"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Instapundit offers a roundup of Edwards coverage and this aside: My own prediction, by the way, is that at an opportune moment Cheney will drop off the GOP ticket for vague medical reasons and be replaced by someone whose selection will make a splash.
Meantime, the McCain promo is playing at the Bush campaign website.
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Lane Core takes his camera to a 250th-anniversary reenactment of the opening battle of the French & Indian War.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed features an essay by a junior faculty member who has experienced a marked change in quality of life since moving from the East to a small rural college in the Midwest:
There is a sense that we live in sacred time out here, that our service to students and the community has meaning beyond professional advancement.
My wife and I bought an old farm on which the previous family had raised 15 children. The day after we moved in, several neighbors stopped by to welcome us with cakes and cookies. The house is five times bigger than our old urban apartment, and we have six acres of woods and an orchard. We have a barn, a chicken coop, a windmill, a corn crib, and an outhouse with two seats, along with indoor plumbing. Last spring, I bought a tractor and a pair of overalls. Two black cats, Edgar and Oscar, have adopted us and live on our deck. There's a raccoon in our barn who looks about 30 pounds, and we've decided to let him stay. His name is Roger.
My wife -- a former college administrator -- is taking time off to be at home with our daughters, ages 3 and 2 months. Although we are concerned about obligatory gender roles, our newly traditional lifestyle does not raise eyebrows here. It works for us.
My oldest daughter and I go on nature walks almost every day now. In the fall, we pick our own apples and pears, and we're looking forward to next spring to see the tulips we planted last September. This weekend, I'll burn some leaves and hang Christmas lights on the trees around our house. We are both truly grateful for this new life. It's some kind of Norman Rockwell fantasy and oh-so banal and "offensive" to the world we used to inhabit back East…
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