Matchmaking and marriage services on the Internet have brought millions of Americans together. But the Net has also become a helpful tool when people want marriages to END. Splitting from a spouse is rarely easy emotionally, but in many divorces, the Internet has made the process quicker, more efficient, and cheaper. Lindsey Short, Jr., a […]
Scout’s Honor
Posted December 23rd, 2011 at 12:00 pm (UTC-4)
Not too long ago, I visited the old southern city of Savannah, Georgia. It’s a fairy tale place, whose seven large city squares, dating to the American Revolution, are shaded by giant oaks draped with Spanish moss. And Savannah is even more special to millions of America’s women and girls. It was in this hot […]
The English Bear
Posted December 20th, 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC-4)
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The English bear that confronts newcomers to our land isn’t entirely English. And it isn’t big and brown. But it can be an unruly beast. It’s the American strain of the English language, a sort of functional gibberish that must sound, at first, as comprehensible to the foreigner as would obscure Tagalog, Oriya, or Igbu. […]
Time in a Capsule
Posted December 15th, 2011 at 7:28 pm (UTC-4)
In 1973, troubadour Jim Croce wrote and sang about “Time in a Bottle.” If he could seal time in one, he explained in song, “The first thing that I’d like to do/ Is to save every day ’til eternity passes away/ Just to spend them with you.” There have been plenty of similar love notes […]
The Internet: Ever With Us, Like It or Not
Posted December 13th, 2011 at 12:17 pm (UTC-4)
It came as no surprise to me that 28 percent of Americans shopped online on “Cyber Monday,” the day after Thanksgiving weekend at the end of November. That was up from the 21-percent figure a year ago. More and more of us are concluding that it’s easier to cruise the Internet than to fight traffic […]
A Man’s Castle is His Home
Posted December 12th, 2011 at 1:31 pm (UTC-4)
“I’m Jim Bishop. I’m the castle builder.” Those were the first words from the man I believe may be the strangest in the United States, for sure the strangest I’ve met. He lives in the mountains of Colorado and over the past few decades has, indeed, single-handedly built himself a castle. It leaps out of […]
The Washington That Wasn’t
Posted December 8th, 2011 at 10:32 pm (UTC-4)
Most museum exhibits are about things that are, were, might be down the road, or are just imagined. But I just toured a yeasty one about things that very well could have been but never were. It’s Unbuilt Washington, a new exhibit at the National Building Museum that will run through May 28th next year. […]
Retribution, American-Style
Posted December 5th, 2011 at 1:28 pm (UTC-4)
When suicidal hijackers crashed airliners into targets in New York City and Washington 10 years ago, killing almost 3,000 people, U.S. Senator Charles Hagel of Nebraska was in Florida with President George W. Bush. “This is the second Pearl Harbor,” Senator Hagel exclaimed when he heard the news. It’s an analogy that has been repeated […]
American High School
Posted December 2nd, 2011 at 4:46 pm (UTC-4)
I don’t know if there’s anything in the world that quite compares to a high school football game in the smaller towns of America. I went to Macomb, Illinois the other day and the first thing I noticed when we drove into town were signs saluting the local high school foot ball team, the […]
Oh, THAT Columbus!
Posted December 1st, 2011 at 8:13 pm (UTC-4)
On our latest trip, Carol and I headed west from Washington, D.C., through states such as West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana en route to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then we turned south toward our ultimate destination: New Orleans, Louisiana, about which I wrote last time. No sooner did we begin to discuss the return trip to […]
