When Russell Brand published his 2007 memoir, “My Booky Wook,” I bought it with no particular expectations. The lanky provocateur from Essex was already famous for his drug-addled, debauched adventures as a stand-up comic and onetime MTV host — a job he lost after showing up the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden. I suspected this latest venture might be no more than a shoddy attempt to cash in on this notoriety.

I was wrong. “My Booky Wook” was engaging, witty, and painfully self-aware. Brand could write.

The unbuttoned shirts and Jim Morrison-like leather pants mask a keen intelligence and shrewd rhetorical instincts.

Born identity

And Brand can still write, in the strict sense. The sentences in his new book, “How to Become a Christian in Seven Days,” are sometimes funny, often eloquent, and occasionally beautiful. The man has range. He has cadence. He has, by any measure, talent.

He also has a problem with the truth, as his subsequent New Age-inflected leftist activism has demonstrated. Now that he’s taken a turn for the traditional, Brand still shows the same affinity for self-serving fabulation — and the same instinct for monetizing his “countercultural” views.

I am a Catholic. I take conversion seriously, which is precisely why I take this one so unseriously. I never agreed with Brand’s anti-capitalism shtick, the Che Guevara cosplay, the Bernie Sanders lovefests — but I always thought he meant it. That was the charm. Like Jon Stewart, he used humor to make political points. Unlike the erstwhile “Daily Show” host, Brand showed real humility while doing so, presenting himself less as an authority than as a fellow truth-seeker.

It’s precisely humility, ironically enough, that is missing from Brand’s public embrace of Christianity.

Brand management

Part of it, certainly, is the convenient timing. In September 2023, a Channel 4 “Dispatches” documentary and a Sunday Times investigation surfaced allegations of rape and sexual assault against Brand. A few months later, Bear Grylls — yes, that Bear Grylls — baptized him in the Thames. Recently, in an interview with Megyn Kelly, Brand admitted on the record to sleeping with a 16-year-old when he was 30, calling himself an “exploiter of women.” I watched the interview. He delivered the lines as eloquently as ever, but the remorse seemed rehearsed rather than felt.

Now comes the book. One hundred thirty-four pages. Thirty-three dollars. A man who once wrote a manifesto called “Revolution” about the predations of capitalism is selling salvation by the page at roughly a quarter a sheet.

The prose tells you what kind of conversion this is. Brand opens with a passage about how the title is “figurative” because seven days might take longer, then immediately explains that in the Bible, “days” don’t really mean days because the earth’s rotation, et cetera, et cetera and concludes: “This book has already paid for itself in cosmological bullion — ‘Now I know what a day is!'”

That is, to be fair, a funny line. It is also the entire book. He cracks a gag, dresses it in Scripture, and bills you for the privilege. Later, he writes that he is “attempting to reinterpret the Bible,” catches himself, and adds: “Phew, for a minute I thought I was an out-of-control egomaniac trying to rewrite the Bible and charge you for the privilege.” The self-awareness is the alibi. He names the con and proceeds with it.

RELATED: What Shia LaBeouf’s public struggle shows us about Christian redemption

MEGA/GC Images via Getty Images

Selling salvation

None of this is to say genuine conversion is impossible for the famous, the rich, or the disgraced. Augustine was a libertine before he was a saint. Dorothy Day had a common-law husband and an abortion behind her when she found Catholicism. Conversion is exactly the sort of thing that happens to people whose lives have spiraled. That is half of the point of the doctrine.

What separates those stories from this one is the absence of a sales pitch. Augustine wrote his “Confessions” 15 years after his baptism, in Latin, for an audience of fellow bishops, and he spent most of it agonizing over a pear he stole as a boy. Day lived a life of voluntary poverty and poured any money she made from “The Long Loneliness” back into her work for the poor. Neither of them timed their repentance to a court docket.

