PicoBlog

When you enter the kitchen, there is a certain amount of heat. When I saw that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s wife Kelly Johnson was a Licensed Pastoral Counselor, I did a double take. I did not recall Louisiana having a law regulating pastoral counselors. The state does regulate the other mental health professions, but the only regulation for pastoral counselors I can find is for pastoral counselors working in a Children’s Respite Care Center.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, writer/director of three films since 2021 (all airing on PBS), and longtime executive editor of the legendary Crawdaddy, 1971-1979. ___ It happened this week in 1962. This special post is drawn from my best-selling book, The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill—which I dedicated to Peter Fechter. A song tribute and trailer for the book at the bottom of the page.

David French has emerged as one of American evangelicalism’s foremost ombudsmen. His criticism of this community—a group of predominantly white Christians to which French most certainly belongs—has both convicted and irritated evangelicals in recent years. I imagine this is because his words carry more weight than if they were coming from, say, a secular liberal lamenting the role of religion in public life. Indeed, French’s history as a religious liberty and First Amendment lawyer for groups like Alliance Defending Freedom demonstrate his Christian bona fides.

Friends, Roger Ailes did more to degrade the tone of public life in America than anyone since Joseph McCarthy. In 1998, Ailes asked me to drop by his office in New York City. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was exploding, and Fox News’s prime-time ratings were soaring because of it. I had gone public in defense of Clinton’s insistence that he “didn’t have sex with that woman” — saying I doubted he’d jeopardize his presidency for an affair with a White House intern.

Phyllis Diller once said she became a stand-up comedian because she had a sit-down husband. Laziness was among Sherwood Anderson Diller’s better qualities. He was moody, abusive, unfaithful, and a marital rapist. His wife channeled all this into the character of Fang, her fictional husband so named for his single protruding tooth. Here’s how she described him: I’ve been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about short and cheap?

Pepitas are a super-popular snack all around Mexico. They form the base of pipián, a minimalist, savory mole sauce famous in states like Jalisco and Zacatecas. They are an indispensable ingredient in Yucatán’s famous sikil p’aak (don’t forget I wrote you a recipe back in the summer for Sikil P'aak Grilled Ribs with Sungolds). While pepitas aren’t the most celebrated Mexican ingredient, they certainly deserve to be, especially when you taste these albóndigas that make pepitas the protagonist.

I’ve spent 15 years fighting against a system that does not want me in it. 11 years ago, I settled on “freelancer” as a job because media does not have any interest in or space for me. Maybe it’s that they don’t want someone like me in this space or maybe it’s something about me personally; I don’t know. Either way, in addition to the grind of writing and thinking and creating, I also get to grind to even be able to write and think and create at all.

We’re all in this together — but you’d be forgiven for wondering if some people are a bit deeper into it than the rest of us.  When you hear about well-placed politicians reassuring the general public as they quietly liquidate their portfolios, well, H.L. Mencken provided a quip for just that occasion: “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

There’s a new commercial making its’ round on TV. In it, sports commentator Skip Bayless is speaking at a funeral for a supposed friend whose passed away. When it’s time for him to step up to the podium and share some words of comfort or remembrance, all he can talk about is football. Instead of entering into the grief of life lost, he can only speak of the grief of his beloved Raiders choking against another team in the league.