a lawyer by training, I have long maintained that my profession is writing. Welcome to my occasional musings and perpetual pursuit of efficient language and reason-based arguments.

Topics

Learning
- Mar 19, 2024 On Old Age
- Nov 23, 2022 Stoicism for Middle Schoolers
- Oct 11, 2022 The Last Time
- Jun 4, 2021 A Humble Man
- Apr 10, 2017 A Socratic Error
- Mar 27, 2017 The Books We Read
Civics
- Dec 4, 2023 The Power of Meekness (CPM Keynote)
- Nov 12, 2021 Please, Please Me?
- Jan 11, 2021 A Graceful Exit
- Nov 27, 2019 More Than a Whisper
- Jan 5, 2017 The Essentials of Opposing Ideologies
- Apr 15, 2016 The Chains of Independent Voters
- Nov 19, 2015 On Fear and Current Events
Book Reviews
- Oct 17, 2023 The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak & Dave Runyan (Review)
- Sep 12, 2023 How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question Book by Michael Schur (Review)
- Sep 1, 2023 Assignment in Eternity by Robert Heinlein (Review)
- Aug 22, 2023 The Improbable Wendell Willkie by David Levering Lewis (Review)
- Jul 6, 2023 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini (Review)
- Jun 15, 2023 Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (Review)
- Jun 7, 2023 Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller (Review)
- Jun 5, 2023 On His Own Terms by Richard Norton Smith (Review)
- Apr 29, 2023 Dinners with Ruth by Nina Tottenberg (Review)
- Apr 28, 2023 Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy by David O. Stewart (Review)
- Apr 16, 2023 The Stranger by Albert Camus (Review)
- Mar 30, 2023 Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll by Peter Guralnick (Review)
- Mar 1, 2023 American Gospel by Jon Meacham (Review)
- Feb 26, 2023 Accounting for the Numberphobic by Dawn Fotopulos (Review)
- Feb 16, 2023 Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (Review)
- Jan 14, 2023 The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (Review)
- Nov 30, 2022 Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other? by Charles P. Henry (Review)
- Nov 15, 2022 Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte (Review)
- Sep 15, 2022 The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy & Kathy Keller (Review)
- Aug 17, 2022 The Price of Peace by Zachary D. Carter (Review)
- Jul 22, 2022 Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund (Review)
- Jul 5, 2022 American Prometheus by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin (Review)
- May 6, 2022 The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Review)
- Apr 12, 2022 The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Review)
- Mar 8, 2022 Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (Review)
- Feb 21, 2022 Death in a Promised Land by Scott Ellsworth (Review)
- Feb 16, 2022 The Last King of America (Review)
- Dec 6, 2021 The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis (Review)
- Dec 2, 2021 Think Again by Adam Grant (Review)
- Nov 25, 2021 The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham (Review)
- Nov 4, 2021 First by Evan Thomas (Review)
- Oct 15, 2021 Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Lovelace (Review)
- Oct 4, 2021 Weakness Is the Way by J.I. Packer (Review)
- Jul 27, 2021 Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy (Review)
- Jun 30, 2021 George Marshall: Defender of the Republic by David L. Roll (Review)
- Jun 29, 2021 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Review)
- May 5, 2021 His Truth Is Marching On by Jon Meacham (Review)
- Apr 2, 2021 The President and the Assassin by Scott Miller (Review)
- Mar 26, 2021 Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland (Review)
- Mar 24, 2021 Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson (Review)
- Jan 26, 2021 Destiny and Power by Jon Meacham (Review)
- Jan 25, 2021 What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (Review)
- Dec 16, 2020 The Men Who United the States by Simon Winchester (Review)
- Dec 14, 2020 If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (Review)
- Nov 5, 2020 Frederick Douglass by William S. McFeely (Review)
- Nov 5, 2020 The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes (Review)
- Oct 8, 2020 The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (Review)
- Oct 6, 2020 Grant by Jean Edward Smith (Review)
