Mike Pilewski writes about life, politics and culture in the United States
It was my first camping trip as a Boy Scout, and already my life was in danger. For some reason, our scoutmaster had arranged for us to go camping — in tents — in the middle of winter. Our survival skills would be put to the test, and the discomfort we’d endure would, as they say, “build character”. We inspected … >>
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana, Spanish-American philosopher, in The Life of Reason (1905) Seven years to the day after America’s worst natural disaster, history almost repeated itself. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina had crossed Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, hitting New Orleans and devastating large parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. Last … >>
The cold, wet weather that lasted into the early part of August didn’t provide much of an incentive to go outdoors. Fortunately, however, this year has offered some very interesting reality TV. In January and February I found myself watching what I call the Egypt show, a touching soap opera that was on every night. That series ended with a … >>
Dear readers, I hope you can forgive me for abandoning two of my principles. The first is not to revisit a topic too soon after having written about it. I thought I was done with tornadoes, but they kept coming. After those in North Carolina, there was the one that destroyed the airport in St. Louis, Missouri. Then a major … >>
When my uncle moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, he no longer had to shovel his driveway. Instead, he almost got hit by a tornado. “One of the first tornadoes touched down just nine miles [15 km] north of us,” he wrote in an e-mail this week. One of the first, that is, of 25 tornadoes that hit the state … >>
The first snow of the year fell in Munich on Monday — a month late — and road traffic came to a standstill. How humbling it is that forces of nature can still put a stop to normal human activity! And how much it says about the human spirit that we always try to fight these forces. The bus was … >>
One of my favorite Bushisms is one that George W. said when visiting Nashville in 2002. “There’s an old saying in Tennessee,” he began. “I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee [as well] — that says, ‘Fool me once: shame on you. Fool me [twice]: you can’t get fooled again.” Bush had forgotten the second part of the saying, … >>