Popular culture permeates every aspect of out lives, although there may be times when we may question how much “culture” is actually there. Nonetheless, movies, television, music, fashion, comic books and magazines all provide an alternate chronicle of our times that is often just as revelatory as the news media, and sometimes more. What do you think really signaled the beginning of the Modern Era--the detonation of the atomic bomb or Dior’s New Look of 1947? Did video kill the radio star or music as a whole? Is reality TV the gladiatorial games of out time? What movie from the last five years would you want the Muslim world to see in order to understand western culture?

If these are the kinds of questions that cross your mind, we’d love to hear from you. I’m Mike Madrid, Popular Culture Editor at EAP. I’m interested in hearing your viewpoints on popular culture, past or present, and what it says about our society as a whole. If you’d like to be a contributor, please contact me at heaven4@pacbell.net, and let me know what you’d like to write about. Please include POP CULTURE in the subject line of your e-mail. We are interested in observations that lead to progress for our society, in whatever form that may take.