Articles 
Johnny Cash was and still is America
By Matthew Ralph “Mostly he was obviously against the system.” Those are the words former San Quentin prisoner turned music legend Merle Haggard uses to sum up Johnny Cash in a new documentary that traces the Man In Black’s distinct influence on American culture, music, politics and religion during a remarkable music career and life. […]
Not so true city and state stereotypes
1. Breeding is relative in West Virginia. Vice President Dick Cheney got in trouble in June for making a joke based on this assumption. While research on the subject is slim, a study of 140 years of marriage records conducted in 1980 by anthropologist Robert Tincher concluded that “inbreeding levels in Appalachia … [are neither] […]
Article: Radically ordinary
By Matthew Ralph Unforgiving, homophobic, fear-mongering, intolerent, consumerism, bigotry, preachy, anti-Semitic and paternalistic are are all words associated, too often accurately so, with Christianity in North America. But they are words that have little to do with the Jewish carpenter who 2,000 years ago urged followers, above all else, to love God and love their […]
They shall be released
By Matthew Ralph Though it wasn’t completely intentional or expected, I recently attended what more or less ended up being a pro-life concert at a megachurch in Evansville, Ind. It wasn’t advertised as a pro-life rally or sponsored by the group with the tattoos and the cartoon logo of a fetus playing guitar. There were […]
Arab-American politicians
In a now famous exchange last week between Sen. John McCain and one of his supporters at a rally, the presidential candidate cut off a woman saying she had heard Sen. Barack Obama was an Arab. His reply, according to numerous reports: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen…He’s not. Thank you.” While it’s […]
Article: For morality’s sake
By Matthew Ralph If you surf the Web regularly, you’ve probably seen some of the videos floating around of backward McCain-Palin supporters at campaign rallies spouting off about Obama being a terrorist because of his “bloodlines” and various other nonsense. One of them hasn’t earned the nickname Heavy Metal Palin Lot for nothing. Another reminds […]
Article: Seeing Lincoln
By Matthew Ralph It didn’t quite meet the goal of 200 and in fact failed to even crack triple digits, but an ambitious attempt to stage a world record breaking gathering of Abraham Lincoln presenters in downtown Louisville earlier this week was still effectively quirky, bizarre and even a bit creepy. While there were some […]
Article: Sweet Summer
By Kimberly D’Aquilante I was standing. Looking behind me at the summer that has passed. Kind of like watching the big orange sun descend slowly into the the back of the field across the street from my house. And it is really a beautiful sight to behold. The orange and the pink streaked sky spans from […]