Any considering this purchase should realize that Brand, perhaps more than many celebrities, is a shrewd manipulator of the media. The unbuttoned shirts and Jim Morrison-like leather pants disguise a keen intelligence and shrewd rhetorical instincts; this is a man who has survived two decades in the crosshairs of the British tabloids (which, it must be said, operate with a brutality that makes their American counterparts look like Ladies’ Home Journal). Brand is a warrior, someone capable of weathering the most brutal of storms.

Property of Jesus

He’s also capable of reading the room. In this case, the room is a world besotted with American evangelicalism, which tends to focus on dramatic tales of redemption more than on the day-by-day grind of repentance.

That this type of Christianity is so forthright about embracing the broken is its glory, but it can also be its blind spot. Brand has bet, with considerable shrewdness, that this audience will buy the book without interrogating the allegations behind it.

Every person is owed his day in court, presumed innocent until proven guilty. I am not here to litigate the allegations, but to question the suddenness of the transformation. People who knew Brand well have described him as sociopathic. That is plausible. If Brand’s come-to-Jesus moment is no more than a way to leverage other people’s decency for personal gain, the word would certainly apply.

In the meantime, the best we can do for Brand is pray, as we would for any fellow sinner. It’s not for us to judge the authenticity of his conversion; that’s between him and God. But we should be wary of supporting his attempts — whether cynical or simply misguided — to profit from it.

​Books, Christianity, Confessions, Conversions, Converts, Dorothy day, Entertainment, Memoirs, Review, Russell brand, St. augustine of hippo, The long loneliness, Salvation, Hollywood, Movies, Sexual assault, Faith 

While Jimmy Kimmel’s widow joke wasn’t calling for violence, BlazeTV host Ron Simmons explains that calling for violence isn’t the problem — it’s the normalization of political violence that is.

“I don’t think Jimmy is telling somebody to go out there and kill somebody, I do think that he is making light of what has been, as we already know, from the two previous assassination attempts, attempts on President Trump’s life, and the fact that we should be happy if he’s dead,” Simmons says on “Relatable.”

And the first lady is on the same page as Simmons.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” Melania wrote in a post on X.

The first lady went on to call for “ABC to take a stand” in response to Kimmel’s joke, while the president called for his firing in a post on Truth Social.

“He ought to be fired immediately,” Simmons agreed.

But Kimmel isn’t the only celebrity normalizing violent political rhetoric.

“There are other people out here that are inciting things that we need to pay attention to,” Simmons explains, before calling out Hasan Piker.

“The New York Times basically platformed him, allowed him to participate in some of their communications. And this guy, he’s even worse than Jimmy Kimmel,” he says, pointing out that in an interview with the NYT, he suggested that the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was justified.

“Engles wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson as the United Healthcare CEO was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder, the systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit paywalled system of health care in this country,” Piker said in the interview.

“And the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of death,” he added.

However, Simmons notes that Piker has said much worse on his own Twitch stream.

“If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott,” Piker said.

In another clip, Piker calls for property owners to be killed “in the street.”

“Yeah kill them. … Let the streets soak in their f**king red, capitalist blood,” he said.

“The New York Times, if they’re a legitimate journalistic output, they shouldn’t be platforming a guy like this,” Simmons comments.

“I mean, that’s just way, way, way over the line,” he adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Abc, Allie beth stuckey, Blaze media, Blaze news, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcast network, Blaze podcasts, Blazetv, Blazetv host, Brian thompson, Comedy, First lady, Hasan piker, Healthcare system, Jimmy kimmel, Melania, New york times, Political violence, President trump, Relatable, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Rick scott, Ron simmons, The blaze, Truth social, United healthcare ceo 

Video game retailer GameStop says it has the best shot at becoming the next Amazon, and the company is ready to make big moves.

The story starts in early February, when GameStop says it began accumulating stock in order to position itself to buy one historic online outlet.

‘eBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money.’

