A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

The US of A

  • The living Constitution

    Garrett Epps’ American Epic: Reading the U. S. Constitution is a fascinating, informative, lucid, provocative, and not infrequently humorous tour through the text of the Constitution, including all twenty-seven amendments. Epps, a lawyer, professor, and correspondent for the Atlantic, isn’t uncritically reverent toward the text–he recognizes that it can be confusing, opaque, and occasionally self-contradictory, Read more

  • bin Laden

    Clearly no American is going to shed any tears for Osama bin Laden, me included. And based on the president’s statement last night, it sounds like the operation that got him was of the right kind–targeted, based on sound intelligence, avoiding both American and civilian casualties. If we’re going to fight terrorism, this is vastly Read more

  • Friday Links

    I spent the day hanging out with my family, so these are coming a little late… –Why Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal is neither brave nor serious. –Free-range meat isn’t necessarily “natural.” –A case for universalism from the Scottish evangelical preacher and biblical scholar William Barclay. –A review of a recent book called What’s the Read more

  • Depressing column of the week (month? year?)

    Bob Herbert is leaving the NYT and goes out with a tour de force: So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life Read more

  • Things to be thankful for

    My friend Chris Hayes guest-hosted Rachel Maddow’s show last night and did a cool segment on things to be thankful for in American public life. You can watch it here. Read more

  • Independence runs in the family

    This is neat: five of America’s greatest 19th-century writers–Melville, Thoreau, Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne–had grandfathers who were involved in the revolution. Read more

  • American exceptionalism rightly understood?

    Damon Linker, who I think it’s fair to say, represents a liberalism informed by E.J. Dionne’s three conservative insights, defends a qualified version of American “exceptionalism.” It’s foolish, Linker says, to pretend that the U.S. is a uniquely virtuous nation; our history of barbarism toward indigenous Americans and black slaves and our mischief-making abroad should Read more

  • Fallows on American declinism

    I just yesterday got around to reading the big Atlantic cover story. Well worth your time–Fallows seems to be buddies with just about every interesting public intellectual in the country and canvasses a wide range of views on what ails us. His overall narrative (American culture–in better shape than you thought; American politics–not so much) Read more

  • Happy birthday, America

    Just a short re-cap: All men (heck, let’s say “people”) – created equal Those people – they’ve got rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness And the government? Its job is to protect those rights The government ultimately answers to the people Judging by the way our leaders act, and what we go Read more