- Aug 11, 2020 The Concept of Anxiety by Søren Kierkegaard (Review of Alastair Hannay's Translation)
- Aug 8, 2020 Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas (Review)
- Jul 3, 2020 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Review)
- Jul 2, 2020 Being There: How to Love Those Who Are Hurting by Dave Furman (Review)
- May 20, 2020 Wilson by A. Scott Berg (Review)
- May 15, 2020 Where Is God When It Hurts? by Philip Yancey (Review)
- Apr 3, 2020 The Great Influenza by John M. Barry (Review)
- Mar 6, 2020 No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Review)
- Mar 4, 2020 History’s Great Military Blunders by Dr. Gregory Aldrete (Review)
- Feb 22, 2020 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Review)
- Feb 6, 2020 Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman (Review)
- Jan 16, 2020 Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards (Review)
- Jan 14, 2020 Claudius the God by Robert Graves (Review)
- Jan 8, 2020 The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung (Review)
- Nov 20, 2019 Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman (Review)
- Nov 18, 2019 Spiritual Disciplines (Review)
- Oct 11, 2019 Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman (Review)
- Oct 4, 2019 An Honest President by H. Paul Jeffers (Review)
- Aug 8, 2019 Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden (Review)
- Aug 2, 2019 I, Claudius by Robert Graves (Review)
- Jul 2, 2019 The Founders and the Classics by Carl J. Richard (Review)
- Jun 19, 2019 Marshall and His Generals: U.S. Army Commanders in World War II by Stephen R. Taaffe (Review)
- May 22, 2019 The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (Review)
- May 10, 2019 Four Loves by C.S. Lewis (Review)
- Apr 10, 2019 From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 by George C. Herring (Review)
- Jan 30, 2019 This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel Levitin (Review)
- Jan 28, 2019 If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Review)
- Jan 21, 2019 Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard(Review)
- Dec 7, 2018 Rush: Revolution, Madness, and the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (Review)
- Nov 16, 2018 Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (Review)
- Oct 12, 2018 House of Morgan (Review)
- Oct 5, 2018 unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters (Review)
- Sep 26, 2018 Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't (Review)
- Sep 7, 2018 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (Review)
- Apr 2, 2018 Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman (Review)
- Feb 2, 2018 Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (Review)
- Feb 10, 2015 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Review)
- Jun 4, 2013 At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson (Review)
- Aug 14, 2012 Ulysses by James Joyce (Review)
- Nov 25, 2009 Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Review)
- Jan 25, 2009 Books with Lost Reviews
Community
- Nov 28, 2021 Elegy for a Coffee Shop
- Mar 1, 2021 Following the Right Commission
- Jun 3, 2020 An Unqualified Comment: Race, Identity, and a Response
- Mar 26, 2020 Wartburg Hall of Fame
Faith
- Nov 12, 2021 Please, Please Me?
- Jul 2, 2020 Being There: How to Love Those Who Are Hurting by Dave Furman (Review)
- Aug 22, 2019 An Anniversary Worth Celebrating
- Aug 20, 2018 A Selfish Perspective
- Apr 19, 2018 A Better Perspective
- Dec 23, 2016 A Simple Gift
Politics
- Mar 1, 2021 Following the Right Commission
- Jan 11, 2021 A Graceful Exit
- Nov 16, 2020 Words Come First
- Jan 30, 2020 Flickering Lights: Altered Photos, Impeachment Trials, and Sanity in Politics
- Jan 19, 2019 Nation of Laws and Lawyers
- Aug 17, 2017 On Liberty
Archive
- Dec 7, 2016 The Strength of a Story
- Jul 20, 2016 Kill all the Lawyers
- Mar 6, 2015 Tolerating Politics (and Most Everything)
- Sep 26, 2014 Optimism and Restaurants
- Sep 9, 2011 Body, Soul, and Basketball
- Dec 14, 2009 Will You Be My Friend?
- Aug 8, 2009 God Bless the Coffeehouse
- Jun 15, 2009 Greatest Shows on Earth
- Jul 13, 2008 Going the Distance
- Mar 17, 2008 Punchline to a Lawyer Joke
- Feb 14, 2008 Light My Fire
- Oct 15, 2007 Time Keeps on Slippin’
- Apr 25, 2007 96% Lawyer
- Feb 20, 2007 Milk and Cookies Remix
- Feb 19, 2007 Milk and Cookies
- Jan 16, 2007 Phog Virginity