I've been recommending this clip from the Conan O'Brien show to anyone willing to listen (many simply back away, slowly...).  It's side-splittingly funny, and about as true as anything I've ever heard.  Unbeknownst to Louis CK, he speaks to...
Once upon a time in America, schoolchildren celebrated a lovely little holiday called Arbor Day. The young scholars would sing songs about Johnny Appleseed, recite Joyce Kilmer into the ground, learn the difference between an oak and a maple, and bundle up against the spring chill to go outside and plant an actual tree.
Devon, PA.  Stanley Fish has taken up a lot of public space during his career, but never has he darkened the depths in such monstrous fashion as he does in his most recent little post for The New York...
George Will, who once upon a time long ago was capable of making truly thoughtful and important contributions to discussions over liberalism and conservatism in America, but who has, unfortunately, long since become comfortable simply defending the Republican party...
Louisville, Ky. “Rural dwellers may have boundless tolerance for exaltations of the wonders and mysteries of the natural world, but the urban spirit begins to rebel. By the time this well-intentioned but miscalculated show drew to a close, I...

April 15

Princeton, NJ I have to admit, I have been finding it difficult to write much of anything of late. This is a fairly unusual condition - usually I find no lack of windmills at which to tilt,...
Peggy Noonan has a piece in the WSJ titled "Goodby Bland Affluence." Seems even NYC is slowing down and, for the first time in its long history, being forced to consider its own reason for existence.  Hmmm. h/t Bill Lockwood.
PHOENIX, AZ. If you know me, and if you are not my insurance agent, you may also know that I occasionally enjoy a good cigar. On major holidays (and, let me confess up front, Iconstrue this category rather loosely),...
  RINGOES, NJ. In 1944 two very different but related books were published. The first was F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. In a world that seemed to be succumbing to the socialist ideal, where planned economies represented a...
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Before it became a science of supply and demand and the circulation of commodities, economics was originally understood as the wisdom of household management. The Greek word oikonomia derives from oikos (household) and nomos...