Why Gardening Matters

Editor's note: It's my birthday. Please forward the Substack or this post to friends and family. The seven cardinal sins have shaken and shimmied ever since Evagrius—or maybe Origen, who knows—first jotted them down in some dusty desert hole. By the time Gregory the

It’s dang near Chinese coolie labor time again, that grand American spectacle where hordes of lunatics, armed with shovels, hoes, and a rabid gleam in their eyes, descend upon their garden patches like it’s a sacred calling. Think of it as the nation’s biggest hobby—a manic,

Few things feel better than disgust. It's the rocket fuel of reality TV, propelling us to smirk and gape at the human wreckage on display: the obese, the addicted, the mentally ill, the hoarders, and that woman who won't eat anything except cheesy potatoes. It'