Heartland

It appears my alma mater will fall short of pre-season expectations in football. So I’ve pretty much already accepted the likelihood that the Wisconsin Badgers will disappoint their fans on the gridiron for at least the second year in a row.  read more »

Tim Allen is a Hollywood celebrity, but he’s the rare one who hasn’t abandoned his roots in favor of the glitz. And that has been a good thing for Flyover Country.  read more »

While topics like “The Great Resignation” and “the labor shortage” have gained traction in popular discourse, much of these discussions overly simplify trends that have been brewing for decades.  read more »

We’re used to getting the short end of the stick out here in Flyover Country, whether it’s from a lack of regular news-media attention or from our vastly inequitable share of investments by venture capitalists.  read more »

Out in the rolling country just east of Columbus, Ohio, a new—and potentially brighter—American future is emerging. New factories are springing up, and, amid a severe labor shortage, companies are recruiting in the inner city and among communities of new immigrants and high schoolers to keep their plants running.  read more »

Hipsters sitting in an apartment in Silicon Valley or on the wharf in Boston can code a new restaurant-reservation app or pixelize a new video game with knockoff characters from Game of Thrones. But it takes someone who knows their way around a power tool to geofence a concrete rotary hammer or to automate a factory-floor process for making a sewer cleaner.  read more »

Quick – name a fast-food chain that has taken the nation by storm with its authentic, great-tasting fare and has spread like wildfire everywhere, even on the coasts, while staying true to its flyover country values.  read more »

There’s a myth in Indianapolis Republican circles that goes something like this: back in the good old days, the Indiana GOP was made up of high minded, moderate statesmen from metro Indianapolis like Richard Lugar and Bill Hudnut.  read more »

Here’s a followup to the post from earlier this week about my experience at a “Restoring the Urban Middle Class” conference in Houston a couple weeks ago.  read more »

A few years ago, who’d have thunk it? But Elon Musk has earned his spurs as a resident of Flyover Country. Now he seems to be more like one of us than one of them.  read more »