Festivals and Culture

The 12th Library of Congress National Book Festival is part of a larger Library of Congress "Celebration of the Book" in 2012 and 2013. If you can't attend remember that C-Span's BookTV is holding approximately fifteen and a half hours of coverage on both Saturday and Sunday, September 22 and 23. How about a BookFest party? more »

Doris O'Brien writes: Freedom of speech has in too many instances become freedom to offend, and, as a result, entering the mass media discussion comes with gut-wrenching risks.  Be prepared to be brutally insulted by those who disagree with you.  Brace yourself for bombast, rudeness, ridicule and downright lies. more »

"The border region is thought of as a place of violence, poverty, trafficking and pollution — sometimes and in some places it is — but it is also place of everyday life where both sides work together, shop, get married; it's a third nation. the third nation will be here when the walls have fallen, exactly in this place where it already lives." more »

Did the fracking debate dredge up ‘Dallas’ – the redux – or was this soap opera’s resurgence just another convenient mirror in which to reflect how central the nation’s debate over energy has now become in our culture? more »