As a threat to the nation's health, television stands far higher than alcohol, drugs, or tobacco, and the worry is that it may be too late to do anything about it, since the addiction is all but universal.

Those who argue for reform that's about overall excellence and improving the opportunities for all students have been tarred in recent years as anti-reform or racist. But laudable efforts to help our least fortunate students need not come at the expense of the rest. We can do much better by all our children--and the first step is escaping the pinched confines of the achievement-gap mentality.

We face the dual problems of an increasing gap in access to these technologies between the "haves" and "have nots" and fragmentation of the once-common set of facts that Americans shared through similar experiences with the media. Creating a vibrant public square is essential to improving the state of democracy.

J. M. Barrie's famous 1904 play, Peter Pan or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, reflected the difficulty of the young entering the adult world in Victorian times. The story, still enormously popular, made the refusal to grow up sound charming. Far less charming is the thwarted transition to adulthood...

Religion is a large and vital part of our culture, however, and its place in noncommercial television should not be constrained by government edict.

The FCC decreed, for the first time, that at least half of what appears on noncommercial TV stations must meet the FCC's definition of "educational, cultural or instructional" programming.

A new FCC policy will force some religious TV stations to water down their programming or risk their licenses.

Will Congress find a way to put off the confrontation another month or so until the debt ceiling is reached and use their leverage there for a higher-stakes confrontation?