Author: Chad
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Twelve Years A Slave
I recently saw the above trailer for Steve McQueen’s upcoming film 12 Years a Slave and immediately got excited to see it on the merits of the trailer, cast, and director alone. But then at the library the following day I happened to see the memoir upon which the film is based and decided to read it.…
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The Pleasures of Whim
Brett McCracken was right to name Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction one of the five books recent college graduates should read. A quick yet deeply insightful read, this book was written, in the words of the author, for “those who have caught a glimpse of what reading can give—pleasure,…
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Rutherford B. Hazy (In History)
Marching onward in my quest to read a biography of every U.S. president, I finally made it through Ari Hoogenboom’s Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President. I confess to having held the same vague notions of Hayes that Hoogenboom writes he’s commonly known for: that he won the disputed 1876 presidential election, ending Reconstruction, and that…
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Attested Development
After years of hype and speculation, Arrested Development is back thanks to the tireless work of Mitch Hurwitz and the show’s writers. Watching these characters again has been surreal. I had the same feeling when I saw Toy Story 3 and The Hobbit: I’d watched the previous installments (the LOTR trilogy in the case of The Hobbit) so many times that…
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Terror Will Lose
At the climax of The Dark Knight, Joker has Batman trapped on the top of a skyscraper while he waits for the boats full of prisoners and civilians to blow up. The clock strikes midnight — the deadline the Joker gave to those on the boat — but there’s no explosion. For the first time…
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The Millennials Will Be All Right
I finally read Joel Stein’s Time magazine piece on the Millennial Generation, called “The Me Me Me Generation.” For the record, unlike some of my Millennial cohorts I hate “selfies” (the term and the thing it describes), I don’t feel entitled to a great job right out of school, and I don’t sleep next to…
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‘Let me die trying something new’
My cousin recently posted a quote from my Uncle Steve, who died of cancer in 2001. He was writing to a friend with whom it appears he was discussing the future and the stress of the unknown: Admittedly, not knowing the outcome of my plans can create stress. It takes a great deal of courage to…
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Data Dumped: On The Freedom Of Forgetting
Do we have the right to forget the past, and to be forgotten? That’s the key question in this article from The Guardian by Kate Connolly, which part of a larger series on internet privacy. Connolly talks with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of internet governance at Oxford Internet Institute, who describes himself as the “midwife” of the idea…
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Action Andrew Jackson
When I look back on my nearly 19 years of classroom education in elementary, middle, high school, college, and grad school, I think I’ll remember my junior year AP U.S. history class in high school as my favorite. What I loved about it was what probably bored most other students in class: it was a…
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Fox News’ Amazing Rage
About two years ago I stopped watching cable news all together. Regardless of the channel, there is rarely anything on worth the time and energy it takes getting frustrated by the mostly non-news news stories being covered like Access Hollywood fluff pieces. But late last night as I was channel-surfing before turning in, I was chagrined…
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The Summum Bonum Identity
Someone on the Internet once said something to the effect of: “I’m not a writer; I write.” Writing, for example, is something you do, but it’s not who you are. You might really love writing and consider it integral to your life, but it isn’t your very essence–at least, it shouldn’t be. I’m re-reading Tim Keller’s The…
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William Clarke Quantrill
Part of the Cool Civil War Names series. If someone made a movie about William Quantrill, he’d be sorta like Lt. Aldo Raines from Inglourious Basterds but a Confederate instead of U.S. Army and probably not as funny and killing civilians instead of Nazis. (Tarantino film coming in 3…2…) Originally a schoolteacher in Ohio, Quantrill…
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Courage Under Fire Hoses
I just finished reading Hampton Sides’ Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., a recounting of the assassination of the famous civil rights leader through the perspectives of the people involved in the run-up to and aftermath of King’s slaying. I highly recommend this book for its extensive background on King’s…
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Winter’s Harsh Beauty
“Wisdom comes with winters.” –Oscar Wilde I’ve always taken for granted my ability to walk on ice. Growing up in the Wisconsin winters, I had many opportunities to work and play on the ice, whether it be to shovel the sidewalk or play a pickup game of broomball. You learn pretty quickly how to adjust…
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Living In Dystopia
I’m a sucker for dystopian films. I’m still not sure exactly what draws me to this kind of story. Maybe it’s because of the infinite re-viewings of the Back to the Future trilogy, specifically Part II, which focused on people seeing hellish versions of their past or future and fighting to fix them. Perhaps it’s because…
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Thurlow Weed
Part of the Cool Civil War Names series. This guy, for better or worse, was like the Karl Rove of his time. The sources differ on the details about his life, but we know that before he turned into the Turd Blossom of the mid-19th century Weed apprenticed as a printer and editor of various…