What’s in a Vanhattan?” I asked as he started to mix. “It’s half rye, half bourbon,” he said. When he said rye, he meant the Van Winkle rye. And when… - Wright Thompson

Being Southern means carrying a responsibility to shake off the comforting blanket of myth and see ourselves clearly. I was bringing a child into this world, and into our long history of trying to do the right think while benefiting mightily from the wrong thing, and I wanted her to see it clearly without the nostalgia that so often softens my anger and desire to tear it down and build a new world in its place.

I know that success means reaching your goals and enjoying them and that one without the other is empty and meaningless.

people in urban America aren’t Shakespearean characters with free will but actors in a Greek tragedy,