American Life

A three-part documentary series, "National Desk" (11 p.m.-midnight, MPT, Channels 22 and 67), addresses patterns in American life that are "eroding common culture." In "Redefining Racism: New Voices From Black America," radio talk-show host Larry Elder studies the differences between blacks and whites, while offering hopeful signs that point toward reconciliation. PBS.Pub Date: 10/13/97

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the most frequently heard forecast was: "This changes everything. " Americans would live in constant fear of the next attack, many pundits predicted. The desire for safety would spawn a security state that would trample constitutional freedoms. The economy would take a long-term hit. American life would never be the same. Most of those dire predictions didn't come true, of course. The U.S. economy rebounded quickly. Civil liberties came under stress, but fears of a surveillance state weren't realized.

Celluloid dreams. They infect the best of us, even those who seem immune. Take Ira Glass, host of This American Life. Early last year, Glass uprooted his innovative, popular public radio show and moved the whole shebang -- staff members, their families and pets -- from Chicago to New York to film a television series. Glass is proud of the result, but there were costs associated with the transition from an aural to a visual method of storytelling, from lives that were changed, to a lessened involvement -- temporarily, he says -- with the radio show.

An upstairs room at Asbury Methodist Church is stuffed with memorabilia and documents of the Annapolis church, from faded photos of generations of church leaders to mugs commemorating the recent 200th anniversary. The filing cabinets that line a back wall in this informal exhibit space contain a trove of church records - births, deaths and marriages among them. The glass cabinets elsewhere in the room hold other items, including a tea kettle that a century ago sat on a wood-fired stove in the church, used to boil water for tea for the pastor and his visitors.

It may be the world's greatest public works project, but the United States interstate highway system doesn't inspire instant awe like the Great Wall of China, Egypt's pyramids and other man-made wonders. Some may admire the 46,837-mile network as a breathtaking engineering feat, but for millions of commuters, vacationers and errand runners, it is a simply a convenience built for a society with a mania for motion. But the interstate is remarkable for much more than its engineering. The system, which celebrates its 50th anniversary Thursday, has indelibly transformed American life -- for good and for bad. "In the simplest terms, the interstate helped us to determine where we put our houses, our factories, how we transport our livestock and food products, and how much we can distribute," says William L. Withuhn, curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, where an exhibit called America on the Move is on display.

Stedman Graham is one self-help author who practices what he preaches almost every day of his life. If he didn't, he would likely be lost in one of the largest and most overwhelming shadows in American life. Graham, known to millions as "Oprah Winfrey's boyfriend," was in town last week promoting his 11th book, "Identity: Your Passport to Success," a guide to creating your own identity rather than letting others define and limit who and what you can imagine yourself being.

- Bulkier and more self-assured, Maryland center Alex Len appears poised for a breakout season after an uneven freshman year in which he said he struggled to adjust to the physical nature of the American game and to understand play calls because of his limited English. "I didn't understand a lot of plays," the 7-foot-1, Ukraine-born player said Tuesday in his first interview since joining the Terps last year. "I wasn't getting it, so it was really hard. I was really like confused on the court.

ISLAM IS said to have 6 million adherents in the United States and to be the fastest-growing religion in this country; in 1960, there were an estimated 100,000 Muslims living in this nation. This community is unlike any that came before, and it faces choices that are likely to have a major impact on the United States and on Muslims around the world.American Muslims -- immigrants and native-born converts alike -- look at the United States in one of two ways. Members of one group, the integrationists, see themselves as patriotic Americans and committed Muslims.

On radio, This American Life is a treasure - a brilliantly conceived form of quirky, true-life storytelling that has spawned a host of imitators and stands with the finest work the medium has delivered. But on TV last year, not so brilliant. While the first season on Showtime was promising, mistakes were made - even host and executive producer Ira Glass says so. Information This American Life begins its second season at 10 p.m. Sunday on Showtime. Tonight's live event starts at 8. For ticket information, contact Bel Air Cinema Stadium 14 at 410-569-8276 or Snowden Square Stadium 14 at 410-872-0670, or go to fathomevents.

Washington. -- Americans are at each other's throats these days because some politicians are telling them that these are the worst of times.We are encouraged to blame those who do not look like us or think like us for all our grievances.I got a bit of relief from this orgy of self-pity and scapegoating Wednesday when I read a Wall Street Journal article comparing family life in America now with what it was in 1974.I saw a mixed bag of change that showed us enjoying many creature comforts at reduced prices, yet paying more for some of the essentials of civilized life.

President Barack Obama came out swinging Tuesday night in the  town hall debate with Mitt Romney, and while he didn't land any pure knockdown punches, his base is sure to be encouraged by seeing a a president on TV who once again seemed engaged in the fight to hold the White House. What a difference between this Obama and the distracted, somnambulant character viewers saw in his first debate with a dominant Romney. The Democratic president on the screen Tuesday night at Hofstra University seemed like someone who gave a darn -- at least about some of the troubles this nation is experiencing in these hard times.

