The following interview with Gerard Straub was authored by Lucky Severson and reproduced with the permission of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, a PBS production of Thirteen/WNET. A link to the original story can be found here. LUCKY SEVERSON: By most standards, Gerry Straub’s career is in a...

When Don asked me to contribute to this site I jumped at the chance. It was not feelings of altruism that led me — it was the fact that he tricked me into believing that I’d get to meet Cornel West. Well, almost. But, in truth, I am excited about editing this column for very different...

December 1st was World AIDS Day. This pandemic will cause 6,000 kids to become orphaned today and every day until the world community — you and me and our leaders — does something drastic. 14,000,000 have already lost one or both parents, and many children are struggling to raise their...

[Disclaimer: This poor reviewer had to fight the inclination to water down his review in order to save it from sounding over-dramatic. In the long run, buy this album and you will surely sympathize with this reviewer's plight of putting such a work into words.] 30,000 feet in the air, I am forced to...

Right now, I’m listening to a song called “How It Ends” by a band called Devotchka. I know about this song because it is played on trailers for the upcoming film, Everything Is Illuminated, a film based off of the best book I’ve read in the last five years. The author of Everything...

Nothing previous in Miller’s oeuvre quite prepares one for Universal United House of Prayer. Though one finds recognizable song structures and lyrical styling throughout, the energy and tone of the album separate it out from his previous work as something markedly different. This is not to say...

Chuck Palahniuk’s writing has always been visceral and dark, an apropos voice for Portland’s most prominent author. He is known for his dark and straight-faced humor, and his knowledge of little known facts (the various scents that hospitals use to cloak the smell of vomit or feces, for instance)....

Ryan, listen: you’re killing me. I’ve tried to be a fan over the course of your last four albums, but my patience is running low. To be fair, Ryan Adams doesn’t owe us, his fans, anything. He can create the music he wants to create, and he has already proven his song-writing prowess...

For a night such as this, with the full moon rising in a clear, cold Texas sky, I chose The Decemberists’ newest record, Picaresque to invade my precious headspace. I have long been a Decemberists fan; Castaways and Cutouts, their first LP released just a few years ago, has found a cushioned place...

When I decide that I want to review a new album, there are two obstacles that work against me. The first is that I feel forced to listen to the album a lot, maybe every time I’m in my car or sitting at my computer. Sometimes, this can cause me to appreciate an album more with each listen. Other...