Today is the 173rd birthday of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Patrick Deneen remembers.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, which means the holiday* season is now in full swing. As a child, Advent was my favorite time of year, mostly because it meant the decorations were going up and Christmas was right around the corner. I appreciated traditional Advent hymns like “The Advent of...

On this day in 1095, Pope Urban II officially commenced the First Crusade by issuing his Edict to take back Jerusalem from the infidel. The eastern emperor had appealed to Urban II for help against the Turks, and although eastern Christians distrusted the French who made up the first crusaders, the emperor...

A couple of years ago, I posed the search for a significant other as a trilemma: “single, attractive, and sane — pick two.” Now, some enterprising memester made a similar sentiment into a post on GraphJam: more charts

(from the All Financial Matters blog) We had a massive bubble and now we’re having a massive over-correction. That’s how these things work. The stock market closed yesterday at 1997 levels, with the S&P down 48 percent for the year. Where’s the bottom? I guess the bright spot...

Here in Indiana, like most states, we have a number of options when choosing our license plate. For a mere $40 extra I was able to get a license plate which proudly displays the logo of Indiana University. $25 of that fee went to help fund university scholarships, while the remaining $15 was an administrative...

A documentary film maker decided to dig deeper into what he thought might have caused Obama’s election. On the belief that the media largely help fuel his popularity (and fuel the disfavor of McCain/Palin), the producers offered this slew of interviews, among others, of Obama supporters. But, of...

The personal productivity of my life naturally tends to correlate with the technological advancements of society as a whole. The personal computer, the internet and the cell phone are probably the biggest advancements which have fundamentally altered my productivity and lifestyle (the “Big 3″)....

I first heard of Adam Shepard’s Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream when the author was interviewed on Glenn Reynolds’ infrequent podcast. The twenty-something Shepard conceived his book as a kind of response to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, setting...

Pastor Dave Foster on seven kinds of pastors he’d run from: Any pastor who wants to tell me how to vote. Any pastor who tells me who to marry. Any pastor who wants to tell me how to spend my money. Any pastor who tells me who to hate. Any pastor who tells me what I can and cannot drink. Any pastor...