Joseph Kellard interviews Donna Hassler about the works of Daniel Chester French, the great American artist perhaps best known for his sculpture of Abraham Lincoln housed at the Lincoln Memorial. Ms. Hassler is executive director of Chesterwood, which was French's summer home and studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and which is now a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Dianne Durante has released an Android app based on her book Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan. The app, produced by Guides Who Know, features more than three hours of video on the fifty-four sculptures that appear in the book, including Continents by Daniel Chester French, Sherman Monument by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the Statue of Liberty.

Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs succeeded in large part because they passionately, selfishly loved what they were creating and marketing—books and music, respectively—and they developed innovative ways to deliver the products to consumers who love them too. Here’s to passions, profits, and the people who pursue them.

The Diplomat, an ESPN documentary about two-time Olympic champion figure skater Katarina Witt of East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic, or GDR), is released to video February 18. The film serves as a reminder—or a revelation—of the crushing grip communist dictatorships held on the people who “lived” under them.

After barbarians destroyed the towering, 110-story World Trade Center towers on 9/11, some people wondered whether Americans would continue to regard outstandingly tall buildings as practical and worth the newly-realized risk. American developers are putting that wonder to rest, with a burgeoning new era of skyscrapers in New York City.…

[caption id="attachment_9808" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: Randstad Canada[/caption] ABC’s reality show Shark Tank offers a rare showcase of the character and abilities that entrepreneurs and investors cultivate to create and build businesses. The show features entrepreneurs who pitch their ideas to five investor “sharks” and seek to negotiate financing. On past…

In his Salon article “Ayn Rand Could Have Learned from the Arizona Firefighters,” Robert Reich presumes that the nineteen firefighters who lost their lives June 30 while battling a wildfire in Arizona chose their dangerous profession based on “something other than rational self-interest”: Like the first-responders to 9/11 and other…

Did the Miami Heat win the NBA Finals championship against the San Antonio Spurs June 20 because the Heat’s players acted unselfishly, on the premise that “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’”? That’s the view Magic Johnson—the former pro turned ABC sports analyst—expressed when talking with the Heat’s Dwyane Wade after…

Joseph Kellard reviews The Island at the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto.

In a recent interview with Book Page, novelist Adam Johnson offered observations of North Korea that capture the consequences of collectivist ideals taken seriously. Johnson travelled to the dictatorship while writing his latest book and was struck by the stark conformity and fear he found there: There are four shoe styles…

Joseph Kellard reviews Obit: Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who Led Extraordinary Lives, by Jim Sheeler.

When more than 100 million Americans tune in to watch the game, advertisers pay up to $4 million for 30-second commercial spots, and a nation consumes food on a scale rivaling Thanksgiving, Super Bowl Sunday can safely be declared a de facto national holiday. As Evan Weiner, a sports writer…

Joseph Kellard reviews Nomad, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Joseph Kellard reviews That First Season, by John Eisenberg.