Author: Chad

• Sylvanus Cadwallader

  Part of the Cool Civil War Names series. Probably my favorite name thus far. A true journalist during a time when mainstream journalism consisted of BRASH, HYSTERICAL HEADLINES!!! and Limbaughesque vituperation, Cadwallader began his newspaper career in Milwaukee before joining the Chicago Times and later the New York Herald as a war correspondent embedded with General Ulysses…

  Aug 21, 2011

  # Cool Civil War Names, history, journalism, Sylvanus Cadwallader, The Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant

• Leonidas Polk

  Part of the Cool Civil War Names series. Leonidas Polk was many things: a West Point graduate, founder of The University of The South (Sewanee), the second cousin of President James Polk, and an Episcopalian bishop. He was also a terrible field general. He was a typical example of a Civil War “political general”, a…

  Aug 21, 2011

  # Cool Civil War Names, history, Jefferson Davis, Leonidas Polk, The Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman

• Cool Civil War Names: a preamble

  Awhile back I read James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, the sixth volume in Oxford University Press’s ongoing series of American history. (The full series list is worth checking out if you’re ever in the mood for thousands of pages of U.S. history—and who isn’t?) I learned a lot of things from McPherson’s tome, but most salient was that the men…

  Aug 20, 2011

  # books, Cool Civil War Names, history, James McPherson, The Civil War

• Dig A Little Deeper

  Hope is not a future-minded reverie or escapist dream, but rather a call to action to order the disordered, right the wrongs, and fix what we can in the here-and-now, even if it’s always just scratching the surface. –Brett McCracken, in a wonderful post on hope and cynicism. There’s certainly plenty in our world to…

  Jul 13, 2011

  # hope, life

• Love and Illusion in ‘Midnight In Paris’ and ‘Me And Orson Welles’

  Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy? / Caught in a landslide / No escape from reality / Open your eyes / Look up to the skies / And see.—“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen A few summers ago I was in Guatemala with my sister, staying with an older married couple near the…

  Jun 26, 2011

  # film, Me and Orson Welles, Midnight in Paris, movies, Owen Wilson, Paris, Rachel McAdams, review, Richard Linklater, theater, Woody Allen, Zac Efron

• Dodging Dogma

  I’ve been reading Colonel Roosevelt, volume III of the Edmund Morris’ TR trilogy, and one line came back to me after seeing Ezra Klein’s pie chart illustrating, in the midst of a debate to strip Planned Parenthood of funding as a prerequisite for not shutting the government down, what the organization actually does. Morris’ line…

  Apr 8, 2011

  # abortion, politics, religion, Theodore Roosevelt

• Mad World

  Looks like Mad Men is getting the LOST treatment, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The deal between Mad Men showrunner Matthew Weiner and AMC will end the series after the sixth season premieres. Like the deal that gave LOST a definitive end-date a few years ago, this new deal for Mad Men will be…

  Apr 1, 2011

  # Lost, Mad Men, television

• Here And LeClaire

  I spent part of the weekend in Iowa with my dad. We made a pilgrimage of sorts to Antique Archaeology in LeClaire, the home base of the antique-scavengers featured in the show American Pickers. Didn’t end up selling anything, but it was cool to see their place, which, as my dad reports, is much smaller than…

  Mar 27, 2011

  # America, Buffalo Bill, Davenport, history, Iowa, LeClaire, Mississippi River, Titanic, vodka

• There’s No Felling This Forrest

  Can’t say that I’m a big fan of the results of this new poll from The Telegraph, in which voters named Forrest Gump the greatest movie character of all time, with James Bond, Scarlett O’Hara, Hannibal Lecter, and Indiana Jones filling out the top five. While I know some lists are entirely unserious affairs, the…

  Mar 23, 2011

  # film, Forrest Gump, Gone With The Wind, Indiana Jones, James Bond, movies

• Straight Huck Express

  Something I’ve always liked about Mike Huckabee is his candor and generally pragmatic sense, which were on display in a recent interview with GQ: Compare yourself to Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Do you think you’re more center right?I think my political philosophies are solid, traditional conservative. It’s not that I’m a moderate, even though…

  Mar 23, 2011

  # Mike Huckabee, politics, Republicans

• Nuance This!

  Greg Sargent of The Washington Post points to a telling section of Mitt Romney’s entirely predictable critique of Obama’s handling of the situation in Libya: “I believe that it flows from his fundamental disbelief in American exceptionalism. In the President’s world, all nations have ‘common interests,’ the lines between good and evil are blurred, America’s…

  Mar 22, 2011

  # America, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, politics, presidents, Sarah Palin

• In Praise Of Podcasts

  Good podcasts give you more than opinions or entertainment; they give perspective. I like to listen to my favorites on iTunes while making dinner, or when I want to unwind after a long day. I’m consistently impressed with Q: The Podcast, a Canadian take on current events and pop culture. The host, Jian Ghomeshi, is…

  Mar 20, 2011

  # podcasts, podcasts of the moment

• Team America: Part III

  So it looks like the United States has found itself part of another conflict. I can’t say I’m in favor of opening up a third war for the United States, however limited our involvement, but the humanitarian aspect is hard to ignore. But right off the bat, I look at the words and actions of…

  Mar 20, 2011

  # America, Barack Obama, Libya, politics, war

• The Warmth Of The Snow

  Living in a warm climate during the Christmas season is good and bad. On one hand, you can walk around in shorts and a t-shirt while your northern friends brave harsh winds and icy roads just to get to their mailbox. But on the other hand, it’s just not Christmas without the cold. As a…

  Mar 13, 2011

  # Advent, Christmas, God, It’s A Wonderful Life, life, movies, religion, winter

• Facebook vs. Wikileaks

  What’s the difference between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange? A recent Saturday Night Live skit with Bill Hader as Assange answered that question: “I give you private information on corporations for free and I’m a villain,” he says. “Mark Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man…

  Jan 3, 2011

  # Facebook, politics, privacy, social media, technology, Time magazine, Wikileaks

• Best Films of 2010

  Toy Story 3How great was the epic Western opening sequence? (It was actually a recreation of the original film’s opener.) I couldn’t stop smiling throughout this movie. It does a remarkable job of marrying old characters with new challenges. But the reason this is the best of the year is its ending. Andy decides to…

  Dec 28, 2010

  # best of, Black Swan, film, Inception, lists, movies, review, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit

• Chacho En Bogota: El Fin

  I’m sitting in the El Dorado airport in Bogota, waiting to board my flight. I’ve been here for 100 days, and I must say it will be bittersweet leaving Colombia. I met some great people here and got to live in another country and culture for a prolonged period, which has always been a personal…

  Dec 10, 2010

  # Chacho En Bogota, Colombia, travel

• Chacho En Bogota: The Napkins Are Free, Right?

  So in the time of my last posting, two milestones were passed: the one-month-left-in-Colombia date, and the 55th anniversary of lightning striking the Hill Valley Courthouse clock tower on November 12, 1955 at 10:04pm. I’m here, I’m a nerd – get used to it. In other news, on Friday Jorge brought out the ping-ping table…

  Nov 14, 2010

  # Back to the Future, Chacho En Bogota, Colombia, travel