How London Emerged as the West’s First Global Capital

The sweeping title of the book promises much. Its author delivers both a bit more and a bit less.

Why the Hemingway Monument Still Matters

It is useful and maybe refreshing that a new book by Steve Paul allows us to meet a pre-monumental Ernest Hemingway.

Take Me Out to The Ball Game

The faith Willie had in me to protect him from anything untoward, even from being hurt by the elements, mirrors the faith I had in my grandfather to protect me from the street gangs when he took me to a game over fifty years ago.

The Rise and Fall of the Louisiana Coastline

For six of the seven years we have owned this house, I have told friends I hoped the next hurricane would just wash it off its slab into the sea—after we were safely north, of course.

A Good Time with a Bad Idea

How will our alien overlords memorialize us, one day? Which single item will be on display in their Museum of the Milky Way to represent the former human race? Never mind your Space Shuttle, your iPad, your book, rubber tire, ink pen, or corkscrew. It will be something ingenious, wasteful,…

Getting Better All the Time

My son was the only young person in the physical-therapy facility almost in Texas. The elderly were being led back and forth by cables rolling over pulleys. They stepped up and down on machines that went nowhere, turned circles with their feet but did not move. I was having ghost…

The Great Sigh of Relief That Is Books

It is not a great time in the United States to say you believe in writing, reading, and books, but let me be a brave little culture warrior and proclaim that, along with having…

No Time, No Consequences

I was slow to let my sons play video games with violence in them—freakishly slow, if you ask them, proving how out-of-touch I am with the hip, modern world. (Also: “Hip” is a gross word that old people use; please never say that again.) When they were younger it did…

Lunch, impeachment, and other transactions

I got my first email from the President of the United States on February 1st of this year, on the eve of his second State of the Union Address. “Nancy & Chuck don’t want me to speak, Mainstream Media outlets don’t want me to speak, and the Hollywood Elites don’t want…

The Specific Deferrals of DoD Projects

In case you missed it, as I did, here is a list of specific Department of Defense projects deferred at the start of September in order to build $3.6 billion of additional primary and secondary “pedestrian fencing” on our border with Mexico. On September 3, Secretary…

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