Hollywood has long been in the business of minimizing marriage. Every sitcom I’ve ever seen must, it seems, regularly joke about how marriage is a prison, a trap, a why-did-we-ever-get-married bad idea. So it is in “The Roses,” a new release starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. In “The Roses,” we are thrust immediately into a
READ MOREAre you an oikophile or an oikophobe? Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton (1944-2020) coined these two words from the Greek oikos, meaning household, home, or place. But Scruton broadened this meaning to include culture. Accordingly, oikophiles are those who love their homes and the culture passed down through generations. Oikophobes may love their private homes, but disdain, or even
READ MOREJust as Generation Z is scraping the “millennial grey” paint off the natural wood in their homes, Cracker Barrel gave itself the sad beige makeover nobody asked for. Nearly every McDonald’s has received this makeover in the last decade. While style and decor changes across generations are normal, the leap from what the kids of
READ MOREOn a midsummer’s morning, a close friend and I met for coffee. Anne is married, retired, and the mother of four and grandmother of several. Although we talk often by phone, nearly two years had passed since we’d last seen each other, and we’d both, well, softened with age. For a while, we sipped our
READ MORESomewhere, in a conference room adorned with reclaimed barnwood paneling ordered in bulk from a supplier in Shanghai, a well-compensated executive must have declared: For the sake of relevance, we must redesign the Cracker Barrel logo. On and on this executive rambles about “modernity,” “Gen Z, “TikTok,” or whatever corporate buzzword is in fashion now.
READ MOREU.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is teaming up with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to start what they’re calling the “Pete and Bobby Challenge.” Anyone who accepts the challenge must complete 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in under five minutes. Whether or not the challenge really gains steam and “makes America
READ MOREA few years ago, I interviewed a married couple for an article, who, although only in their mid-20s, already owned a thriving business. This couple had met in a high school welding class – a fact which prompted the husband to joke that “sparks flew.” Humor aside, I was intrigued to hear that a welding class
READ MORESuppose you want to change the world for the better. Where to begin? One place is friendship. We are, as Aristotle teaches, social animals, designed to live in community, to build societies where each plays a role as part of a whole, and to find meaning through relationships. Aristotle suggests in the “Nicomachean Ethics” that eudaimonia
READ MOREIn “Meditations: Book X:16,” the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” For several decades now, our culture has served as a battleground over the meaning of manhood. Some attack males for displaying “toxic masculinity,” or advocate that men become more like women, expressing
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