever talked to her. Still, she’s been my dream girl since 1976. I was afraid Nancy might laugh at this juvenile crush, but she understood perfectly well.

“It’s funny you should mention that,” she said. “Because I also have a secret crush. Oh, it’s silly. Let’s talk about something else.”

“No, it’s not silly at all,” I countered. “I mean, knowing who we admire says a lot about who we are as individuals. Dorothy Hamill has such grace and style. I know it sounds childish, but there’s a part of me that will always love her. So who is your secret crush? Dennis Quaid? Ronnie Howard?”

“Firemen,” stated Nancy directly. “Would you pass the peas?” Full story »