In a press release on Sunday, GameStop said that for the last three months, it has built a 5% economic stake in eBay and is ready to pull the trigger on a sale that would allegedly allow it to challenge Amazon for online superiority.

GameStop’s offer is to buy 100% of eBay at $125 per share in a 50/50 deal of cash and its own GameStop stock. This would total a $55.5 billion takeover.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said that with his expertise, eBay could become a “legit competitor to Amazon.”

The proposal also promises that the newly formed company could reduce its costs by at least $2 billion in just 12 months. This includes cuttings its sales and marketing budget in half, shaving $300 million off of product development, and reducing its administrative costs by $500 million.

RELATED: No one believes this one-of-one Helen Keller item just sold for thousands of dollars

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

“There is nobody who is more qualified, based on my experience, to run the eBay business,” Cohen said, per Gamespot. “eBay should be worth — and will be worth — a lot more money. I’m thinking about turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”

GameStop boasted a massive turnaround under Cohen, who is credited with taking a fiscal year 2021 net loss of $381 million and turning it into a FY 2025 net income of $418 million.

This came off the back of the meme stock craze, a moment in 2021 when online forums — predominantly Reddit — rallied around a flailing GameStop and kept it alive for nostalgic reasons. The amazing part about the story is that GameStop has been able to keep that momentum alive for all these years.

The company was at historic lows in 2020, sometimes trading at less than a dollar per share. By December 2020, shares had risen to over $4 before the company’s portfolio exploded in the next month.

RELATED: Viral video: Males in line for Pokémon cards begin arguing, then fighting — and then it gets way worse

Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

By January 1, 2021, shares were worth $81.25 before an inevitable sell-off. However, the company is still sitting at around $25 per share, double what it was in 2013 and about $10 higher than 2007, when physical video game sales were still a formidable source of income.

According to Marketplace, GameStop is still composed of mostly retail investors who own about 90% of its stock. This could pay off monstrously if CEO Cohen gets his way, as eBay’s own stock has more than doubled since 2024.

Both companies seem poised to continue their rise so long as resales of media and tech trend upward, while a trading card boom continues to permeate throughout the collector’s world, where both companies can thrive.

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​Amazon, Ebay, Gamestop, Reddit, Return, Takeover, Video game retailer, Meme, Trading cards, Tech 

The United States has established a “red, white, and blue dome” of protection over the Strait of Hormuz to ensure the safe passage of commerce ships, War Secretary Pete Hegseth stated during a Tuesday-morning press conference.

Hegseth was joined by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine to discuss Project Freedom, which Hegseth described as an operation that is “separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.”

‘We expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have.’

“Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope, and temporary in duration, with one mission: protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression,” Hegseth stated.

Caine stated that the operation involves more than 15,000 American service members protecting the region by land, sea, and air. Hegseth explained that American troops would not need to enter Iranian waters or airspace.

“We’re not looking for a fight, but Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” he said.

Hegseth accused Iran of being an “aggressor” by “harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation indiscriminately, and weaponizing a critical choke point for its own financial benefit.”

Two U.S. commercial ships and American destroyers had safely passed through the strait, according to Hegseth. Hundreds of ships from nations around the globe have since lined up to pass through, he added.

RELATED: Mike Johnson denies the US is at war with Iran ahead of key congressional deadline

Handout photo by the U.S. Navy/Getty Images

“As a direct gift from the United States to the world, we have established a powerful red, white, and blue dome over the strait. American destroyers are on station supported by hundreds of fighter jets, helicopters, drones, and surveillance aircraft, providing 24/7 overwatch for peaceful commercial vessels, except Iran’s, of course,” Hegseth stated.

The war secretary emphasized the temporary nature of the operation and stated that “at the appropriate time and soon,” the U.S. would hand over responsibility to allies and other nations ready to protect the strait.

