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American Culture

The Hoofers’ Guide to Passion, Ambition, Success and Love

It wasn’t work-of-genius good. In fact La La Land shouldn’t be rated on a four-star system because three and a half stars is ambiguous, but the movie was definitely four stars out of five ****o. Other write-ups say, often flatteringly, that the stars’ dancing was good, very good even, but not great. That’s the wrong angle. Leads Ryan Gosling […]

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American Culture Main Courses

Canopy Cassoulet

As a volunteer with the refugee resettlement group Canopy Northwest Arkansas, I made a family’s first meal in their new home. The mom and dad, ages 30 and 28, have been living in camps since fleeing Democratic Republic of  Congo in 2003. Their son just turned 6. Who knows what they’ve been eating all this time. A recipe, […]

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American Culture

Cloakroom Talk

Endorsing Conner Eldridge for U.S. Senate Let’s leave the 2016 presidential race a moment. It’ll continue without us. Let’s consider Congress. From an Arkansas view. The Republican Party has had majorities in the House and Senate the last two years. The party has worked hard to oppose most of the Democratic president’s agenda for both […]

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American Culture

Will Rogers. For President?

TULSA — Somewhere in the mist of the beginnings of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists arose two icons, Ernie Pyle and Will Rogers. NSNC has other now-ghostly mentors, including Erma and Molly and Art, but these two men from the first half of the 20th century are the modern mentors of columns. It’s taken me years […]

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American Culture

Fingerholds on a Slippery Slope

It’s a business meeting with two 30-something women I’ve never met, the wrong place to bring up anything personal. I know that. The hour is nearing an end. Nearly all the serious stuff is done. This is actually a delicate moment. Things can be screwed up moments before all is said and done. One of […]

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American Culture Kook Cooks

An Omnivore’s Manifesto

We’re trying veganism, My Beloved and I, now in our 11th week of cutting the ovo-lacto from our comfortable vegetarianism of over two decades. Look Out For That Bus! It’d been a year since my last fasting cholesterol blood test. The results so floored my doctor a week ago — total dropped from 244 to […]