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A collection of 496 issues

From the Notebooks

A Futuristic History Many readers of this book have probably heard of the United States or its alternative name, "America." For many years, it reigned as the most powerful nation in the world, both economically and militarily. Like Rome (studied in Chapter Three), historians differ about when it

Marxism and Other Fairy Tales

Like W.C. Fields Criticizing a Drunk Wow, the great Russian bear roars at the United States, but not for its capitalism: for its Marxism [http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-american_capitalism-0]. > It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into

The New Freak Show?

Bulk Up for that SAT, Bobby Yesterday, I wrote (a too lengthy post) about Sam Anderson's "The Benefits of Distraction." This was one of the more interesting passages from the article [http://nymag.com/news/features/56793/index4.html], but I couldn't fit it

Dead Cars, Amish, Marx, and More

Studebaker and Other Corpses In the wake of pending plans to discontinue Pontiac and Saturn, the Mental Floss Blog takes a look at ten discontinued models [http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25613#more-25613]. Nice prose, nice assortment of pictures. Excerpt: > Started as the George N. Pierce Company in

Tuesday Miscellany

Bubba Cometh While at my parents' on Mother's Day, my father told me to check out this article at The Economist [http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13528224] . It's about a new line of business: prison consulting. Or, "How to

Mini-Book Reviews

Some new, some old. Some in progress, some finished. Some repeats, some originals. Greatest Essayist Alive If you haven't read a collection of Joseph Epstein essays, you're unenlightened or you've been deprived or you have a life outside of literary pursuits. Hopefully, the latter,

Risk Taking

Rage in the Manhattan Cage I saw a piece from New York Magazine making cyberwaves last week, but I decided not to post about it until I had a chance to read it. I read it during my nephew's baseball game on Saturday: The Wail of the 1%

Traitors and Dead Horses

Lead Story FBI's newest 'Most Wanted' terrorist is American [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_domestic_terrorist]. Great headline, that. But when you actually read the story, you quickly discern that the headline is misleading: > A fugitive

Tuesday Miscellany

New Chesterton books that I hadn't heard of until last weekend: The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton Vol. I: Non-Fiction [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1604591579/thedailyeudem-20] and The Fantastic Fiction of Gilbert Chesterton [http://www.batteredbox.com/GardnerMartin/FantasticFictionChesterton.htm]. The first is merely a commercial

Wednesday Miscellany

Whew, things have exploded around the office. After the October 2008 Stock Crash, things really slowed down at the office. I was always busy (thankfully), but it was a leisurely-paced busy. Enjoyable busy, if not as lucrative. But now, it feels like pre-2008 Crash again. It's a good