Yes, friendly Burnside readers, your trusty Associate Social Justice Editor had this wacky, harebrained idea the other day:  Why not audition for Oprah’s search for the next talk show host? I’ve known for a while that my only viable skills in life are talking and coming up with harebrained ideas.  ...

I’ve mentioned many times that I believe we’re in the Golden Age of Television.  I’m not alone in that, and I’ve heard it a number of other places. But many of us were saying so even before shows like Mad Men, Treme, Community and Parks and Recreation.  Even as The Sopranos,...

Yes, last night I watched the television show The Bachelor. A friend of my brother-in-law is one of the girls on the show, so we tuned in to see the mess. Last week I watched the first three episodes from season one of Mad Men, the hit show on A&E about the advertising world in the 1950s. The show’s...

“I’m sure God sent them to us.” Politicians love to claim credit for the big – and best changes – of history. Life is rarely so simple. There are those odd little movements like twitches on obscure nerve endings that end up reverberating throughout cultures and eras. The twentieth anniversary...

Ah, fall: when a young woman’s thoughts turn to warm fires and books, a young man’s thoughts turn to college football, and Phoenicians dream of going outside once more. I used to be a summer man, but now I’m all about autumn.  This week’s forecast dips down to a balmy 99 degrees! ...

Once when I was a kid, we were watching television together as a family, and this McDonald’s commercial came on. It’s the one where a little kid brings his dad to school as his show and tell. The kid says something like “This is my dad. He’s my best friend.” Then somebody...

Both MTV and VH1 played a major role in my middle school/high school years, opening me up to new types of music beyond The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. MTV may be our most crass example of marketing to America’s youth, but that only goes to show how accurate a barometer MTV’s broadcasting is...