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  "path": "/2026/07/02/thursdays-trailheads/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-03T02:42:01Z",
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  "textContent": "The Rise of Grocery Tourism by Nicole James > I loved the products. Not necessarily the customers who could turn feral over a five-cent discrepancy in canned tomatoes. The conveyor belt was a pageant of human need. It was anthropology in a polyester apron. > When people now declare that they have discovered grocery store tourism, I feel like saying, “We know. We’ve had those for years.” > My first trip to America should have been my grand supermarket awakening. I was a PR manager for Malaysia Airlines in the late ’90s, and we were launching a very long flight to New York from Sydney via KL and Dubai. I arrived bristling with ambition. I wanted to see the cereal aisle. Long had we heard rumors of American supermarkets. They were great glittering cathedrals of corn syrup with aisles devoted just to cereal and marshmallows in the shapes of everything from the moon and stars to presidents. I wanted to stand before them all in awe, like Moses, if Moses had come down from the mountain carrying Pop-Tarts.- A Visit to Jefferson’s Monticello as the Declaration of Independence Turns 250 by Brian T. Allen > As with the Entrance Hall, the Dining Room, and the Tea Room, furniture is easily moved to open the space, whether for a big reception, dancing, or a wedding. Parlor portraits of Locke, Newton, and Francis Bacon — to Jefferson the greatest men who ever lived, a tall order — are together over a mirror. Portraits of laughing and weeping philosophers were once over the fireplace, “dividing the world between them,” as a visitor wrote, and around the room are depictions of Vespucci, Columbus, Walter Raleigh, the Russian tsar Alexander I, and Napoleon, all, like Jefferson, men of great consequence. From the despot Napoleon Jefferson got that good real estate deal called the Louisiana Purchase. > Today, Monticello is a massive operation. The superb research library focuses on Jefferson and his era. There’s a historic garden, an archeological site, a slew of outbuildings, a cemetery, of course, mostly for Jefferson and his family, and amenities for Monticello’s 300,000 or so annual visitors. Its budget last year was about $41 million. Its endowment is more than $400 million, so it’s definitely no longer in unfathomable debt. It’s well run, serious, and a university for all things Jefferson and welcoming. Everything’s done at a very high level of quality. - Trump’s Art of the Self-Deal > What is most discouraging is the unwillingness of the party in power, the Republicans, to confront the corruption in the White House. For four years, they railed about Joe and Hunter Biden and their supposed “influence peddling” operation. They drew up timelines of alleged corruption, focusing particularly on Burisma, the Ukrainian company where Hunter served on the board for five years, and where he was paid a reported $50,000 a month. There was even talk of impeachment. > Whatever the Bidens may or may not have done, it pales in comparison to the influence peddling that has taken place during Trump’s second term. A president who pardons a convicted money launderer who helps him make money in the crypto business is sullying the presidency, as is a president who gives a foreign nation access to advanced chips after one of its top officials buys $2 billion worth of his family’s stablecoins. But Republicans are almost all silent in the face of the appearance of corruption. > One of the most disheartening aspects of this polarized country is how each side sees only the wrongdoing done by the other side, and looks away from the conflicts and profiteering done by their own. Trump was elected by a country that had lost faith in Washington. But rather than “draining the swamp” as he pledged to do—he’s only made it swampier.- A Colonial Coming of Age by James Wallner > What the colonists resented, in short, was being told they could not govern themselves—because by then they had been governing themselves for generations. Adams later acknowledged the source of their resentment while reflecting on the meaning of the American Revolution. In an 1818 letter, Adams asked Hezekiah Niles, “But what do we mean by the American Revolution?” “Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.” > Adams did not believe that American self-government was born in the summer of 1776. He understood that it emerged from the colonial charters that first formed the colonists into political bodies, and from the colonial assemblies, such as Virginia’s House of Burgesses and New England town meetings, where colonists gathered to deliberate and decide matters together. Americans learned a great deal about self-government in these places. From their experiences in them, they began to understand that freedom depended on their ability to participate—to share in the act of governing themselves. - Land of the Free by Jack Butler > Look into the history of your own land and you’ll find some trace of how the country became what it is. Signage marks the spots where Confederate daredevil John Morgan menaced my Ohio hometown and nearby areas, giving the state—which was essential to Union victory—its only actual Civil War combat. > These and other dramas—and not only battles—seem almost mythic now. But Americans don’t need a Heinrich Schliemann, the eccentric German who proved that the Troy of Greek epics was a real place, to know these stories are real. They’re often right in our backyards and a cherished part of our communities. > Remembering and visiting these places can’t dedicate, consecrate or hallow their ground. Those who came before us have already done that. But doing so can remind us what our forebears did to make and keep this land free. Because of them, others can also lay claim to this land—250 years later, and beyond.",
  "title": "Thursday's Trailheads",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-03T02:42:10Z"
}