Articles 
2012 in review
While you’re better served reading year-end lists from publications that engaged all year long with culture, here’s what stood out to me in 2012.
Book Review: Thin Blue Smoke by Doug Worgul
I was talking to a friend recently about this wonderful novel I had just read called Thin Blue Smoke. “It’s about baseball, barbecue and God,” I told him. “Three things I love.” In truth, baseball and God are more behind the scenes players in the novel set at a Kansas City barbecue joint that also […]
Was Tang In Space A Farce?
It turns out Neil Armstrong wasn’t much of a fan of Tang, but that doesn’t mean the association with space travel was as much a creation of clever marketing as he makes it seem.
No TV, No Olympics
I don’t own a television and have never had one of my own despite being somewhat of a fanatic when it comes to watching live sporting events, television shows and movies. A decade ago I would have been considered weird but today I represent one of a growing legion of families cutting the chord on […]
A hashtag, nostalgia and a cornfield in Illinois
I forgot that today was the first day of the Cornerstone Music Festival until a trending hashtag for #Cornerstone reminded me this morning. Assuming the hashtag was about the festival I used to love, I was surprised when I was greeted not with 140-character or less dispatches from a middle-of-nowhere field in Bushnell, Illinois, but […]
Separation of sports and education
The recent Penn State scandal calls into question the central role of athletics in American academic life.
Take Down
I have to admit. It was a little frightening when I saw the above image pop up on a website I was using yesterday to watch an English soccer game the website I pay a monthly subscription fee to wasn’t showing until 11:59 p.m. The first thought that came to mind was, “what the heck […]