The apathy vote | The Spectator

Place

A beginner’s guide to noodling

In Oklahoma, noodle is both a food and a sport. For generations, Okies have been jamming their hands in crevices, trying to find the gaping maws of unsuspecting catfish to rip out of their hideaways. And for more than twenty years, they’ve competed at the Okie Noodling tournament held under an hour away from the country bars of Oklahoma City. Before covering the tournament, I had to noodle myself, to see what all the fuss is about. In Shawnee, I met up with the award-winning noodler Nate Williams, who runs Adrenaline Rush Noodling.

Dave Seminara

A month in the Baltics

On Joe Biden’s first day in Lithuania, he skipped the opening dinner of world leaders at the NATO summit and made a beeline from the airport to his suite at the opulent Kempinski Hotel for a plate of spaghetti bolognese and some quality sack time. My introduction to the country a couple of weeks later involved no fanfare, but was far more memorable. I woke up in the 700-year-old Jaunpils Castle, in a fantastic, out-of-the-way place, lost to my teenage son in an archery competition there and then drove south on winding country roads to northern Lithuania’s Hill of Crosses, a place that better symbolizes the victory of faith over communism than any other. The Baltic countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — are often lumped together.