Detroit Free Press

Last week, nearly 23 million Americans were glued to their TV sets for that most critical of news announcements: Who would win the karaoke contest?I am talking about "American Idol," a TV show that began as a half-hour of nastiness and somehow, by the end of the summer, was dubbed important enough to go two hours, lead the national newscasts and have its winner jetted overnight, first class, from the "Tonight Show" in L.A. to the "Today" show in New York.Wow. Who knew singing "It's Raining Men" could get you all that?

So now 12-year-old baseball players are thumping their chests and goose-stepping around the base paths with the same sneering, I'm-the-man attitude that already taints so many professional athletes.Great. We have cloned the monster, and it's pre-pubescent.

Mr. Kozlowski wanted a new house. So he took a loan. The loan was for $19 million. He took it from his ...

This is a column about life and death and the inches in between. One story comes from the coal mines of ...

Since the act of eating a fast-food cheeseburger involves a series of voluntary behaviors -- you must decide you ...

It was the saddest news photo of the week. A California mother fighting tears, her eyes squeezing shut, her lips quivering. She was displaying a picture of her 5-year-old daughter, who had been abducted hours earlier by a stranger in a green car. The news photo captured the tragic symbolism: a mother trying to hold her daughter up, even as she was falling apart.In the end, her world collapsed anyhow. The little girl, Samantha Runnion, was found the next day, naked and abused and dead on a hillside. Five years old. The killer left her like a gum wrapper.

As a kid, I worked in a baseball stadium. I arrived hours before the game. I saw the sprinklers watering the ...