One of my more intelligent, engaged Facebook friends recently posted a meme that read: “This may not make you happy – Fox News is not an accredited news station. They have changed their accreditation to ‘entertainment.’ They legally don’t have to provide any facts in their reporting. Fox News is in the same category as Saturday Night Live, Laugh In, and Swamp People. You don’t have to believe me, look it up for yourself.”

By Margaret Evans, Editor

In the preface to his Pulitzer and Tony winning play Doubt: A Parable, John Patrick Shanley wrote, "There is a symptom apparent in America right now. It’s evident in political talk shows, in entertainment coverage, in artistic criticism of every kind, in religious discussion. We are living in a courtroom culture. We were living in a celebrity culture, but that’s dead. Now we’re only interested in celebrities if they’re in court. We are living in a culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgment, and of verdict. Discussion has given way to debate. Communication has become a contest of wills. Public talking has become obnoxious and insincere. Why? Maybe it’s because deep down under the chatter we have come to a place where we know that we don’t know… anything. But nobody’s willing to say that."

By Margaret Evans, Editor

 “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more . . . He became as good a friend, as good a master, as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world.” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 

            I love a conversion story. Especially at Christmas. You can have your Rudolph, your Frosty, your “Wonderful Life” and all those other yuletide tales of kindly underdogs who deservedly triumph over adversity. I, myself, am a sucker for that far less common narrative – the black heart utterly transformed. The undeserving, unbearable wretch redeemed.