Six contestants left for America’s new idol.  How’s that for a headline this week?  As the Today Show on NBC ran a report of the elimination countdown to American’s new “number one” amateur performer, the screen caption throughout the report blazed, “Idol Worship.”  How clever, but how true!  Except for you and me, of course.

Candle light vigils have become a way of American life, haven’t they?  Columbine, Oklahoma City, September 11, and now Virginia Tech.  And a grieving public that privately wonders when the insanity will ever end.  Anybody know? Our politicians haven’t found the answer.  Nor have our law enforcement agencies.  Nor have our psychologists and school counselors.  Nor have the media.  Nor has the public.  Nobody knows how to stop the carnage, the massacres, “the terror by night . . . the arrow that flies by day . . . the pestilence that walks in darkness . . .

What can we learn from “shock jock” Don Imus’ meltdown?  In case you were fasting from the news this week (which isn’t such a bad idea, come to think of it), you know the public furor over the racially and sexually derogatory remarks that nationally syndicated radio talk show host Don Imus made about the Rutgers University NCAA women’s basketball finalists, words unworthy of repetition.  Both CBS radio and MSNBC cable television dropped the Imus show for two weeks.  Corporate sponsors pulled their ads and financial backing.  The public backlash has been quick and strong.

Millions of bees mysteriously dead!  Something off the front page of the National Enquirer?  Hardly.  It’s a developing news story that spans the nation.  One Pennsylvania beekeeper lost 40 million bees this winter.  Fruit and vegetable growers from California (which produces 80% of the world’s almond supply) to Pennsylvania (which grows the fourth largest apple harvest in the nation) are extremely worried, because the survival of their blossoming crops depends on the pollinating of honeybees.  No pollen transfer, no fruit—it’s that simple.

This past week Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow have put cancer into the headline consciousness of America. The wife of presidential candidate, John Edwards, and the president’s chief Whitehouse spokesman, in separate dramatic announcements of recurring cancer, bravely exposed their private battles for health and life to the public. And as a consequence they both have raised the level of our national conversation regarding this shared and dreaded enemy.

Ever wonder where Iceland got its name?  Having just returned from this small volcanic crag amidst the wind-swept north Atlantic (just south of the Artic Circle), I don’t wonder any more!  But did you know that this proud nation of glaciers, hot springs, geysers (a word we’ve borrowed from Icelandic), and active volcanoes is the world’s most literate population, with the world’s longest life expectancy and highest standard of living?  And so you won’t be surprised that they are also the most “wired” (technologically savvy) nation on earth, as well.

Wonder why the global markets have been gyrating lately?  The answer really isn’t that complicated at all.  It has to do with public and investor confidence.  When traders are feeling secure and confident about the economic and/or political future of their nation or other influential nations, they invest their clients’ capital in the markets.  But when investors become worried or uncertain over developing trends (economic or political or sometimes even ecological), rather than purchasing shares in national or multinational corporations they instead sell off their clients’ stocks.  And massi

“Study says lots of students narcissistic”—that was the front page headline on my newspaper this week.  Remember Narcissus from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection in the water pond?  “Narcissistic” is to be just like him.  Which is why the article begins:  “Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.” (South Bend Tribune 2-27-07)  This is the generation, researchers are obse

Who likes a dirty windshield! One of the joys about a winter in thaw is the ugly brown spray that the car in front of you splatters all over your windscreen (as our British friends like to describe it). We drove out to Kansas this last weekend to spend some time with our daughter Kristin, whose medic husband has just deployed to Iraq. Is there anything worse than following an eighteen-wheeler with its nine right-side tires exploding every muddy snow puddle on the side of the road all over you? Thank God for whoever invented windshield washer spray!

“Generation Y’s goal? Wealth and fame.” That headline last month in USA Today caught my eye. “Ask young people about their generation’s top life goals and the answer is clear and resounding: They want to be rich and famous” (1-10-07). And then came Newsweek magazine’s cover story last week: “The Girls Gone Wild Effect: Out-of-Control Celebs and Online Sleeze Fuel a New Debate Over Kids and Values” (2-12-07). Turns out our “tweens” are going gaga over the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, whose morality (or the lack thereof) has shamed even the national media.