(“The Bar Jester at Work.” Photo by M. Nolan)
ROCK ISLAND The Front Porch ain’t all high seriousness, at least not down on this end, where you can still hear an off-color joke and see an arthritic curmudgeon shaking his…
March 2009
RINGOES, NJ… As brilliant minds, armed with apparently endless supplies of money, thrash about Washington desperately attempting to fix what they have broken, it might be useful to step back for a minute. Our situation is, we are told, unprecedented.
Many folks–including Rod and the guys at Plumb Lines, just to cite two from our own blogroll–have taken notice of Newt Gingrich’s impending conversion to Catholicism. For several months, I’ve encountered various people in social situations, conservative Catholic types, who…
Alexandria, VA. …For many years now, “environmentalists” have sought to thwart the extension of forms of commerce and economic development that prove destructive of “eco-systems” or threaten the delicate balance of natural forces that allow certain species to thrive. Denizens
More good news out of Kentucky (in addition to mountain-top removal and deforestation): Memphian Tiger John Calipari has been named the new coach of the beleaguered UK Wildcats, which means that the loyalty of MSU coach Tom Izzo, the Great…
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia.… Pope Benedict has recently gained a bit of credit with world media for emphasizing the urgency of addressing the environmental devastation we have wrought. This (combined with installing solar panels to make Vatican City the world’s only
Via John Schwenkler, I see that Norman Borlaug has just celebrated his 95th birthday. Borlaug, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the primary architects of modern global agriculture, one of the father’s of the “Green Revolution”…
Devon, PA.… Here is something for you that no one will dispute: all complaints about modernity, including those that fit under the rubric of “conservative,” are arguments about stories. Much more than mere competing narratives that attempt to describe
Now that I am a tiny cog in the great machinary of state, I get all kinds of insider mailings. This in today, from the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security. George Orwell, call your agent.
“[We] make significant…
Russell wrote:
This is, perhaps, why Caleb Stegall and those like him are, to me anyway, the most important-if not necessarily the most persuasive-of all the localists and agrarians out there: they are entirely willing to contemplate doing without the…
Alexandria, VA. …From time to time, I hope to re-post here on this site some writings I’ve previously posted on my website, “What I Saw in America.” This entry – dated April 27, 2008 – has proven to be among
I hurried up to Columbia University to inform my friends on the campus that I had located the Communist Party, had made contact with it, and was, in fact, a registered member. By chance, the first man I met as I…
ROCK ISLAND, IL …
If “anniversary” is the right word, which of course it isn’t.
It might be the right word had we spent the last twenty years getting smarter and becoming better people, which is what you’d expect of
Thanks to Mr. BC, of Burke’s Corner, for his recent visit to Georgetown and for the conversation we enjoyed. He’s recorded some of his impressions here. All that was missing was some good Irish whiskey. Next time?…
RINGOES, NJ.… Recently, a friend and I visited Polyface Farm outside Staunton, Virginia. Polyface is owned and operated by Joel Salatin, whose parents started farming these verdant five-hundred acres in 1961. Polyface is not simply a farm. Salatin refers to
