But I can no longer ready any faith's Napoleonic saber rattling without picturing smoking rubble on cable news. I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of E...
The irony of informing nearly naked people in a wilderness setting about the story of naked Adam and Eve eating the fruit of knowledge and inventing the fashion industry due to a sudden need for cloth...
As if I was never nicknamed 'Wednesday' as in 'Adams'.
History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.
Still, compared to him, compared to the people we descend from, I am free of history. I'm so free of history I have to get in a car and drive seven states to find it.
The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories.
How sad is it that this tiff sort of cheers me up? If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree...
While I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
There is something aesthetically pleasing about trading one engraving - and old map - for another - American money.
I am pro-plaque.
Honestly, the only question most Americans ask about a new building at this point is basically: Is it a soul-sucking eyesore of cheap-ass despair? It's not? Whew.
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War - when I really think about them, they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.
But before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taking another moment of melancholy silence to mourn the thwarted reconciliation with the mother country...
The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject - that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States - kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we th...
I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates. The more knowledge, the better seems like the a solid rule of...
Um, I asked, isn't the whole point about being a slave that you don't have a choice to be anything else? Prettying up the word slave with the adjective-noun constructions makes enslaved African sound...
Radio is the playground of coincidence.
In death, you get upgraded into a saint no matter how much people hated you in life.
If this fails to convince, I being out my secret weapon, announcing with portentous deliberation that Barbara. Damn. Walters. Does. Not. Drive. Heard of her?This sort of accusatory conversion of cours...
If there is a recurring theme in Garfield’s diaries it’s this: I’d rather be reading.