Concrete Ideas

Robert Moses built Long Island parks that few African-Americans ever enjoyed. He poured parkways for New Yorkers to get to his parks – but few African-Americans ever drove on them. He carved out new beaches – but few African-Americans ever swam there. Moses accomplished this without passing one law barring them from his parks or…

Circular Reasoning

Draw two circles. Make one very large – covering almost an entire page. Make the second circle very small. Write “reality” in the larger circle. Write “religion” in the smaller circle. Welcome to the 21st century. If you don’t think these circles square with reality, here are a handful of books worth reading this summer.

Four-on-Five

Four-on-five basketball produces a predictable result. With summer vacation, our weekly neighborhood game rarely fields a full complement of ten players. We could play 4-on-4, but that would require someone sitting out a game and getting stiff (we’re getting older). So we play 4-on-5 with the four-player team rarely winning. In the wider world, this…