Entry 4:

Dear lovely wife,

Hilarious incident just occurred. As I was writing this, I got a call from a nice-sounding young man named Gabriel Snyder, who writes the New York Observer's "Off The Record" column. Gabriel is displeased (is that the right word, Gabriel?) with the jokey domestic comments that have prefaced our "Breakfast Table" entries. Gabriel says "The cooing is getting in the way of the substantive issues being discussed." Gabriel says that our exchanges are "awkward," and wonders whether we intended that. Sputtering and sweating, I tried to explain to Gabriel that these comments were all in fun, that Slateoften features husbands and wives in the Breakfast Table, and that these very same husbands and wives often joke about their home lives in their entries. But Gabriel would not be moved. I fear that we will be lampooned in the pages of tomorrow's Observer (Gabriel notes that his item will be "media criticism of media criticism." Which makes this, I suppose, pre-emptive media criticism of media criticism of media criticism.) Out of respect for Gabriel, I think we should suspend all public displays of affection and mentions of our home life. All business from now on.

So back to the news.

I am not going down to Bob Jones. I realized I would be too late to explore the weirdness of the place, which has almost but not quite been captured the zillions of articles written about it. The 11 p.m. curfew bell. The rule against talking across the table in the dining room. The mandatory social societies. The hatred not just of Catholicism, but Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, etc. The casual use of the word "antichrist." The classes in manners and deportment. (BJU students are instructed to quote the New York Times "as the definitive view of the secular world.") Bob Jones Jr.'s obsession with Shakespeare. (When I visited the campus last year, I was stunned to see the portrait outside the president's office: Bob Jones Jr. costumed as a hook-nosed Shylock for a campus production of the Merchant of Venice. Shylock?)

I share your mild skepticism about Hertzberg's New Yorker piece. The Bob Jones folks--who are certainly as nutty as they come--have been singled out for ostracism, though almost every religious group practices some nasty form of discrimination. Most religions frown (and more) on intermarriage. Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, have been militant about fighting intermarriage, as have many Mormons, Catholics, and Muslims. Immigrant groups maintain isolationist customs from their homelands: The caste divisions of India often remain in the United States. The United States prides itself (as it should) on the way it mixes all of us up. Even so, a strong strain of tribalism remains in almost every group, and it is not always a bad thing.

At least the Bob Jones folks have the courage of their religious convictions. (They are willing to call a spade a spade. A poor joke. I hope Gabriel doesn't mark me down for that, too.) The BoJos believe we are going to hell and they tell us. I appreciate the warning. If you believe God has very strict rules about who gets saved and who doesn't, you surely have an obligation to try to rescue the rest of the world from hellfire. I am a lot angrier at Christians who think I am going to hell but don't bother to tell me than I am at those who make a big stink about it.

The San Francisco oral-sex and anus exhibition--let us call it the Lewinsky Project--is truly horrifying, though not, I would argue, significantly worse than what Time magazine and Today are inflicting on us this week: Katie Couric's rectum. Time gives Katie's crusade against colon cancer the cover this week, while Today is going to broadcast her colonoscopy. It is all a very good cause, and it will undoubtedly save lives and do all the other things that good journalism is supposed to. Even so, yuck. When Ronald Reagan had colon cancer in the '80s, they just showed diagrams on the news. Now they're broadcasting the home movies! Truly the media has become shameless.

There is a dog that didn't bark today. The murder of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland makes the cover of Newsweek--couldn't get Couric, I guess--but I have been stunned at how quickly this killing has been archived with all the other kid shootings. When the first kid gunned down his classmates (was it Paducah? Jonesboro? Pearl, Miss.? I can't even remember now), I was certain there would be enough outrage for stricter gun laws. It didn't happen. When the Columbine killers committed mass slaughter, I was positive that the nation would rise up and demand more gun control. It didn't happen. Now a 6-year-old has died because some idiot left a gun lying around his house. Surely Americans ought to be rising up to demand gun locks and handgun licensing. But they are not. In less than a week, the story has become past tense.

Regards,
Mr. David Plotz