For interns at 'The Weekly Standard' or 'National Review,' where the martial instinct finds its most insistent voice, what Robert Kagan calls the military 'career path' is not widely seen as a plausible future. Pulling a trigger is what Jose, Tyrone, and Bubba do, not early admission students at the better private universities.

In sports, the confluence of the 1989 Oakland vs. San Francisco World Series and the Loma Prieta earthquake notwithstanding, the earth rarely moves.

Retirement is purgatory for the former sports star. The world outside organized sports is unforgiving.

Class has always been Tom Wolfe's subject, and I suspect the reason for much of the disfavor in which he is held.