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Sermon in black

"The face of Johnny Cash reminded this generation that he [had] tasted everything the MTV culture has to offer -- and found there a way that leads to death. In a culture that idolizes the hormonal surges of youth, Cash reminds the young of what MTV doesn't want them to know: 'It is appointed to man once to die, and after this the judgment.' His creviced face and blurring eyes remind them that there is not enough Botox in Hollywood to revive a corpse. ...

"Perhaps if Christian churches modeled themselves more after Johnny Cash, and less after perky Christian celebrities such as Kathy Lee Gifford, we might find ourselves resonating more with the MTV generation. ...

"We might connect with men and women who know what it's like to feel like fugitives from justice, even if they've never been to jail. We might offer them an authentic warning about what will happen when the Man comes around."

-- Russell D. Moore, writing on "Real Hard Cash," in the December issue of Touchstone

Cable calculus

"By any yardstick, the average contemporary cable offering affords a selection that is orders of magnitude richer and more varied than anything that's been available in the history of television. Of the two forces in favor of a la carte pricing, only one -- the decency advocates -- actually wants to shrink this selection. Consumer activists, on the other hand, are simply pursuing the great American tradition of seeking something for nothing. The a la carte plan will satisfy neither side. ...

"[A]s an individual line item offered at four bucks a pop, I would never say yes to Mother Angelica's EWTN network, but I like having it there. ... No wonder religious broadcasters have been among the surprising objectors to the ... plan to 'unbundle indecency.' Under the current setup they can boast of having millions of subscribers; forced into an a la carte menu, those millions would rapidly dwindle into the tens."

-- Tim Cavanaugh, writing to "Mother Angelica For Indecency," Thursday in Reason Online at www.reason.com

Ignoble nominees

"Many advocates of clemency for Stanley 'Tookie' Williams note that he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in literature for his anti-gang work, which includes writing children's books. How could a convicted murderer and co-founder of the Crips ... be nominated for such prizes?

"According to Nobel Prize nominating rules, any 'professor of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology' and any judge or national legislator in any country, among others, can nominate anyone for a Nobel Peace Prize. Past nominees have included Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini and Fidel Castro. Any 'professor of literature [or] of linguistics,' among others, can nominate anyone for a Nobel Prize in literature.

"Naturally, many nominees have real merit. But being nominated by one or a few of the hundreds of thousands of eligible nominators is little evidence of such merit. ...

"It would surely be helpful to readers if news stories mentioning Williams' nominations ... stressed how unselective the nomination process is."

-- Eugene Volokh, writing on "Who doesn't have a Nobel nomination?" Thursday in the Los Angeles Times