Jonathan Jackson's Pilgrimage to Mount Athos (photos + video)

The 32 year-old American actor Jonathan Jackson, known for his Emmy award winning role in General Hospital, was baptized Orthodox three years ago with his family, and has publicly expressed in the past his love for Mount Athos and gratitude to the monks there.

This past Friday he visited Mount Athos for the first time with his 11 year-old son Caleb, and they stayed there for five days visiting Simonopetra and Xenophontos monasteries, and spent most of his time at Vatopaidi Monastery (Friday till Tuesday) where he met the Abbot, Elder Ephraim, and attended an all-night vigil on Saturday night.

The Cult of Celebrity: Misguided by the Stars

The cult of celebrity is not new, but it is increasing in its scope and effect. At one time, people wanted simply to gawp at the famous, and possibly dress like them. Now, many take their moral and political opinions from them.

Point of View: Misguided by the Stars

Theodore Dalrymple
May 27 2007
The Star

The cult of celebrity is not new, but it is increasing in its scope and effect. At one time, people wanted simply to gawp at the famous, and possibly dress like them. Now, many take their moral and political opinions from them.

The Dark Side of Fame, the Cult of Celebrity and Today's Youth

The Dark Side of Fame ... and why the cult of celebrity is destroying today's children

By Sharon Osbourne

28th February 2010

Daily Mail

My husband Ozzy and I once met Andy Warhol. It was in New York in the Eighties, about a year before the artist died, and at the height of Ozzy's solo success. We had a call from one of Warhol's people saying Andy wanted to meet Ozzy. We were intrigued so we said: 'Let's do it.'

First came dinner in a restaurant in Greenwich Village. Ozzy and I sat opposite Warhol, who was exactly like you see him in pictures, only more exaggerated - skinny face, and his collar too big for his neck, so the effect was a bit tortoise-like. Most of the time he didn't say anything, and when he did, it was so quiet you couldn't really hear.

Dinner over, he said he wanted to take us to a Manhattan club. It wasn't long before Ozzy got agitated. 'I'm bored,' he told me.

Trivialization Nation: Are We Devaluing Our Values?

Linton Weeks
February 12, 2010
NPR

A roll of U.S. Constitution toilet paper sells for $7.95 online. Certain TV shows arrange marriages. Other shows brush aside the horrors of serial killers or treat torture as a curiosity.

It makes you wonder — have we become Trivialization Nation? Perhaps we've downsized the meaning of everything: Love. Death. Sex. Religion. Education. Civil rights.

How sacred is life when in a recent episode of the widely watched and revered Oprah, a murderer on death row appears via satellite to speak with the children of his victims? How lifted up is love when a houseful of men and women vie on MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila for the favors of the self-promoting Web celeb?

The Department of Homeland Security, created in 2002, will be the subject of a conference this month called "The 7-Year Itch — Renewing the Commitment." That's right. Bright, creative people plan to discuss the supersober topic of national security in this era of incredible danger — and they name the confab for a 1955 Marilyn Monroe movie about marital ennui.

Witty, yes. Weighty, not so much.

The Prayer Rope and the Video Game

The elder Silouan the Athonite making a prayer rope, 

while young boys play a video game on their way to Mount Athos.