After my wife and her mother walked past a drug deal in progress on our residential street last month, we decided we’d had enough. From then on we would call 9-1-1 whenever we saw anybody – black or white, hipster…
Recently over several pints of cheap domestic ale, my brother-in-law held forth on the topic of the unnaturalness of men working in offices. Like most guys chained all day to a desk, he confessed to feeling somewhat ambivalent, if not…
They form a singular presence in our inner-cities: young, African-American men hanging out aimlessly on stoops at mid-day, seven days a week. Meet the urban dropouts. These days about half of all young black men in the U.S. drop out…
It was a fine send-off. After 30 years, our friend Marian was retiring from the marketing department of a major university. Like a lot of people in top jobs, Marian was an outsider. She was brought in because in a…
Rumor had it that for the first time in 160 years, Nauvoo, Illinois was experiencing a Mormon problem. It all started during the rebuilding of the Mormon temple in 2002, when a big city reporter came to town looking for…
In his classic study Democracy in America (1835), Alexis de Tocqueville described what he believed was a true meritocracy at work. Here was a country lacking a nobility and an aristocracy. The Adamses, the closest America had to an elite,…
“We are suffering from drought terribly at this place. Half a crop of wheat, and tobacco, and two-thirds a crop of corn are the most we can expect.” — Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, August 31, 1815 For a week…
The real election in the city of St. Louis occurred last Tuesday when Missouri held its Democratic primary. Six primary races pit white Democrats versus black Democrats, including high-profile races for U.S. Congress, the state senate, three state house races…
Los Angeles Laker star Metta World Peace (the athlete formerly known as Ron Artest) was once criticized (a very dangerous thing to do) by a teammate for his tendency to brawl with players and fans. “I’m still ghetto,” said Artest….
Most all technological innovations are alleged to have radically altered civilization. The printing press, the steam engine, the television, the personal computer, the automobile — the list is endless. Of course, whether one considers these changes for the better depends…