I grew up in the Boston area, and the great Massachusetts leader Samuel Adams is a major character in a couple of the history books I wrote. The Boston that sticks with me is a bit of accent and a bond of suffering with the Red Sox. Occasionally, I also wax curious as to how my old townsmen have treasured not only the beer that bears Adams's name but the cultural legacy he left.

John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and the drug-praising novelist Aldous Huxley all died on the same day, November 22, 1963. That nonharmonic convergence has led to some fanciful yarn-spinning by popular philosopher Peter Kreeft concerning after-death discussions among the three.

Read 'em and weep? every december the media Research Center sends a Christmas present in the form of a lengthy ballot to a few journalists and professors, charged with selecting from the hundreds of examples of liberal media bias those that particularly make us cry, laugh, or become slack-jawed.

Grace, grace, amazing grace. It surrounds us and we ignore it. John Newton's hymn itself has become at times almost like elevator music, part of the background noise. Pro-abortion groups sing "Amazing Grace" and sway. Last year the University of Texas band played the hymn at halftime of its game with Texas A&M. But we rarely think about the words-"saved a wretch like me"-and the full awesomeness of God's sovereign grace.