Cultured Media

I recently browsed though the book, The Best Old Movies For Families: A Guide to Watching Together. Boston Globe film critic explains how to introduce classic films like Bringing Up Baby and North by Northwest to younger viewers without having them looking for the remote. Burr breaks his titles down according to age group, creating the best movie guide we know for future filmistas. My local library recommended this book back in October 2007. I enjoyed browsing through this book and might use it in the distant future. My wife watched over three-fourths of the movies listed during her childhood. You might be offended by some language and crass/ironic humor of this book if you are the home-schooling Christian subculture. This book is more for the family that wants to watch less Barney and more Marx Brothers, than it is for someone wanting to totally shelter their children from the evils of the world. And by old movies, Burr means 1970.

Carolyn Jessop was once a member of a radical polygamist religious sect. She talks about her life as the fourth wife of a man decades older than her, living under the same roof as his other wives and children, and what spurred her to gather her eight children in the middle of the night and leave.

Listen to The Diane Rehm Show with Carolyn Jessop

Evangelicals, once at the periphery of American life, now wield power in the White House and on Wall Street, at Harvard and in Hollywood. How have they reached the pinnacles of power in such a short time? And what does this mean for evangelicals–and for America? Drawing on personal interviews with an astonishing array of prominent Americans–including two former Presidents, dozens of political and government leaders, more than 100 top business executives, plus Hollywood moguls, intellectuals, athletes, and other powerful figures–D. Michael Lindsay shows first-hand how they are bringing their vision of moral leadership into the public square.

D. Michael Lindsay is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University where he is also the Faculty Associate of Leadership Rice and Assistant Director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life. He is the author of two books, both with George Gallup, Jr., and has written many scholarly and popular essays.

This Authors@Google event took place October 5, 2007 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

YouTube - Authors@Google: Michael Lindsay

Fifty-seven million Americans are too poor to be considered middle class and too wealth to qualify for government assistance. A sociologist describes the housing, education, health care, and debt challenges facing families living on the financial edge.

The main gist of this book is that a single mother cannot support four children on $30K per year, especially if they have medical conditions or mental disorders. This is the near-poor that does not want to be on government assistance, but is financially on par with the working or non-working poor due to their circumstances.

Katherine Newman: The Missing Class on the Diane Rehm Show

Family physician, research psychologist, and author Dr. Leonard Sax explains why many of today’s young men and boys are unmotivated and uninterested in school and in life. He found five factors that contribute to their decline and offers suggestions to get them re-engaged in life.

On the Diane Rehm Show

Journalist Jeff Gammage and his wife Christine have adopted two daughters from China; now Gammage, a staff writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer, has written a book about the experience. It’s called China Ghosts: My Daughter’s Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood.

Fresh Air: American Parents Encounter ‘China Ghosts’

Two Moms from The Story in North Carolina Catherine and Kathleen McAuley are expecting a baby boy next week. They’ve been together for 6 years; about 9 months ago, Catherine got pregnant through artificial insemination. Both moms are joyous, but the most typical reaction they encounter in other people is confusion: “How did you decide which one of you would get pregnant?” or “How will you explain the gay thing to your kid?”

Catherine and Kathleen talk to Dick Gordon about sharing the pregnancy and figuring out how to talk to other people about it.