RELATED: Hegseth warns European allies to stop ‘free riding’ and help reopen the strait

Amirhossein KHORGOOEI/ISNA/AFP/Getty Images

Caine explained that “Iran’s indiscriminate attacks across the region” had resulted in 22,500 mariners on over 1,550 commercial vessels being trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to pass safely through the strait.

Hegseth insisted that the ceasefire with Iran is not over.

“Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project. And we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have,” he stated.

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​News, Strait of hormuz, Iran, Pete hegseth, Project freedom, Operation epic fury, Epic fury, Dan caine, Trump administration, Trump admin, Politics 

A female broke the window of a Philadelphia home Sunday afternoon and tried to enter the residence, police told WCAU-TV.

The armed homeowner warned her to stop, but the station said she continued to try to break in.

‘I guess he had to do what he had to do to protect his family. There was a stranger. He’s a good neighbor. He’s very good.’

The homeowner ended up shooting the female multiple times, and she died, police told WCAU, adding that the incident is being treated as a possible act of self-defense.

The homeowner stayed on the scene, tried to render aid before medics arrived, and is cooperating with investigators, the station said.

“At some point, the occupants of the home did make themselves known that they were inside, and this person … based on the information we have, refused to stop,” Philadelphia Police Inspector D.F. Pace told WCAU.

Pace added to the station that “it appears that this is a case of a person defending oneself inside their own home. Pace added to WPVI-TV that the person who fired the fatal shots is licensed to carry, and no arrests have been made.

RELATED: Armed crooks allegedly enter home in middle of night, but homeowner is prepared — and opens fire

Officers initially responded to reports of gunfire in the 2300 block of North Cleveland Street around 1:13 p.m., WCAU said.

Officers at the scene found an adult female suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, police told the station. WXTF-TV said officers found the female inside the home.

She was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:49 p.m., WCAU reported.

The deceased female was listed as a Jane Doe, Pace told WCAU, which noted that it’s unclear why she was attempting to break into the residence.

A neighbor named Shawnee told WCAU that the homeowner who fired his gun is a good family man: “I guess he had to do what he had to do to protect his family. There was a stranger. He’s a good neighbor. He’s very good.

Those with information about the incident are urged to contact the Philadelphia Police Department at 215-686-TIPS (8477) or anonymously online, WCAU noted.

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​Crime thwarted, Philadelphia, Home invasion, Intruder, Guns, Gun rights, Self-defense, Police, Fatal shooting, Homeowner shoots intruder, Crime 

Like many of her fellow liberals, progressive podcast host Jennifer Welch used the latest attempt on President Trump’s life to show her true colors.

In a segment on her podcast “I’ve Had It,” Welch mocked Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, for her response to the assassination attempt.

Dressed in all black with a black baseball cap to match what Kirk wore in her video message, Welch said, “How would you feel if the president of the United States said he wanted to wipe out an entire population? How would you feel if your husband said, ‘Because he’s famous, he can grab them by the p***y?’”

“What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do to the black pilot? How would you feel if your husband, president of the United States, was an adjudicated rapist? How would you feel about that? How would you feel?” she said.

Welch also promoted her new anti-fascist book, saying, “Make sure you preorder my book, which I would like to dedicate to one Erika Kirk.”

“Erika, the person that I’m talking about today, fascist, is you. You. You were the racist fascist about whom I am talking to. The work that your husband’s company and that you are doing to America’s youth to make them racist, narrow-minded, hateful, and bats**t crazy is an absolute disgrace. And thank you for the outfit, hashtag inspo,” she added, while her co-host laughed uncontrollably.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is disturbed by liberals’ new “radical leftist hero.”

“It’s alarming to me that a lot of people are watching this content, let alone like one person. I don’t understand the other worthless shrew that comes into frame and starts cackling like it’s just so hilarious,” Gonzales says, calling it “low-IQ content.”

“You’re talking about Erika Kirk’s dead husband and saying that he’s a fascist because he created Turning Point USA so that young people could have a conservative organization to look up to so that they weren’t just inundated by leftist indoctrination,” she continues.

