• What It Means to Be Human

  The fact that the hit movie WALL-E has a plot that even a child can follow doesn’t mean it’s juvenile. Released earlier this year, the Pixar film follows the story of a little robot named WALL-E. While the rest of Earth’s inhabitants have embarked on a 700-year cruise-like vacation aboard a space station, this little robot is left behind to clean up the planet.

• Live to Serve

  Ever since I was a boy, I was driven to serve my country. As a 10-year-old at the outbreak of World War II, I could only dream that one day I could put on a uniform and fight the enemy. But I did what I could. I organized a neighborhood drive to collect scrap metal for the war effort. Before I had reached 40 years of age, I had served as a captain in the Marines and as special counsel to President Nixon.

• The Kids Are Alright

  The Josephson Institute of Los Angeles, which studies contemporary ethics and morals, recently released its “2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth.” According to the Institute, the “results paint a troubling picture of our future politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals.”

• The Dalai Lama, Christianity, and Sex

  A prominent religious leader recently said that sex, however pleasurable it might be in the short run, leads to long-term trouble. He argued that celibacy is the way that leads to “more freedom.”

• The Bible and Proposition 8

  The passage of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex “marriage” in California, has stirred the ire of gay activists like little else. Besides thuggish vandalism of church property, that anger is being translated into mockery of the faith community.