Issue No. 15 | June 3, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: In the 1999 movie “Fight Club,” Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) gives a rousing speech on the predicament of the American man: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great …
Issue No. 14 | May 27, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: Feeling sick but Covid negative (as we currently are)? Good luck getting any sympathy. You’re just another one of the uncredentialed ill. It’s worse if you’re a man, as we have a reputation for exaggerating the suffering of the common cold. And yet some scientists posit that so-called “man flu” might be a real …
Issue No. 13 | May 20, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: These days “dressing for success” rarely entails dressing up. Anyone with ambition will notice that the real movers and shakers in our society get to wear whatever they want. Tech moguls in particular like to defy convention – whether to signal that they can’t spend precious brainpower …
Issue No. 12 | May 13, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: Long ago we were invited to dine at our professor’s house along with some other students. During coffee, the phone on his wall began to ring (this was in the pre-digital age). What sticks in the mind now is both how remarkable this intrusion was …
Issue No. 11 | May 6, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: This Sunday is Mother’s Day. We know it’s easy to be cynical about the moneymaking opportunity this holiday represents (“it was invented by greeting card companies, maaan!”), as we too were once college freshman. But surely a yearly reminder to honor the woman who gave …
Issue No. 10 | April 29, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: “A movie actress recently proclaimed that she and her musician fiancé regularly drink each other’s blood. You probably reacted to this “news” much as we did, with a mix of revulsion, boredom, and a slightly smug sense of superiority. But maybe some empathy is called …
Issue No. 9 | April 22, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: “The Acts of the Apostles recounts a particularly tumultuous mission trip Paul and Silas took to the Roman colony Phillipi. Arrested for disturbing the peace, they were severely beaten, shackled, and thrown in prison. At midnight, as they sung hymns, an earthquake opened the jail and …
Issue No. 8 | April 8, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: “We should thank God for beer,” said G.K. Chesterton, a bon vivant always ready to practice what he preached over a pint or two. For Chesterton, there was something profoundly ungrateful and unnatural about abusing this divine gift: “Never drink because you need it, for …
Issue No. 6 | March 25, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: For a materialist society, we’re strangely alienated from the material. Our educational system neglects useful skills in favor of meaningless credentials. The more detached one’s day-to-day work is from actual things, the higher status the job. New automobiles are laced with unnecessarily complicated computer systems, …
Issue No. 5 | March 18, 2022 Friends, Americans, Countrymen: Know thyself, goes the ancient maxim. But how? It’s a mistake to assume this is just a job for the mind. We’re our bodies, too. (Move along, Gnostics). Look at Jacob. He met God by wrestling him. That night in the desert he was scared; …