If you were to believe the mythology du jour, McDonald's is nearing the final phase of its diabolical plan to capture the hearts and minds of you and your children. That goofy-looking clown (smiles on the outside, atherosclerosis inside) is throwing a desperate hail-Mary pass to his bulbous purple sidekick,...

Something remarkable is occurring in the arena of schools: shopping. Not late summer back-to-school specials or runs on novelty lunch-boxes, but shopping for schools themselves.

As a father of three who are rapidly entering school age, I've been presented with the time-consuming but enviable task of picking where my kids...

As the largest climate rally in history gathered to move "Forward on Climate" by protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, I can't help but wonder what the fuss is about. Robert Kennedy Jr. helpfully tells us that the pipeline is "threatening the future of civilization."

A Letter to Europe: Concerning Toleration

Shortly after a trying visit to the European Parliament in Brussels (picture an entire city under the confused thumb of TSA...) I retreated to higher ground in an intriguing old building on a hill. Not having dusted off my Flemish in some...

Word problem; answers graded on a curve...

A 1981 Dodge Ram Van (faded brown with those funky round portholes in the back) leaves the town of Winkelman at 45 miles an hour pulling 2,500 pounds in an unregistered trailer. A 2012 Nissan Leaf (silver, with a "Be Kind"...

I kill animals for a living.

I do it so others, as well as myself, can eat them. This accident of circumstance probably disqualifies me from any serious ethical discussion of meat eating. After all, I can hardly claim objectivity. Then again, who can? I live very close to...

This may be no surprise to the rest of you, but down here in border country, we are surrounded by immigrants. Aliens at every turn. Invading the places we live and work, they threaten the very stability of our established order. They are particularly hard to police, being resistant to...

Author's Note: This essay was written in 2005 and recently discovered in a dusty electronic file underneath a pile of virtual packing crates ... It was one of my application essays to a graduate program in government and sheds some interesting light on the doubtfully optimistic mentality pervading the mission...

Oscar Wilde escaped the indictment of resting on cliché by the happy trick of inventing most of the best of them. Even then, only barely.

One of his most enduring is the definition of a cynic: "A man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."...

"We simply cannot -- and this administration will not -- stand by while youngsters working on farms are robbed of their childhood." -- Department of Labor, May 2010

Thus reads the sentiment justifying a sweeping new rule that will revamp existing child labor regulations and, we are led...

The occupation went off without a hitch, apparently.

I'm not entirely sure what "Occupy Tucson" actually looked like, but I'm a good guesser. I'll warrant there was a fair number of Guatemalan handbags, more than a few recycled wardrobes, and in all likelihood a goodly number of early-model Subaru...

I make my living at farmers' markets and know my core clientele well. It generally doesn't sport "Gun Control is Hitting Your Target" t-shirts, so it struck me when one showed up at our stand. In answer to my jests, the wearer asked a telling question: "What could be more...