Joseph Bottum

What’s going on over at Popular Mechanics ? First, the magazine rains on the idea of using the international space station as an interplanetary vehicle (an idea I had applauded ). Then, on the unveiling of Richard Branson’s much-ballyhooed space-tourism plane, the magazine runs a . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at City Journal , Theodore Dalrymple writes about the case of the student who, taking a national exam in Britain, answered the question, “Describe the room you’re in,” with “F—k off,” and received a grade of 7.5 percent. The examiner explained, “it . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend, working his way again through Moby Dick writes me to say that the book contains “the greatest description of the American soul,” in the first paragraph of Chapter 49: There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this . . . . Continue Reading »

You know the story. Forty years ago¯on July 25, 1968¯a tired, grumpy, and celibate old man in Rome issued an encyclical called Humanae Vitae , solemnly declaring that birth control is bad, and half the world responded with a shrug. The other half responded with a sneer.It’s hard to . . . . Continue Reading »

Every thinker has one idea—and after he formulates it, all his subsequent works are no more than elaboration: developments and revisions of the same basic intuition. Or so, at least, claimed the French philosopher Henri Bergson, and if ever there was a definitive example, it’s José Ortega y . . . . Continue Reading »

Our friend Alan Jacobs has a marvelous essay on trees in the new issue of Books & Culture —a fine, fun walk through the forests of dendrology, beginning in his own yard. Still, in his deep and peaceful reveries, Alan doesn’t seem to have mentioned quite all that needs to be said about . . . . Continue Reading »

Reading my earlier post about the Chinese restaurant named “Translate Server Error,” Rich Vaughan, the head of our publication management firm , was prompted to send along these examples of mangled English from his own trip to China: . . . . Continue Reading »

South Dakota is full of dead and dying towns: the ones at the bottom of the giant reservoirs along the Missouri, the gold-rush shacks abandoned to tilt further down their crazy angles on the hillsides, the ones the railroad murdered by going somewhere else, the ones the Great Depression killed, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Yes, well, perhaps that computerized translation program didn’t work out as well as it could for this Chinese restaurant, whose owners seem to have thought that the error message they got was the English translation for which they had asked. But, I don’t know, the food at a place called . . . . Continue Reading »

The trouble with posting a notice, as I do each month, in praise of the new issue of First Things , is that when a really superior issue comes along¯one even beyond our usual high standards¯the superlatives have all been used up. Greater than Great! Better than Best! More Infinitely Good . . . . Continue Reading »