H.I.F. Best news story out of Detroit in 40 years: Three different Detroit homeowners used guns to defend themselves against intruders this week [http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/wayne-county/3-different-homeowners-use-guns-to-defend-themselves-against-intruders-this-week] .

Max Beerbohm never completed his undergraduate studies. He dropped out of Oxford before his last year. Why? It was superfluous. At a very young age, he was already a rising man of letters. "He needed a degree," Joseph Epstein once noted, "about as much as the pope

I'm reading Catherine de Hueck's Poustinia. I'm greatly intrigued, but I have many questions. Are they exclusively associated with Madonna House [http://www.madonnahouse.org/tour/poustinia.html]? Did they ever take off like she hoped? Where do you find a Poustinia in the

Is it alright to have a futile hope? I do: I hope Latin makes a comeback, at least in the Catholic Church. I'd sell my soul to the devil for a Latin Mass! Okay, I'm exaggerating. I won't even drive an hour once a

A new report just came out that some companies, especially tech companies, are not hiring enough female employees. But guys who run tech companies say they'd love to hire more women. Or talk to them. Or meet them. Or even see one up close.

Not much today. Just a few pics. First, this picture of my late father and my eldest son enjoying a drink on our cottage beach on the shore of Lake Huron 18 years ago. The attentive babysitter is Marie. And then this picture I took on Wednesday while searching for

The Canadians apparently have their own beer fridge at the Olympics:

I'm something of a literary anecdote junkie. Maybe it's because writers can be so stupid and clever at the same time. Here's a great one that I found in an Epstein essay: "Tolstoy [claimed] 'My diaries are me,'--but in his

H.I.F. I think most people would agree that men built this country, mostly through hard work and risk-taking, self-sacrifice and toughness. But as this article points out [http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2014/02/12/manhood-in-america-bit-by-bit-macho-stereotypes-lose-ground/] , the landscape of