facts everyone, especially veterans, should know — What is Veterans Day? Veterans Day is the day on which we honor and remember veterans of the US Armed Forces. Veterans Day is always on November 11, but if the day falls on a Sunday then November 12 is a federal holiday. 2. What is the history of Veterans…

how saving face complicates East Asian negotiation I heard a story, probably apocryphal, when I was in South Korea: Mr Kim, a mid-level functionary with the urban planning division of the South Korean government, was visited by his counterpart, Mr Lee, from the North Korean government. The South Korean drove…

the synergy of creative gatherings — Ernest Hemingway, a great admirer of Winesburg, Ohio, the masterful collection of interconnected short stories by Sherwood Anderson, managed to meet the prominent writer when they were both in Chicago in 1921. Anderson took Hemingway under his wing and encouraged him to go to Paris. He provided advice; attended Hemingway’s…

the one best reason for minimalism — Guy with the trail name or pen name Nimblewill Nomad, real name Meredith J Eberhart, was a doctor, husband, father, but one day he finished with all that, gave all his money to his wife & sons, & went walking. He’s like a real-life Forrest Gump in the running chapter…

letter to a friend Rather than recast these rough ideas into a formal article focused on tropes and trains, I’m leaving this letter to a friend, who is conducting an online book club, in its original form, babbling, informal, and intimate. …

Woodward consigns 45 to darkness in iambic pentameter —

Robert Whittington’s timeless appellation

Two simple rules on when to lie and when to tell the truth. — Sometimes you have to share news with people close to you. Sometimes it’s best to tell the truth. Sometimes it’s best to lie. Honesty is not always the best policy. Whoever said, “Never tell a lie,” was a callous bastard. But when should you tell the truth and when should…

The subversive message of Austin’s visual atrocities. — Urban hiking in America with its obsessive car culture shocks even the woke walker. I am on the path beside the ugliest street in the universe. Sometimes there’s sidewalk, and sometimes it’s a narrow earthen path pounded down by the passage of feet. As a rule I walk on the…