“It’s kind of depressing that people are, anyone is, consuming this content,” she adds.

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​Assassination attempt, Blazetv, Charlie kirk, Depressing, Erika kirk, Fascist, Jesus, Leftist indoctrination, Liberal, Low iq, Podcast, President trump, Progressive, Racist, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Turning point usa, Youtube, Radical leftist hero, The blaze, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Jennifer welch 

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a hugely consequential 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais last week, striking down the Bayou State’s controversial 2024 congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and providing some much-needed clarity on “whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act can indeed provide a compelling reason for race-based districting.”

Democrats and other liberals — including Justice Elena Kagan — condemned the ruling, construing it as a gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and a setback for racial minority representation in American politics.

Less than a week after its monumental ruling, the high court gave critics another reason to rend their garments.

‘The dissent’s rhetoric … lacks restraint.’

While it customarily waits 32 days after a ruling to issue its judgment, the Supreme Court on Monday granted Louisiana Republicans’ request to fast-track the process and immediately finalize its opinion in the case, thereby enabling the Bayou State to draw a new congressional map favoring the GOP in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

The court noted in its unsigned order that the usual 32-day delay ordinarily affords the “losing party time to file a petition for rehearing”; however, in this case, the defenders of the unconstitutional gerrymander “have not expressed any intent to ask this Court to reconsider its judgment.”

RELATED: Obama, Mamdani, other Democrats throw ugly tantrums after SCOTUS strikes racial gerrymander

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

Absent that expression of intent or any opposition from Louisiana, the court allowed its ruling to go into effect immediately, prompting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to lash out at her colleagues in an unhinged four-page dissent.

“The Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” Jackson said in her opening salvo.

After criticizing Louisiana’s eagerness to ditch its unlawful congressional map in the wake of the Callais ruling, Jackson said that “to avoid the appearance of partiality here, we could, as per usual, opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures. But, today, the Court chooses the opposite.”

Jackson said further that the court’s expedited certification of the ruling “is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map” and represents an abandonment of constraints and principles that is “unwarranted and unwise.”

Evidently it was Justice Samuel Alito’s turn to dunk on Jackson over the latest in her series of trademark screeds.

Alito underscored in an opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch that the charges leveled in Jackson’s dissent “cannot go unanswered.”

The conservative justice pointed out that if Jackson had her way, the 2026 congressional elections in Louisiana would be “held under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional,” and that the Biden-nominated justice had failed to make the case for why it is somehow now too late for Louisiana to adopt a new, constitutionally compliant map and “not feasible for the elections to be held under such a map.”

In response to the two reasons Jackson did provide for dooming Louisiana to use an unconstitutional map in the midterm elections — first, that the court should observe the customary 32-day delay, and second, that the court should do so to avoid the appearance of bias — Alito wrote that “one is trivial at best, and the other is baseless and insulting.”

Turning on its head the assertion by Jackson that an expedited ruling-certification process screams bias, Alito noted that the Biden-nominated justice failed to explain why “unthinking compliance” with the custom “does not create the appearance of partiality (by running out the clock) on behalf of those who may find it politically advantageous to have the election occur under the unconstitutional map.”

Alito called Jackson’s claim that the decision represents an unprincipled use of power “a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”

The conservative justice concluded, “The dissent accuses the Court of ‘unshackl[ing]’ itself from ‘constraints.’ It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint.”

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​Callais, Congress, Gerrymander, Gerrymandering, Justice clarence thomas, Justice neil gorsuch, Justice samuel alito, Ketanji brown jackson, Louisiana, Louisiana v callais, Midterm elections, Racial gerrymander, Redistricting, Samuel alito, Supreme court, Politics 

The first time I flew on a plane, I was 14 years old. It was my first time going to Europe and my first time anywhere outside the United States other than Canada. But Canada doesn’t really count, does it? Not really, especially back then, when you didn’t even need a passport to drive over the border.

