Jan. 9, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Why there's hope amidst the destruction Martin Peretz: At War, Not at War Charles Krauthammer: Will Olmert screw it up yet again? Jan. 8, 2009 Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Arab regimes secretly rooting for Israel? Larry Elder: Israelis and Palestinians: Who's David, Who's Goliath? Jeff Jacoby: Yes, it's anti-Semitism Jan. 7, 2009 Jonah Goldberg: Who are the real Nazis? Anne Applebaum: Pointless Peace Proposals Jan. 6, 2009 Caroline B. Glick: Iran's Gazan diversion? Dennis Prager: Dissecting Dershowitz Jan. 5, 2009 Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists Mona Charen: The So-called International Community Jan. 2, 2009 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Having a holy tongue Caroline B. Glick : Hamas' march to victory Dec. 31, 2008 Dore Gold: Is Israel Using 'Disproportionate Force'? Renee Enna:: Succulent 'stewp' is quick, easy fix Dec. 30, 2008 Jonathan Mark: Israel's Response Is Disproportionate Wesley Pruden: It's time once more to blame the Jews Dec. 29, 2008 Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Chanukah: 'Give me Judaism or give me death' Michael B. Oren: A crisis and an opportunity Dec. 26, 2008 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When the past meets the future Caroline B. Glick: Iran and Hamas do Christmas Dec. 24, 2008 Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Judaism's Santa problem The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman CHANUKAH FORK-FINGER FOOD FEAST Dec. 23, 2008 Caroline B. Glick: Repeating failure in Gaza Dec. 22, 2008 Rabbi Boruch Leff: Too many Jews today are missing the intended purpose of one of Judaism's most beloved holidays Barry Rubin: Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire Dec. 19, 2008 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Final Battlefield Caroline B. Glick: Betting on a dead horse Dec. 18, 2008 The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Juicy Chef's hella top, hella bottom, hallelujah in the middle Craig Crossman : More gifts for geeks --- and those who love them Dec. 17, 2008 Dion Nissenbaum: Israel kicks out outrageously biased UN official Craig Crossman : Gifts for geeks --- and those who love them Dec. 16, 2008 Jonathan Rosenblum: The Gift of Joy Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Uncle Shariah Dec. 15, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Expert witnesses who put themselves first Barry Rubin: What they say isn't what you hear Dec. 12, 2008 Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Can the Bible be a secular language? Caroline B. Glick: What a PM Netanyahu faces from Washington Dec. 11, 2008 Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Our role in the Divine's global corporation, World Inc. The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: A retro-tasting pareve pot pie made with a light hand Dec. 10, 2008 Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn: Groom admits he was caught "red handed" Kara McGuire: No money for gifts? No problem Dec. 9, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Can I make my boss treat me fairly? Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis Dec. 8, 2008 Rabbi Avi Shafran: 'Chanukah Bush' flap and graciousness Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable Dec. 5, 2008 Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Truth --- The Key to Gratitude Jeff Jacoby: UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 11, 2006 / 19 Tishrei, 5767 Huckleberry TV By Dan Neil http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I've got to make this quick: I'm missing "The Big Joe Polka Show." In the vastly weird and largely uncharted realm of 500-channel cable and satellite, there are huge swaths of programming that never reach beyond their narrowcast audience. I find I'm spending a lot of time lately exploring this borderline of what can only be called unpopular culture: the 24-hour knife show; unsparingly dull stretches of control-room coverage on NASA TV; "Xena: Warrior Princess," which plays at 6 a.m. on the Logo channel. It's a curious source of pleasure to have my morning coffee with 100,000 lesbians. I am, I suppose, a programming voyeur, or lurker, loitering around shows that are clearly not aimed at me or mine. