Bill Kauffman

The Greenest Mountains

April 4, 2013

In the words of Frank Bryan, the University of Vermont professor whose Real Democracy… is the best book ever published on the vital New England practice of town meeting, “Vermont’s genetic code” is “human-scale democracy.” Bryan is among the contributors

Read the full article →

See You at the Movies…

March 22, 2013

Herewith the spanking-new trailer for Copperhead, which Ron Maxwell (Gettysburg) directed and yrs truly scripted from a novella by the great novelist of Upstate New York–no, not J.F. Cooper but Harold Frederic. Film will be released to theaters on June…

Read the full article →

Ten Years After a Space in Time

March 18, 2013

Memories….…

Read the full article →

It’s Tough to Argue Over…

February 15, 2013

…a Utica Club.…

Read the full article →

Ways to be Wicked

February 5, 2013

Via Reason, my review of Amy S. Greenberg’s A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico: http://reason.com/archives/2013/02/05/americas-war-with-mexico.…

Read the full article →

Still on the Line

December 4, 2012

In which I attend a Glen Campbell concert. As a Christmas bonus, two tunes from the displaced Arkansan’s haunting valedictory album: here and here.…

Read the full article →

Finger Foods

October 22, 2012

Set in the heart of the Burned-Over District, the Finger Lakes region of New York is among the culturally, historically, and culinarily richest parts of the country. Now it has a cookbook worthy of its ghosts and grapes: Finger Lakes…

Read the full article →

George McGovern, RIP

October 21, 2012

My 2006 profile/interview of the patriot from Mitchell, South Dakota: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/come-home-america-2/.…

Read the full article →

Cast Away

October 11, 2012

On third parties: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/party-animus/.…

Read the full article →

A Goodman is Hard to Find

October 5, 2012

I’m happy to report that New York Review Books has just reprinted Growing Up Absurd (1960), Paul Goodman’s classic plea for the human scale against the postwar corporate and military-industrial behemoth.  Especially noteworthy is a terrific foreword by Casey Nelson…

Read the full article →

Don’t It Make You Wanna Go Home Now?

September 6, 2012

Joe South, RIP:  http://youtu.be/8V1JJqNKjVU. “God, how I wanna go home….”…

Read the full article →

LDS Trip

August 8, 2012

Musings on our Burned-Over District neighbors, the Mormons: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/just-deseret/.…

Read the full article →

“Like Most Satirists I am a Reactionary”

August 1, 2012

Native son and caustically loving biographer of our country Gore Vidal  (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-last-republican) has died. Don’t mourn; read: Burr, Lincoln, Screening History, Homage to Daniel Shays, United States, The Last Empire….…

Read the full article →

Bringing it all Back Home

July 10, 2012

Reason‘s Jesse Walker on Benjamin Looker’s account of Karl Hess, Milton Kotler, and the power-to-the-neighborhoods movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s: http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/10/all-power-to-the-neighborhoods.…

Read the full article →

Clang, Clang Go the Jail Guitar Doors

July 6, 2012

Today from The American Conservative:
www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/rockys-drug-war/…

Read the full article →

Ray of Light

June 7, 2012

Ray Bradbury may be at peace, but I doubt he’s resting. Herewith an old essay of mine on the boy from Waukegan as a Midwestern regionalist.…

Read the full article →