- Bulkier and more self-assured, Maryland center Alex Len appears poised for a breakout season after an uneven freshman year in which he said he struggled to adjust to the physical nature of the American game and to understand play calls because of his limited English. "I didn't understand a lot of plays," the 7-foot-1, Ukraine-born player said Tuesday in his first interview since joining the Terps last year. "I wasn't getting it, so it was really hard. I was really like confused on the court.

Andy Griffith, one of the stars who put CBS on top of the TV world in the 1960s with an easy-going but culturally-packed sitcom that ran for eight seasons during that stormy decade in American life, died Tuesday at 86 at his North Carolina home in Roanoke Island. Like Fred MacMurry, whose range ran from the feature film  "Double Indemnity"  to TV's "My Three Sons," Griffith was far more than just another TV actor from the early days of the medium. Before TV and Sheriff Andy Taylor, he was Lonesome Rhodes in Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd," And he found renewed TV fame in the 1980s and '90s as Harvard-educated attorney Ben Matlock.

I will admit it, I came to the season premiere of "America's Got Talent" to rip Howard Stern. But I walk away after two hours with nothing but admiration for Stern and the producers of this potent franchise. And I'm not simply praising AGT as a slick or skilled production. "America's Got Talent" connects with some of the deepest currents of American life today. For all its sideshow, freakshow silliness and weirdness  at times, it also speaks to a huge slice of American life that our politicians don't seem to know or care about one little bit any more as they move from fund raiser to fund raiser and TV studio to soundstage in their cocoons of media and million-dollar isolation from the masses.

Stedman Graham is one self-help author who practices what he preaches almost every day of his life. If he didn't, he would likely be lost in one of the largest and most overwhelming shadows in American life. Graham, known to millions as "Oprah Winfrey's boyfriend," was in town last week promoting his 11th book, "Identity: Your Passport to Success," a guide to creating your own identity rather than letting others define and limit who and what you can imagine yourself being.

I am a fan of Ira Glass and "This American Life. " In fact, I am such a fan, I have been sitting here for four days hoping someone else would write this piece. But no one is apparently. So, here goes. Let me preface it by saying maybe I am so out of step with most of my colleagues because I have been teaching Media Ethics for the past 15 years at an area college. (In fact. Glass is speaking at commencement for the school in May.) But while Mike Daisey deserves all the pounding and then some that he is taking in the press for his lies, I am troubled by how many of my colleagues are mostly giving Glass a pass for his gatekeeping failure in putting Daisey's work on the air in the first place.

Andy Griffith, one of the stars who put CBS on top of the TV world in the 1960s with an easy-going but culturally-packed sitcom that ran for eight seasons during that stormy decade in American life, died Tuesday at 86 at his North Carolina home in Roanoke Island. Like Fred MacMurry, whose range ran from the feature film  "Double Indemnity"  to TV's "My Three Sons," Griffith was far more than just another TV actor from the early days of the medium. Before TV and Sheriff Andy Taylor, he was Lonesome Rhodes in Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd," And he found renewed TV fame in the 1980s and '90s as Harvard-educated attorney Ben Matlock.

NOW THAT George W. Bush finally is our president-elect, he can begin thinking about his presidential agenda. At the top of the list should be the issue of race. According to the exit polls, 90 percent of black voters favored Vice President Al Gore, while only 9 percent favored Bush. Obviously, this voting pattern is a topic of concern to Bush and the Republican Party. But its implications should be a matter of national concern as well. How do we explain the fact that a voting bloc representing about 12 percent of Americans believed Gore would be better for them when the rest of the nation viewed Bush and Gore, as my grandmother would say, as "six of one and half a dozen of another"?

I have no idea what opportunities exist for Hakha Chin speakers in Baltimore, but it's good refugees understand job competition ("Short course in American life," March 3). Now let's find a way to train young Americans in the same game of musical chairs that the Baltimore Orientation Center provides. A six-year Gallup "World Poll" study on what most people all over the world desire discovered "what the whole world wants is a good job. " It's time Americans woke up to this worldwide job struggle.

There is a reason more people watched the Grammys this year than did the Oscars last year: The Oscar telecast has truly come to suck. Sunday night's 84th Annual Academy Awards was actually painful to watch. I cannot think of any major TV franchise that has become so disconnected from cultural relevancy as the Oscar telecast has in recent years. And this one with Billy Crystal was truly pathetic. As I listened to Crystal doing schtick from Las Vegas circa 1960, I wondered if in 1917 Russia the czar had a comedian like Crystal working the palace in St. Petersburg, telling tired jokes from the 19th Century to keep those inside the crumbling walls of privilege distracted from the Bolsheviks in the streets who were about the change the world.