Sandra Bullock's new movie, The Blind Side, is a feel-good story of the rise of a lost inner-city kid from dismal poverty to personal and athletic success. Last night, I saw a movie that presents a feel-better story of kids from similar backgrounds. A feel-much-better story.

The film is...

"Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy," wrote John S. Theon at the beginning of this year. "Add my name to those who disagree that Global Warming is man made."

Theon is one of the few truly distinguished skeptics of human influence...

I spent a day last week at a massive event: the Brimfield Antique Show in Brimfield Massachusetts. Five days in May, then again in July, the show is a wonderland, a living history of household goods brought in by some 6,000 dealers and spread over 75 acres of open fields...

Can journalism be saved? In yesterday's New York Times, Yale investment manager David Swensen and a colleague, Michael Schmidt, proposed creating endowed institutions for journalism. The industry's financial model has come undone: its three streams of income, always a delicate balance between newsstand or subscription revenue, big...

PepsiCo made a big, vitamin-C-filled p.r. splash this week when it released its calculations for the carbon footprint of a half-gallon of orange juice. The New York Times ran a story on it in its Business section describing the process and the growing trend, then followed up with...

There's no better way to tour a California vineyard than on horseback. So when Karl Wente, the 30-ish head of the 3,000-acre Wente vineyards in Livermore Valley, suggested that we saddle up late yesterday afternoon, I happily lied and told him I'd ridden enough times to handle it.

Though he's...

Trying to be a greener consumer shouldn't be a competition, but sometimes it feels like one. Maybe you drive a hybrid car, so you're burning less gasoline than your neighbor with the conventional car. But your neighbor is a vegetarian, so she's not eating land-and-energy-consuming meats. Who's having a more...