Culture, High & Low

Food Stamps and Krazy Glue

benefit card May 10, 2013

On a recent Monday morning, an officemate and I were discussing the current financial state—always a cheery subject on a Monday.  Mark, a financial planner, said that many believe we are currently in a for-real, genuine, bona fide… depression.
“Many

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Biopolitical Tyranny?

Rubens_saturn May 8, 2013

John Milbank has written a remarkable critique of gay marriage that points to the ways it will ultimately and immeasurably strengthen the modern liberal State.  The theologian who launched “Radical Orthodoxy,” and who identifies as a man of the Left…

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On Buying Local Food, And Why

596837_99178838 May 7, 2013

I decided some time ago that I wish to eat as little as possible from the “industrial” food chain; that is to say, I wish to buy little food from factory farms which viciously and needlessly abuse the animals they…

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Dinner, Anyone?

1387747_51668321 May 3, 2013

In Dr. Mark Mitchell’s recent post on Front Porch Republic…, “W[h]ither the Family Dinner?”, he asks the question, “Are family meals important?”  My short answer is: yes.  But why is it important?  In answering this question, I ask you to recall

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What Then Must We Do?: Worker Ownership Redux

cover May 2, 2013

The following is an excerpt from from Gar Alperovitz’s What Then Must We Do? (Chelsea Green, 2013) and is reprinted with permission of the publisher. Learn more about the book here. 
By the way, and finally (for the moment), there are also many, many worker-owned…

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The Bar Jester Marvels, Then Explodes, At Front Porch Wienerism

gauntlet (1) April 30, 2013

Oh, Porch. Where is thy sting?

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Horse Burgers and the Lives of Others

horse April 30, 2013

If you could boil our global problems down to seven words, they might be these: we don’t see where stuff comes from…. Most of us grew up staring at glowing rectangles without ever seeing a coal-powered turbine. We blithely

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The Problem of Undertheorized Agrarianism in Most Actually Argued Localism

April 25, 2013

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
That’s a terrible title for this post, I know. But hopefully it’ll make sense, if you actually make it to the end.
First of all, if any reader of this blog has missed out on…

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Elegy For An Outhouse

OuthouseDrawing April 23, 2013

Wherein the Barn Jester, having stepped in it, encounters an unexpected trial.

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Mark Mitchell’s Politics of Gratitude (Theoretical and Otherwise)

tree April 18, 2013

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
To continue with the excellent discussion begun by R.J. Snell, Mark Mitchell’s fine and thoughtful book is filled with important insights and challenges, which do not, in my judgment, quite achieve what the author lays…

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How to Write History and Practice Bourbon Politics

Carson April 17, 2013

But as a gesture of good faith he agreed to limit himself to a quart a day.

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A Prophet of Goodness: Review of Mark T. Mitchell’s The Politics of Gratitude: Scale, Place and Community in a Global Age

politics of gratitude April 16, 2013

At my worst moments, I succumb to thinking that we have become utterly trite, absorbed by ephemera, thin of character, quick but scattered of intellect, weak of will, and just at a moment in which we face gravely serious issues.…

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From the Trinity Capital

Trinity Capital April 12, 2013

Beyond the purple velvet drapes, the skeins of billowed gossamer, my hotel window looks down on the back gates of Trinity College. Up three floors and pierced by a late October sun, the room has been done up like a swinger’s pad, with leopard print and leather, with mirrors and conic shaded lights in orbit about the dark mass of the pillowed bed.

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The Barn Jester Steps In It

cow pies April 9, 2013

Those who think “nostalgia” is a bad word marking a bad sentiment can pucker my yonder socket.

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A Long Repentance: A Decade of Turning Away from (a Part of) the American Dream

car April 9, 2013

Including “repentance” in this title might lead you to believe that it is a theological reflection of some kind. After all, repentance is a religious word, is it not? And it is not a neutral religious word either. No, “repent”…

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Ruthie Leming’s (and Rod Dreher’s) Little Way

51zyOb2vuoL._SS500_ April 8, 2013

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
Rod Dreher’s 2006 manifesto, Crunchy Cons…, was an inspiration (and provocation) to many, on both the left and the right. It wasn’t that the book was a tremendous intellectual break-through or an entirely new

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