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Front Porch Republic

Shallow and Hollow: Media’s Romance Problem

Deep down, humans not only want but also require enduring, stable relationships.
September 30, 2025

Restoration Rides the Bus

Crouched between reflective handrails and stained cloth seats holding the memories of seasons past, I encountered daily more humanity, more culture, and more reverent wisdom than perhaps ever before.
September 29, 2025

In Defense of Children’s Work

Apprenticeship, not exploitation—and why place still matters.
September 26, 2025

When Minors View Violence Online

When will we confront the reality that terrible things can be etched into our memories in milliseconds?
September 25, 2025

News, Notes, & Podcasts

Jeffrey Bilbro
Newsletter Editor:
Jeffrey Bilbro
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A Little Time in Quiet: Songs About the Morning

We’re listening to songs about my favorite time of day, morning, this week on A Symposium of Popular Songs. Accordingly, it’s a pretty mellow episode. Send recommendations my way at…
September 29, 2025
A Farmer Reading His Paper. Photographed by George W. Ackerman, Coryell County, Texas, September 1931.

Work, Friendship, and Literacy

Maya Sulkin talks to some influencers and wannabe influencers about the nature of work.
September 27, 2025

Bill McKibben with Sunshine on his Shoulder

The author, activist, and grandfather who once warned of The End of Nature has a brighter disposition these days.  Resources Bill's bio and buy the book (and the other book)…
September 22, 2025

Every Tear on Every Face Tastes the Same: Songs About Solidarity

This week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’re listening to songs about solidarity, one-half of the foundation of Catholic social teaching. Send me your song recommendations at symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!
September 22, 2025
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More Articles

Of Branson and Belonging

Belonging cannot be immediately grasped, but it must be chosen little by little.
September 24, 2025

Midwest Roots, American Aspirations: Charlie Kirk’s Legacy

I pray Charlie’s old neighbors will keep the flags flying, the campus debates respectful, and their doors open to all visitors.
September 23, 2025

Writing Is for Humans

They accepted that the law of human judgment was Mercy—after all, that was the law of divine judgment.
September 22, 2025

How to Bite the Machine that Feeds You: Kingsnorth’s Options for Resistance

One must think seriously about where to draw lines in the sand
September 19, 2025

Children Shouldn’t Be Free Marketing Fodder

Shouldn’t we begin putting restrictions on how often and for what purposes minors’ images appear online?
September 18, 2025

State Universities Should Serve the State—Not the World

In focusing on the global economy, universities often lose sight of the needs of local economies.
September 17, 2025

Trump’s Hope for Heaven

Within the context of expressing his desire to help end the war between Ukraine and Russia, the President highlights another desire: he wants to go to heaven.
September 16, 2025

The Last Lesson of Charlie Kirk

Kirk started as a kind of ultra-MAGA influencer. Over time, however, he was becoming a serious man—one with a popular following, especially among the young.
September 15, 2025

The Word and the Machine: On Paul Kingsnorth

I wanted living color, an axe to break the frozen sea.
September 12, 2025

When the Internet Was a Place

Not too long ago, the internet was a place you visited. The family desktop sat in its designated closet or back office. In schools, there were rooms filled with computers blinking in tandem, waiting for your class to arrive and…
September 10, 2025

“Two Liberals Walk Out of a Pandemic…”

I have been hoping for a reckoning about covid for years now, and this book is a major step in that direction.
September 9, 2025

The Wars of Alex Garland

With "Civil War" and now "Warfare," the writer-director has made two consecutive movies about the “what” of armed conflicts rather than the “why”
September 8, 2025

From the Archive

Spiritual Secession: A Conversation with Paul Kingsnorth

" None of your readers need me to tell them that the useful work is practical, particular, small and careful: to get away from screens as much as we can, get…
November 12, 2021

The Road Taken

Sometimes an important change becomes evident only in retrospect - not while it’s happening across quiet broken days alone in a house while autumn succumbs to shadow and cold.
November 5, 2021

Where Is Our Freedom to Exercise Sympathy?

The same things that happened to the family farms, and to farmers like my father, are now happening to the colleges, and to faculty like me.
October 30, 2020

The Art of Living an Examined Life

If human beings flourish from their inner core rather than in the realm of impact and results, then the inner work of learning is fundamental to human happiness, as far…
October 16, 2020

Cultivating the Skills that Freedom Requires in Matthew Crawford’s Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road

Human driving requires unending mutual predictions and constant accommodations for each other. It is in such experiences that we end up with something meaningful for life in the physical world…
October 7, 2020