The Big Arch

America’s Culinary Icon Is Not Done With Us Yet

Like war in the Middle East, military-grade weaponry, partisan enmity in politics, and utility trucks and RVs, the hamburger endures because it delivers recombinant flavors in huge doses of fat and salt that land in the stomach like a firm, reliable handshake.

Jungle Operations Training Center Certificate

Jungle Warfare in the Western Hemisphere and Big Stick Foreign Policy

Back when I attended the original Jungle Operations Training Center, in the spring of 1984, it was run entirely by US Army cadre, and the Russians were the bad guys. We were told a Russian trawler offshore was monitoring and trying to disrupt our radio communications on field exercises, and the outlined figures on paper targets at army rifle ranges wore Warsaw Pact helmets. “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,” as the first industrial-colonial power in Panama says. But the rigors of the Panamanian landscape and its climate have proved difficult for all foreign comers for 525 years.

Six-seven

“Six-seven!” and the Nonsensical Gestures of Pop’s Rapid Onset Obsolescence

How did a complete lack of meaning, paired with simple gestures, become a grand celebratory act for this generation?

Josep “Pep” Guardiola Sala

The Price of the Athlete and the Roar of the Crowd

Sport, like the university, like any institution, is a human construction. It reflects the fears and desires of those who manage it. To demand that it remain apolitical is to demand that it remain unexamined. What would it mean to refuse that demand consistently?

The Puppeteer and the Straight Shooter

David L. Roll builds on previous biographies of Harry S. Truman and does not try to reinvent the proverbial wheel. He has found a new angle that should have a wide-ranging appeal.

The Jesuit-owned Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum on South Dakota’s Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. (Photo by G.F. Fuller)

A Visit to the Jesuits’ Lakota Museum

Harold Compton tries, in the expansive sense of the words time and history, to focus himself on the present. Because that word history, he says, can overwhelm you.But his job is one rooted in the past. Of his people. And not of his people. Of the Jesuits, too.

Where We Keep the LIght by Josh Shapiro

Can Josh Shapiro Become the First Jewish President of the United States?

“Where We Keep The Light” is a cagey book, hardly surprising for a politician as skilled as Shapiro to write. Clearly wishing to capitalize on the national fame he achieved when he was considered for the vice presidency and was so touted as the superior candidate for it, even by Trump supporters, who breathed a sigh of relief that he was not chosen, the book gives his resume, stakes out his positions, makes the case for him as both the hard-working but empathetic professional and the dedicated family man, and takes sonar soundings of the political deep in hopes of hearing something other than an echo.

Strongman Zishe Breitbart

The Tyranny of Masculinity

Today’s influencers, panicked by AI and its ability to mimic or replace us altogether, preach a new vitalism. Often masculine, sometimes misogynist, this energy is wild and brave and noble, a birthright that cannot be replaced.  

A sample of panels from “Dave Contra” on Instagram

Cartoonists of Instagram: Dave Contra

Cartoons are one of my favorite things on Instagram, especially when they touch on humor, confusion, sadness, practical philosophy, and cultural critique.

Frederick Wiseman

How Frederick Wiseman Harnessed Reality to Give Us Other, Possible Worlds

No other filmmaker, documentary or otherwise, makes us feel not just that we were there, but that we are there every time we watch these films. That assessment sounds cliché, but when discussing Wiseman, even terms such as verisimilitude fall short.

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