This week online Bill McGarvey of BustedHalo returns to America to discuss this year s Oscar contenders with myself and culture editor Father Jim Martin Will Avatar triumph or can The Hurt Locker squeak out a surprise win What do Up and Up in the Air have to say about detachment and what

We re frequently frequently nbsp accused of being too NewYorky here at America magazine what with all of our Of Many Things columns nbsp about New York and its environs and occasional mention of events that happen at or visitors who frequent nbsp America House our office-cum-residence nbsp

From all reports it sounds like both parties are planning their best impersonation of Madonna the singer not the Blessed Virgin at the health care summit at Blair House on Thursday Her 1990 song Vogue was all about striking the right pose My sympathies are of course more with the President

Israel rsquo s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that two religious sites in the West Bank will be added to the country s national heritage list The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel s Tomb in Bethlehem will now be included in a 107m Israeli restoration plan Anyone unfam

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning has served as a spokesperson for St Vincent rsquo s Catholic hospital in Manhattan since 2006 and he plans to continue this work mdash but from now on he rsquo s doing it for free The New York Post reported that Manning will no longer accept compensation f

This weekend I popped in on Turner Classic Movie rsquo s 30 Days of Oscar and caught the last 15 minutes of Steven Spielberg s Close Encounters of the Third Kind nbsp Have you seen it lately If not put it in your queue nbsp It holds up amazingly well This scene of the scientists trying to com