Jeff Minick

Jeff Minick

Contributor

Jeff Minick is a free-lance writer and teacher living in Front Royal, Virginia. He may be found online at jeffminick.com.

Recent blog posts by this author

A Backward View: Older Books and the Culture of the Now

For almost twenty years, I have written book reviews for a weekly newspaper in Western North Carolina. In general, reviewers take an interest only in new books. This makes some sense, as older books have already received their accolades...

Why Are Americans Such Lousy Writers?

Ours is the age of communication. We can send an email to France in a couple of seconds, tweet out opinions as fast and furiously as President Trump, and place an order online for everything from groceries to books. Yet...

The Antidote to Our Toxic Discourse Is Not Political ‘Correctness’—It’s Civility and Reason

Sticks and stones may break my bones, But words will never hurt me. We’ve all heard that childhood verse, but even a five-year-old puts the boot to that second line. Our words have power. They can wound or mend; they can...

Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: A Forlorn Hope

By now, unless you have spent the past two decades living as a Venusian, you are aware that good manners in the public square and in social media are at rock bottom. In addition to the kooks attacking speakers in colleges, mobs surrounding and...

How Did America Become a Nation of Slobs?

One evening in early April I was waiting for my ten-year-old twin granddaughters to finish their indoor soccer practice when a girl their age approached me and said, “Your coat looks really nice.” It was a wet, chilly evening, and I was...