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So now it’s finally upon us: Solo: A Star Wars Story! This stand-alone installment in the Stars Wars franchise features the adventures of a young Han Solo before he met Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Mos Eisley Cantina in Stars Wars: A New Hope. It will be interesting to see what veteran screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Lawrence Kasdan, has imagined as Han’s backstory. Was Han always a charming, roguish smuggler, or was he once an idealistic recruit of the Empire who became disillusioned and turned into the Han Solo we’ve all come to know? The...

FPIW visited the campus of the University of Washington to see if students would affirm or reject Joseph Backholm's new chosen identity: a 6'5" Chinese woman... (And Backholm asks repeatedly if they would accept him as 7-year-old, too.)

The apostate American Left of today holds the position that the Founding Fathers original intent for the Constitution was to be an “evolving” and “living” document to fit and conform to the hour and day which Americans are living in. America has devolved into a lawless, narcissistic, decadent, and immoral nation because of the ABANDONMENT of the ideals of our Founding Fathers. Therefore, the Left believes that the Constitution must also change due to the lawless practices of godlessness by many (including themselves), and the immoral decadence which exists must be accommodated by calling it "normal" and "constitutional." It doesn't...

Behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over the ages through experience and trial and error. They include important thou-shalt-nots such as shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat, but they also include all those courtesies one might call ladylike and gentlemanly conduct.

"I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn't ever think I'd see straight...

I didn’t get to see Episode III, Revenge of the Sith in the theater. I wanted to, but things were just too busy, and I was less impressed by Episodes I and II than I was with IV through VI, so it wasn’t a matter of priority. I was also put off a bit by the title. I knew that Episode VI had originally been titled Revenge of the Jedi, but the title had been changed, even though it would have been correct. Here, it was dead wrong; there had been nothing for the Sith to take vengeance over. “Rise...

Folks, first the good news: I watched Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith twice. I also read the excellent novelization of the script by Matthew Woodring Stover. Of course, this is a great saga, good story-telling almost 30 years in the making. I was there, 12 years old when the first Star Wars came out, standing on line on a stormy day in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and like many other fans, have watched the franchise grow and read uncounted novels involving the characters we all love. Star Wars is a morality tale. One may see countless influences...

Nothing more separates Judeo-Christian values from secular values than the question of whether morality -- what is good or evil -- is absolute or relative. In other words, is there an objective right or wrong, or is right or wrong a matter of personal opinion? In the Judeo-Christian value system, God is the source of moral values and therefore what is moral and immoral transcends personal or societal opinion. Without God, each society or individual makes up its or his/her moral standards. But once individuals or societies become the source of right and wrong, right and wrong, good and evil,...

FIRST-PERSON: Contradictions of liberal moral philosophy By Mark Kelly RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Did you watch the three-hour Peter Jennings special on April 5 that explained why no intelligent, right-thinking person would think Jesus was anything more than a misguided do-gooder with political aspirations? Did you notice the part where the Apostle Paul was written off for his supposed “puritanical intolerance"? Maybe you knew ahead of time that the Jennings “documentary" wasn’t going to be worth the time, but I know you endured the constant barrage of media reports that disparaged Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ" as an anti-Semitic gore-fest...

If there is an absolute standard of morality, then there must be a God. Disagree? Consider the alternative. God's existence has direct bearing on how we view morality. As Dostoyevsky so famously put it, "Without God, everything is permitted."At first glance, this statement may not make sense. Everything is permitted? Can't there be a morality without an infinite God?Perhaps some of the confusion is due to a murky definition of morality we owe to moral relativism. Moral relativism maintains that there is no objective standard of right and wrong existing separate and independent from humanity. The creation of moral...