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 (No, it is not about the Joads)) 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 Americas: hard and soft Angela Jobe's resilience Conservativism's infrastructure 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 got 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 Pete 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.