Eben Carle

When archaeologists unearth the relics of the American Century, the space race will be our Holy Grail. Space was our New World. In 1962, when John F. Kennedy declared “we choose to go to the moon,” he encouraged every American to look up to the stars and summon the spirit of Columbus staring across the Atlantic. During the Apollo program every American taxpayer became a deckhand on the voyage to the moon. It was a journey that created the world we now live in, spawning GPS systems, plastics, alloy metals, cordless power tools and cancer detecting CAT scans (more)

Last week’s bipartisan health care summit was fascinating. It was the second time in as many months that the President ran a veritable session of parliament—in America. (more)

For 20^th century Americans, the road trip was an essential right of passage. In the priceless years before cell phones, the road trip meant spending unreachable hours out on the open highway, pointing your headlights west and chasing a sunset at 60 mph. It allowed young Americans to learn about themselves and the country they were destined to inherit. Nothing quite summoned the spirit of the pioneers like getting behind the wheel of a Buick Electra and tracing their footsteps through the golden cornfields of Nebraska and on into the embrace of the Rocky Mountains. (more)

We give too much attention to a rehearsed world, one in which newsworthy events amount to little more than staged press conferences. Yet every now and then it happens: Someone pushes through the crowd and demands an explanation. When it happens, it’s priceless. The best within us resides upon those unscripted moments. (more)

The problem with stoking a populist bonfire is that after you’ve used bankers, capitalists and political adversaries as kindling wood, eventually the fire goes out. The embers cool. The revelers go to bed. Your closest collaborators, those wild-eyed conspirators who egged you on the night before, are absent at dawn. The sun rises and all of those things that seemed so monumentally important in the moment fade. (more)

If you came of age during the 1990s you could be forgiven for experiencing a case of déjà vu for mistaking the American health care debate with Britney Spears’ post-millennial downfall. (more)