Front Porch Republic
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…
Only Connect
In 2024, I held my first Margarita Mile. I’ve done more since then. It’s simple. I invite a group of friends. Using sidewalk chalk, I mark a start line and…
The Way from St. Martin’s: On the Virtue of Paths
When the wood deepened, the clean wearing of the earth itself wore away into indistinguishable concord.
Love and Loathing in Lawn Tractor Land
In the ultimate form of mimesis, the well-seasoned mower who comes to know every inch of the property he maintains, also comes, in the end, to know the contours and…
My Encounters with Dr. Dobson: His Unremarked Upon Strengths and Fatal Weakness
Dobson knew his influence was on one side of the political divide and kept his focus and advocacy there. Political loyalties came first.
News, Notes, & Podcasts
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Time for Leaving: Songs About Restlessness
This week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’re listening to songs about restlessness—or, as the scholar Frederick R. Karl calls it, spatiality. I managed to do this whole episode…
TikTok Democracy, AI Parenting, and Rooted Virtue
Christine Rosen pens a biting response to Katherine Boyle’s rosy picture of techno-families.
Terrestrial Otherness: Songs About Insects
In conjunction with my recent FPR article “Terrestrial Otherness,” this week on A Symposium of Popular Songs, we’ll be listening to music honoring the noble six-legged creatures whose world we…
Don’t Die, Bad Neighbors, and Unions
Piers Gelly describes how students responded when he invited AI into their classroom.
More Articles
Old Models
Perhaps the choice not to have a computer is more a choice not to play pretend.
Terrestrial Otherness
Why didn’t Fabre gaze out into the heavens, like Copernicus and Galileo, instead of down at these grotesque little monsters?
Making Men for Others
It turns out that while you can take the man out of the Xaverians, it is more difficult to take the Xaverian out of the man.
Gorgias: Plato’s Guide to Online Discussions
Socrates encounters many of the same rhetorical stunts that we run into on the Internet today.
AI is Not Like a Calculator, and Other Conversations Worth Having
We are forgetting about other ways AI may be affecting people close to us, even ourselves.
Light Forevermore: The Luminosity of Blood Meridian
Blood and violence and death are on every page; however, trace that which has fallen back to its original height, especially the moment in the barn where all the rough characters are aglow.
The Cathedral and the Republic
A republic endures only through the devotion and resolve of an active citizenry.
Can I Get a Witness?
The fabled pearly gates may be a noisy place.
Blisters on the Camino de Santiago
I recently learned the most effective cure ever for blisters: iodine. I had no idea; and I bet your mother, like mine, told you to bandage a blister and never, ever drain it. Leave it alone, they say. Put a…
What Was Scattered Was Not Destroyed
Churches aren’t offering peace. They’re optimizing for engagement. And what gets built in the end is impressive. But like all “Babels,” it can’t bear the weight of the human soul.
When the Stranger Becomes the Scourge: Lessons for Localists from Wuthering Heights
In a fragmented age increasingly seduced by the cult of the self, "Wuthering Heights" challenges us to reclaim the difficult virtues that make real community possible.
The Front Porch Republic Curse?
You are probably familiar with the concept of the “Sports Illustrated cover jinx.”
From the Archive