Richard Stivers is Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Illinois State University. He is the author of Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and Its American Stereotype; Evil in Modern Myth and Ritual; The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline; Technology As Magic; The Illusion of Freedom and Equality; and The Media Creates Us in Its Image and Other Essays on Technology and Culture. He gave three lectures based on three of his books to the European Commission in 2006.