One man's America: the pleasures and provocations of our singular nation

I. PEOPLE. The fun of William F. Buckley -- Buckley: a life athwart history -- David Brinkley: proud anachronism -- Barry Goldwater: "Cheerful Malcontent" -- John F. Kennedy's thoughts on death -- Eugene McCarthy: The tamarack tree of American politics -- What George McGovern made -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan: the senate's sisyphus -- John Kenneth Galbraith's liberalism as condescension -- Milton Friedman: ebullient master of the dismal science -- Alan Greenspan: high-achieving minimalist -- The not-at-all dull George Washington -- George Washington's long journey home -- John Marshall: the most important American never to have been president -- James Madison: well, yes, of course -- Longfellow: a forgotten founder -- Ronald Reagan: the steel behind the smile -- Reagan and the vicissitudes of historical judgments -- John Paul II: "A flame rescued from dry wood" -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali: an enlightenment fundamentalist -- Hugh Hefner: tuning fork of American fantasies -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti: the emeritus beat as tourist attraction -- Buck Owen's Bakersfield Sound -- Andrew Nesbitt: 79-lb. master of Tourette Syndrome -- Simeon Wright's grace --

II. PATHS TO THE PRESENT. The most important American war you know next-to-nothing about -- The amazing banality of flight -- The price of misreading the prairie sky -- A range of mountains on the move -- The emblematic novel of the 1930s (Gone with the Wind) -- All quiet at the overpass -- FDR's transformation of liberalism -- Retailers give thanks for Thanksgiving (and FDR) -- FDR's Christmas guest from hell -- "My place is with my shipmates" -- An anthem of American optimism in 1943 -- When war WAS the answer -- Catching up to Captain Philip -- The most fateful heart attack in American history -- How Ike's highways helped heal Civil War wounds -- The short, unhappy life of the Edsel -- The 50s in our rearview mirror -- 2002: superstitions are bad luck -- 2003: lingerie and duct tape -- 2004: The Passion of the Christ and the passions of the faculty clubs -- 2005: "In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans" -- 2006: "Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats" -- 2007: Ready, fire, aim --

III. GOVERNING. The two Americans: hard and soft -- Angela Job's resilience -- Against "national greatness conservatism" -- Summa contra Reagan nostalgia -- The left's plea for materialistic politics -- Constitutional monomania -- Judicial activism, wise and not -- The hard truth about "soft rights" -- Oologah's, and America's, slide -- A fraudulent "fairness" -- Policing speech in Oakland -- Liberalism's itch in Minneapolis -- Chicago: from the White City to the Green City -- Our moralizing tax code -- "Electronic morphine" on the Ohio River -- Prohibition II: interestingly selective -- Being green at Ben & Jerry's -- The tyranny of the small picture -- Draining the reservoir of reverence -- United 93: "we've go to do it ourselves" -- Nothing changes everything --

IV. SENSIBILITIES AND SENSITIVITIES. Narcissism as news -- The speciesism of featherless bipeds -- What we owe to what we eat -- The Holocaust: handcrafted -- The "daring" of the avant-garde yet again -- Anti-Semitism across the political spectrum -- When Harry remet Hanne -- Cars as mobile sculpture -- Hog heaven: happy one hundredth, Harley -- Restoration at 346 Madison -- Starbucks, Nail salons, and the aesthetic imperative -- Manners vs. social autism -- A punctuation vigilante -- America's literature of regret -- Chief Illiniwek and the indignation industry -- Christmas at our throats -- V. LEARNING. National amnesia and planting cut flowers -- A sensory blitzkrieg of surfaces -- "Philosophy teaching by examples" -- Fascinating contingencies -- Ed Schools vs. Education -- This just in from the professors: conservatism is a mental illness -- The law of group polarization in academia -- Antioch College's epitaph -- A scholar's malfeasance gunned down -- Juggling scarves in the therapeutic nation -- Nature, nurture, and Larry Summer's sin -- AP Harry applies to college -- Teaching minnows the pleasure of precision --

VI. GAMES. Raising Michael Oher -- The man from Moro Bottom -- "Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer!" -- Randy Shannon's realism -- The NFL: an intensification of reality -- Speaking SportsCenterese -- The movie, and the truth, about Texas Western -- VII. THE GAME. "Remember 1908!" -- Jackie Robinson: the possible and the inevitable -- Ted Williams: "I can't stand it, I'm so good" -- Roberto Clemente: "We think he can hit" -- Greg Maddux: "Watch this: the first-base coach may be going to the hospital" -- Take me out to the Metric -- Elias knows EVERYTHING -- The game's gifted eccentrics -- Don't beat a dead horse in the mouth -- The Golden Age -- Pet Rose, always hustling -- The precious, precarious equipoise -- Barry Bonds: enhanced and devalued -- The methodical Mr. Aaron -- Realism among the RiverDogs -- Striving for motel years -- Seeking anonymous perfection -- "Where's baseball?" --

VIII. WONDERING. Incest at "a genetically discreet remove"

An intellectual hijacking

From Dayton, TN to Rhode Island's Committee on Fish and Game

Earth: not altogether intelligently designed

Intelligent design and unintelligent movies

The Pope, the neurosurgeon, and the ghost in the machine

How biology buttresses morality, which conforms to . . . biology

The Space Program's search for . . . us

Nuclear waste: that's us

The loudest sound in human experience

L = BB + pw + BC/BF

Wonder what we are for? wondering

IX. MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH. Golly, what did Jon DO?

The long dying of Louise Will.