The 1960s counterculture created a moral and spiritual vacuum that weakens the foundations of American society. The new elite of its adversary culture has disdained traditional morality— the stress on hard work, thrift, frugality, deferred gratification, the sanctity of marriage, fidelity, sexual self-control, and individual accountability. Those who still believe in these values are branded by the new elite as quaint, politically incorrect throwbacks who just don't get it.

The new century brought my seventieth birthday, on which Gillian gave me a watercolour of a lapwing, or teuchit, with her chick by local artist Keith Brockie.

The normal pronoun to use with spirit would be it. But Jesus breaks the law of grammar and says not when it, but when he.

With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coördinate, and give voice to their concerns.