That first time overseas I was alone — kind of. I was playing in an orchestra on a music tour. There were itineraries and things were planned, and there were adults making sure I was present. I was with 85 other high school students, eight counselors, and a director.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then.

But I wasn’t with my family or my parents. At that age, at least for me, that counted as “alone.”

Roughing it

This was back before we all had smartphones in all our pockets. I couldn’t text my mom and dad every hour, and I couldn’t check my email whenever I wanted. I didn’t even have an email. I could call them, however. And I did, every few days.

Of course, you couldn’t just pick up a pay phone and make an international call. You needed a calling card.

Remember those?

The back was covered with instructions. How to call out of a country, what code to enter calling into a country, and a ton of numbers you had to enter before you even made the call. It was an insanely convoluted system, almost as if it were a test you had to pass. If you accidentally pressed a wrong number, you would have to start all over again.

But this system did work. And it allowed me to check in with Mom and Dad every three or four days, as they requested.

Warm welcome

Every stop of the tour, we would get divided up and stay with different host families — a few kids per household. They would give us a little tour in their broken English (the only language any of us spoke), offer their phone if we wanted to call home, and — if they were really cool — let us have a little wine with dinner.

On our last night, we would play a concert outside in the middle of the town. All the host families would come, sit there in folding chairs, and listen. There was food, sparkling water (then still rare in America), maybe some wine.

The next morning, we would get on the bus and drive to another tiny little town three hours away and do it all again. After four weeks of this it was time to get on a plane and head back home.

I did this every summer in high school. It was a blast, and I learned a lot — both about other people and myself. They were formative experiences for a kid from the Midwest like me, and they set me on a path I’m still on today.

Far and away

Still, I have to wonder if I would ever let my kids do something like that. The thought of sending my son off to Europe at such a young age with people I don’t know gives me serious preemptive anxiety. On the other hand, my parents were good parents and they let me do it. And I survived.

Fortunately, my son won’t be 14 for years, so I have a little time to learn to let go. And if he does go, we’ll have the full spectrum of modern technology keeping us connected, not just some dinky plastic card.

At the same time, I wonder if the end of the calling card didn’t take some of the magic with it. Knowing everything that’s happening with all your friends back home while posting pictures every hour for all of them to see doesn’t quite plunge you into the unknown.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then — far from Mom and Dad, my school, everyone I knew, and everything familiar. Maybe one of the blessings of having grown up when I grew up was the possibility of that kind of distance. Traveling meant just a little more when you could feel far away.

RELATED: A stranger asked me to have a conversation; here’s why I’m glad I agreed

Imperial War Museum/Getty Images

Cozy connection

I’m in Europe again, though I have a smartphone and email now. I text my wife all the time, and she sends me pictures of the kids. I FaceTime with them, tell them I can’t wait to see them next week, and send them videos of what it looks like here. I manage business on my phone, write columns like this one one my computer, and continue my work as usual despite being across the ocean in the Europe that used to feel so far away.

I like this new reality quite a bit, but I think I liked the old one too. Distance doesn’t feel so great any more. The world is smaller and everything nearer. Maybe the whimsy of those childhood summers in Europe was simply the whimsy of youth and I’m only feeling all this because now I’m old and without that same wonder. But I’m not sure.

We are in the age of ever-present digital connection, and that’s not changing any time soon. Those final years before the mass adoption of the cell phone were the last gasps of a big, magical world. We didn’t really understand it at the time, but the cell phone, the smartphone, and email marked the end of distance and some kind of world of whimsy.

There’s no good in lamenting the things we can’t change, and there are quite a few advantages to this newer, much smaller world. But whenever I want to remember the old excitement of that wider, wilder world, I recall the feel of a calling card in my hand and smile.

​Men’s style, Modern technology, Lifestyle, Travel, Calling cards, Europe, The root of the matter