The view from flyover country: dispatches from the forgotten America

Part I: Flyover country. The view from flyover country ; Expensive cities are killing creativity ; The peril of hipster economics ; Mourn the fall of the mall --

Part II: The post-employment economy. Surviving the post-employment economy ; Meritocracy for sale ; Survival is not an aspiration ; Zero-opportunity employers ; A government shutdown, a social breakdown ; The men who set themselves free ; Charity is not a substitute for justice ; The unaffordable baby boomer dream ; The millennial parent ; Mothers are not "opting out"--they are out of options --

Part III: Race and religion. The wrong kind of caucasian ; The fallacy of the phrase "the Muslim world" ; In the trial of Trayvon, the U.S. is guilty ; St. Louis's sons, taken too soon ; The freedom to criticize free speech --

Part IV: Higher education. The closing of American academia ; Academic paywalls mean publish and perish ; The political consequences of academic paywalls ; The immorality of college admissions ; College is a promise the economy does not keep --

Part V: Media. Managed expectations in the post-employment economy ; Who is a "journalist"? People who can afford to be ; Blame it on the internet ; When the mainstream media are the lunatic fringe --

Part VI: Beyond flyover country. U.S. foreign policy's gender gap ; Snowden and the paranoid state ; Iraq and the reinvention of reality ; Where following the law is radical ; Water is a human right, but who is considered a human being? ; The telegenically dead --

Coda. In defense of complaining --

Epilogue.