Patrick Cooke is a writer who contributed cultural commentary and essays to The Weekly Standard between 2009 and 2014. His pieces for the magazine ranged across topics including food, automobiles, media criticism, and popular culture.
Anyone who’s ever misplaced the family car in a parking lot at the mall must surely sense that we are not living in a golden era of automobile design. Gazing in panic out across that vast tar pit, every car seems to look like every other car. Late-model midsize sedans and compacts, especially,…
Oh, what fun smokers won’t be having in 2014. As of New Year’s Day, Boston joined six other large cities banning smoking in its 251 city parks. The fine for violation is $250 and includes anyone caught “vaping” a smokeless electronic cigarette. In Oregon, there is now a $500 fine for smoking in a…
The successful have always been eyed with suspicion by the plain, decent old folk over at NPR, except for the once or twice a year when the alms cup comes out for a rattle or two. So it was a little astonishing to hear Garrison Keillor, the Clem Kadiddlehopper of the pubic airwaves, sing this smug…
In February 1955, Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia took to the floor to decry the results of a government study estimating that a highway bill under consideration would cost American taxpayers $27.2 billion. Does the tune sound vaguely familiar? Excerpted from Earl Swift’s new book, The Big Road: The…
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a special section reporting on the paper’s recent conference entitled “Women in the Economy: An Executive Task Force.” One of the taskforce members was Geena Davis, the Academy Award winning actress and more recently founder of the Geena Davis Institute on…
In case you missed it, the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday rolled out its "food issue." It would not be the Times, nor would it be a true media food fiesta without the appearance of Michael Pollan, the cultural elite's perennial guiding light, and the lord mayor of the Saturday morning…