It just occurred to me: at the root of all human behavior is the desire to discover and to hold The Real Thing. It can be a god. It can be a can of soda. It can be an author. It can be a house. It can be an article in a magazine.  The Real Thing gives us…
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Yes indeed, life is too damn quick. I like this whole “waking up and living” thing.  After 56 years, I have gotten very used to it.  The prospect of having only 20 or 30 years left doesn’t thrill me, and I realize that many people turn to religion’s easy comfort so they can more easily spend those…
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A recent study by The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network indicates that the happiest countries in the world are: Switzerland Iceland Denmark Norway Canada Finland Netherlands Sweden New Zealand Australia Now, you may ask, what do all these countries have in common — except, perhaps the last one, with which I’ll deal a bit later on —…
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New Horizons is on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy dwarf planet and its moons in July 2015. Source: New Horizons | NASA

Press-Republican (Plattsburgh, NY) front page from January 28, 1994. Ever remember seeing something in a newspaper but you don’t remember the date? Not even sure of the wording, so it makes it hard to research? Yeah, me too. Well, I found it. Every winter, when people tell me how cold it is, I remind them that…
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The fundamental truth about politics is that it is always driven by fear. The poor have nothing to lose, hence, no fear (unless somebody tells them they’re having their God taken away from them, as we see happening.) The middle class is driven by fear, but unwilling to act decisively because they’re afraid of falling….
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My brother,  Mark T. Hoops, died on February 21 of this year (2015) after a six month sentence of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.  I miss him.  Everyone who knew him misses him, but most of all, his wife, his son, and his daughter feel the loss.  And, in a much different way, my brother Brian and…
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[Publisher’s Letter] | By John R. MacArthur.     When I began my tenure as publisher of Harper’s Magazine nearly thirty years ago, my biggest challenge — or so I thought at the time — was to get advertising agencies to pay more attention to the celebrated journal of American ideas and literature entrusted to my care. Harper’s had tens…
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