“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. ...

Benjamin Franklin's Lesson on Humility from Cotton Mather

Benjamin Franklin vividly remembered a visit he made as a young man to see the Puritan preacher Cotton Mather and the life lesson learned. Franklin recalled: ...

Courtney Love Must Stand in Line

Rock star Courtney Love isn't used to waiting in line. She's used to the fame that came with her marriage to mega-star Curt Cobaine of the rock ...

Graffiti Artist Dies Leaving His Mark

Peter Berry wanted to leave a mark. So he became a graffiti artist—a tagger—with the nickname Kiser. He was gifted, by all accounts, and was ...

Dexter Manley Had Nothing but Football

He played in three Super Bowls, winning twice. Known as "The Secretary of Defense," the six-foot-three, 260-pound NFL defensive end compiled ...

Only One Student a Follower

S. I. McMillen, in his book None of These Diseases, tells a story of a young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question ...

"A Christmas Story": Disappointment

In A Christmas Story, young Ralphie wants a Red Ryder BB gun, but his parents' only response is, "You'll shoot your eye out!" All the ...

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 ...

John Nash on Escapism

"Madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. In madness, I thought I was the most important ...

Marilyn Manson Worships Self

Musician Marilyn Manson says:

A lot of people like to pass me off as a devil worshiper. I think that could only be true if I considered myself to be the ...