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how much I know about this year's points chase in professional tractor pulling. Vietnamese soap operas, University of Tennessee football. I've got to hand it to me: I'm eclectic. My most recent discovery is RFD-TV, which bills itself without irony as "Rural America's Most Important Network." ("RFD," by the way, stands for "Rural Free Delivery.") Launched in 2000 on cable and satellite services, the Nashville-based RFD-TV is a 24-hour channel devoted to the "needs and interests of rural America and agriculture." And how. Should you ever tire of the slickly packaged, compulsively hip and cynically commercial feel of televised entertainment, RFD-TV will feel like a corny oasis. With titles such as "I Love Toy Trains," "Little Britches Rodeo" and "Quilt in a Day," RFD-TV's lineup — much of it recycled from regional public television stations around the country — has the feel of chaste, checked-gingham separateness, a moral and mental landscape where Jesus is American, sex is confined to barnyard breeding, and temptation is a pie cooling in the window. To get a sense of the refuge RFD-TV offers, just read the viewer mail, which the channel runs as bumpers between shows. "It's so clean and decent I can't believe my eyes," one viewer gushes, rather sadly. It's a reminder that, despite Christian novels to the contrary, godly people are the ones feeling left behind. And yet, at times, I suspect the channel is pulling my cynical urban leg. The channel's program guide is running a "Name the Puppies" contest. Gee, I wonder what the winner gets? A puppy? RFD-TV's pervasive innocence has its own aesthetic. Most of these programs are no-budget, one-camera productions, with minimal editing, sound or music. I watched "Dennis Reis Universal Horsemanship," in which the star — a riding instructor, naturally — taught his horse a complicated reverse maneuver in a dead-silent training ring. If there was an edit during all this, I didn't see it. Of course, I might have fallen asleep, so soporific is the effect. Technically, this is anti-TV. "It's supposed to be simple," says Meredith Hodges, the host of "Training Mules and Donkeys," a show that itself wastes no cleverness in the title. "We want it to have an educational feel and not a commercial feel." Inevitably, on RFD-TV, "values" refers to "family" and not "production." I called Hodges — the daughter of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz — because hers was the first show I happened to see on the channel. She was training a mule in dressage, which I thought was, you know, kind of funny. She saw no humor it. "Mules are stronger, smarter, quicker to learn, easier to train" than horses, she said sternly. I asked her if she had ever heard the phrase, "a mule in horse harness." She hadn't. It's possible Hodges was feeling defensive. Rural America itself has been under siege for the last 50 years, a time of demographic transformation during which America went from a largely agrarian populace to an overwhelmingly urban citizenry. In the face of massive corporate consolidation of agriculture (now, properly, agribusiness) the small family farm as an economic entity is endangered. The irony is that, even as the rural culture has been mythologized and celebrated — in everything from "The Dukes of Hazzard" to NASCAR — the reality is, it's a dying civilization. To take but one troubling measure, the proportion of farmers age 55 and over rose from 37 percent in 1954 to 61 percent in 1997. Knowing all that, RFD-TV plays like the poignant cultural echo of a previous America. Indeed, much of the channel's music programming dates back decades: "The Porter Wagoner Show," "The Wilburn Brothers Show," "Gospel Singing Jubilee," all shows that came out of Nashville in the 1960s and '70s. RFD-TV fills me with one feeling most of all: envy. Like a lot of future-haunted urbanites, I'm wondering where I'll be when it all goes to hell. I would do just about anything to have a little ranch off the grid, with goats and a garden and a toy train in the barn. And that makes the guileless RFD-TV strangely hip, in a must-have, aspirational way. I might even get me a dressage mule. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here. Previously: 07/11/06: Scribbling rivalry 05/06/06: Fashion victim 03/01/06: TALK ABOUT A JOB! 02/21/06: Cowboy down 02/07/06: Superman, we need you now more than ever 01/11/06: All that sass 01/06/05: Is debonair even possible in 2006? 12/26/05: Be careful what you ask for 12/20/05: Monster's Ball: Reconsidering ‘Beowulf’ © 2006, Tribune Media Services, INC. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Rod Dreher  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  James Klurfeld  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Jonathan Last  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  The Medicine Men  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Jeff Stahler  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  Marybeth Hicks  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  How To Do Things  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works