“Napoleon Dynamite”: Clinging to the Past

Napoleon Dynamite is the story of an awkward but loveable outsider (named Napoleon Dynamite) struggling through the ups and downs of high school life. ...

Andrew Greeley on Domesticating Jesus

If Jesus makes you feel comfortable with your agenda, then he's not Jesus…. Once you domesticate Jesus, he isn't there any more.

Gold Fever Grips Slum

The slum district of Manila is already overcrowded, but a gold rush has made it worse. It all started when 15-year-old Alfredo Gallo, who was combing ...

Fire-Walkers Get Burned

At a self-help seminar in Rohrbach, Austria, participants were urged to walk over hot, fiery coals. The purpose of the exercise was to "mobilize ...

Happy Marriages Don't Guarantee Fidelity

New research has uncovered truths about adultery that are unnerving—and none more so than the link between "happy marriages" and affairs. ...

James Thurber on Lessons to Learn Before Dying

Humorist James Thurber wrote:

"All human beings should try to learn, before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."

Memories of Chains Keep Elephants in Place

In his book Teaching the Elephant to Dance, James Belasco describes how trainers shackle young elephants with heavy chains to deeply embedded stakes. ...

Chesterton on Original Sin

"The man who denies original sin believes in the Immaculate Conception of everybody." —Writer G. K. Chesterton

Ego in Charge

Ashleigh Brilliant, that odd vestige of the seventies who scribbled his offbeat humor on hippie postcards, once penned: "All I ask of life is a constant ...

Boxer Mike Tyson Justifies Himself

"I'm not Mother Teresa, but I'm not Charles Manson either.''

—Boxer Mike Tyson, arguing unsuccessfully during his application ...