The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

In the comment thread of my My life as a free-rider post I wrote: “I guess what was on my mind is there’s a sort of self-righteous smugness in this post, or in my cashmere sweater post that’s a not too distant cousin from the self-righteous smugness in posts about heritage turkeys and what not, and I wanted [...]

Today is “Opposite Day” here at the League. My favorite subject here is Constitutional law and I typically take a textualist approach to the subject. So in the spirit of the day, I offer here a manifesto of Constitutional interpretation from Okkil Trub, a proponent of Constitutional originalism. Okkil takes on, among other things, the [...]

by Guest Author Kelly Todd Today’s posts seem to be clogging the League with political dissertations and proclamations of one sort or another. Is democracy good? Is the separation of powers evil? Are man’s rights naturally descended from the Divine, or granted by the mercy of the State? Blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, [...]

As it turns out, there aren’t any good Tim Tebow songs. There, are, however, Tim Tebow songs. A surprising number, actually. Don’t google them. Seriously. Instead, listen to this lovely song from The War On Drugs, “Black Water Falls” off of their absolutely brilliant Slave Ambient: Of course, you should consider this an open thread [...]

(Previously.) Swept up, various tools brought in, plans tacked up. Materials should start arriving this week.

The first car I ever owned was a 1973 VW Kombi camper, purchased in 1989. I don’t know how many owners it had before I got it. My second car was a 1976 Kombi camper; again number of previous owners unknown. My third car was a 1992 Honda Civic CX, purchased new. Before we met [...]

Quoting from an earlier comment from fellow gentleman Ruffus: “I’m really hoping that David still does a bit of film-making. I’d love to see a short film documenting this process. A time lapse film would be cool too.” Quoting from my own introductory post: “As much as I’ve criticized and lamented the effect of culture and [...]

  Apparently this ad ran in the New York Times last Friday (Black Friday) but I didn’t see it until today, on a friend’s blog, and seeing it provides me an excuse to write about something that’s been on my mind for a while. We live in what’s considered by modern American standards a small [...]

Manichean rhetoric is employed, nuance is jettisoned, and catchy sloganeering reigns supreme. To believers in the primacy of intellectual honesty, the cacophony of protest can be disconcerting, the participants obstreperous. Will Wilkinson and Julian Sanchez certainly seem to think so. In recent posts, the two libertarians urge occupiers to stop occupying and start engaging with [...]

(Part 1 can be read here.) In July of 2003 I went to Kenya on a commissioned promotional documentary project. Earlier that year I had been convinced to buy a Krasnogorsk K3 16mm camera, a “Russian Bolex”, and the results we had been getting shooting film instead of video made me decide is was worth spending about [...]

A project update, in no particular order: We formed a new company for the build: The Montauk Catamaran Company, LLC We move into our build-space — a barn in Bridgehampton — at the end of the week. We just bought 108 sheets of Hydrotek brand BS1088 rated meranti plywood. We’ve hired our core build crew. [...]

This weekend, we took our daughter to see The Muppets, her first time watching a movie in a theater.  We chose the movie because we figured it would at least be tolerable for we parents in addition to being a guaranteed hit with our daughter.  After all, how bad could a movie with a then-97% [...]

  Christ at Breakfast The earthly smell of fresh toast wafts, lingers He sits quietly, His reading glasses perched upon his nose. The sins of the world, captured in cheap newsprint bleed into the palms of his hands, dirty his fingertips. His very favorite is the crossword. He rises, stretching, pushing chair against wainscoting Takes [...]