I’ll admit this right off the bat: I stole the title for this essay from a dating profile on Plenty of Fish. I don’t remember what the young woman looked like, but I’ll take her at her word that she was in fact fine in the summertime, and possibly in the fall and winter as…
I had an interesting thought, or at least a thought that I found interesting. I realized that virtually everyone has said the phrase, “a partridge in a pear tree,” more times than they’ve said, “two turtle doves.” And they’ve said, “two turtle doves,” more than they’ve said, “three French hens.” And they’ve said, “three French…
In the wake of George H.W. Bush’s death there has been a lot of nice things said about him. That’s to be expected. It’s what people do when a person dies. What has been less expected, although not totally unexpected, is the reaction of many people on the political left. They have been posting a…
A little while ago, I was watching a Baltimore Orioles game with my mom. The camera cut to a picture of the flags waving in the breeze. The Maryland state flag was among them, and before I knew it, I was asking, “How on Earth did Maryland wind up with such an ugly flag?” “It’s…
I get Labor Day off every year. I have for the past thirteen Labor Days. I always feel a little uncomfortable having Labor Day off. There has only been a roughly nine month period of my life where I could reasonably describe myself as labor. And it wasn’t exactly hard labor. I was an hourly…
My daughter started second grade today. The past two years, I have marked the first day of school with a blog post. I’m doing it again today, which, I think, makes it a tradition. The first first day of school, I wasn’t feeling very good about it, even though my daughter was excited. The second…
In the United States (and beyond), freedom is often treated as a foundational good. The Declaration of Independence puts it right there with life and happiness in the form of liberty. New Hampshire’s state motto is “Live Free or Die.” We are known as, “The land of the free.” And it is one of the…
Socialism is all the rage on the left side of the political spectrum. With Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s recent primary win and Bernie Sanders’ surprising primary challenge in 2016, the socialists are now the coolest cats at the party. The traditional Democrats get vilified and branded with the neoliberal slur. It’s all very smug. But I don’t…
I like to watch live sports. One of the drawbacks of watching live sports is you’re kinda stuck watching the ads. Two ads running a lot lately are for Wells Fargo and Facebook, and they are basically the same ad. They say, “We screwed up. We might have lost your trust. But, trust us, we’re…
