Weekend Links 3-9-18

Your weekly roundup of interesting things from the web:

One of the things I love about Brad Meltzer's thrillers is the tremendous amount of research he puts into his novels. His new novel The Escape Artist was just published this week. One of the characters in the novel is a mortician at Dover Air Force base. While visiting the mortuary to do research for the book he discovered a message from 9/11 victim that was sent from beyond the grave. It's a fascinating story.

Gracy Olmstead has a terrific column on discovering community through book clubs. She also quotes P. G. Wodehouse which is an added bonus.

Productivity tip. sometimes you need a reset day.

Legendary North Carolina Tar Heels broadcaster Woody Durham passed away this week. I shared a few of my own memories of Woody here but Adam Lucas did a much better job summing up how Tar Heel fans felt about him. 

While lots of sports news outlets are facing cutbacks, The Athletic is growing by leaps and bounds. Seems like every day they are hiring more writers.

For baseball fans, the dead ball era refers to that period in history before the home run became commonplace. Most of our sights of the era have been based on photographs. However, this video shows footage from actual games of the era. 

The assassination of President James Garfield rocked the nation yet few people know the full story. Now there is a move underway to mark the site of the assassination.  If you want to learn more about the assassination, I highly recommend Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.

One of the best ways to stay informed is to read less news.

This may seem counter intuitive but actually makes a lot of sense: I wanted to be a good mom. So I bought a gun. 

Weekend Links 3-2-18

After an unexpected week off a whole host of links for your weekend reading. I'm spending the weekend off of social media and am going book hunting. We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, enjoy these articles.

This is fascinating: these astronauts have seen Earth from space. Here's how that experience changed them.

Odd but true: divers found an undetonated World War II bomb in Sydney harbor.

Someone decided to abandon a Boeing 737 in Bali and nobody knows why.

If you can't remember the last book you read or the last movie or television show you saw you're not alone.

Speaking of reading, here's how to read more books. I have found that I have to make time every day to read. Plus I have at least one book I am working on at any given time. Right now I am churning through about seven books a month and that feels like a pretty good pace. I also follow lots of different bookish people on Instagram and it's a treasure trove of inspiration.

Tim Challies weighs in on why men don't read books written by women. I think he's on the right track in terms of how writers target their writing for a particular audience but mostly I think it has to do with how publishers market the books.

Quote of the week: Carl Trueman on the Oscars:

I make a point of never watching the Oscars. If I want to waste four hours of my life being alternately patronized and reminded what an abject failure I am according to the criteria of contemporary society holds dear, I can always read The New Yorker.

I don't like to wade into politics here any more in large part because it has become far too toxic to discuss. However, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this column from Mona Charen. Last week she was booed off the stage at CPAC because she dared to call conservatives on their hypocrisy when it comes to sexual harassment and the chronic excusing of past behaviors of their candidates. I applaud her for her courage. I wish more conservatives had her backbone.

Guns have also been a hot topic in the aftermath of the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. But this piece by David French is very thoughtful and worth careful consideration.

Joe Carter wraps up his series on how Christians should engage with the news. In summary, consume less of it. The previous installments are here, here, and here.

A related issue that frankly has been woefully under-reported is the plague of fatherless homes. Matt Walsh has some great insights into things every boy needs to learn from his father.

Matt Szczur may have moved on from the Cubs to the Padres but he still has fond memories of the 2016 World Series. He's also quite the talented artist.

"Great people choose to do what is right no matter what." That certainly rings true for Iowa's Jordan Bohannon who missed a free throw on purpose.  A very classy move.

Random Thoughts From The Road

Each year I have an opportunity to come to Louisville for a week on business. But there's also almost always a little fun mixed in. Of course, it's as much about the journey as it is the destination.

We came a different way than usual this year driving through West Virginia. It's a beautiful state that is wrongly maligned. The only drawback for travelers is that that there are stetches of highway that have very little to offer travelers to see except lots of scenery.

We made an unplanned stop in Charleston and ended up stumbling upon a treasure. The Capitol Market is a wonderful farmer's market open seven days a week. In addition, they have some incredible indoor shops as well. We picked up sandwiches at Johnnie's Fresh Meat Market that were truly delicious. But the biggest surprise was a Swiss chocolatier (yes, you read that correctly). Holls' Chocolates imports all its chocolate from Switzerland and then fashions all its confections by hand. They are absolutely divine. If you can't get to the store you can always order online.

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The other night we were out at a major sporting goods store shopping for swimsuits. One of the family (I won't embarass them here but they know who they are) forgot their swimsuit. We ended up stumbling on such good deals we bought three. Anyway, when I got to the checkout counter I was a little surprised to see a sign advising shoppers that there were specific limits on how many boxes of ammunition you can buy at one time. Turns out that there has not only been a surge in sales of guns since the November election but now ammo is hard to come by. There's a political statement being made here somewhere.

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Whenever we travel we try to sample local restaurants. In fact, our first night here we didn't waste any time ordering dinner from our favorite pizza joint in Louisville, Wick's Pizza. They have some of the best pizza I've ever tasted.

Sometimes, however, eating out gets old. Since our hotel has a kitchenette, my wife decided to be adventurous and cook dinner for us. This required a trip to the grocery store. While I'm normally frugal when it comes to shopping there is one store that is worth the trip and the price. The Fresh Market is a little more pricey than your average grocery store but it also carries lots of things you can't find anywhere else. If you never visited one be sure to stop in when you get a chance.