Articles Archive
Thought Control and Controlling Our Thoughts
Last evening I had the joy of taking a dozen-plus college students to the Abbey of the Genesee for the first of this year’s “Newman Community Book Discussion with Monks.” The…
Walter McDougall on American Exceptionalism
In the afterglow of last weekend's gathering of Porchers, which featured a panel on American exceptionalism, a piece by Walter McDougall over at the Foreign Policy Research Institute's website comes…
Eros, Agape, and Community
From the The Orthosphere come Part I and Part II of the pseudonymous physicist Bonald's reflections on Christianity, love, and community--reflections based in part upon the work of one of the twentieth century’s…
The Springs of the Scamander
One of the most memorable passages in the Iliad occurs in Book 22, during the climactic scene when Achilles is chasing Hector around the walls of Troy. As Achilles closes…
Conference Schedule
The conference will be on the campus of Hope College in Holland, MI. Go to the Maas Conference Center on the corner of Tenth and Columbia, on the back side…
FPR Conference Details
There is still time to register for the conference by clicking here. We will also be welcoming walk-up registrants on-site, but if you go that route you'll have to pay…
Upcoming Poetry Readings
For those readers who might be interested, I've recently published my first collection of poems, Distant Lands and Near, available here. Also, those who are aficionados of traditional poetry might be interested…
Town Fabric and Placemaking
This excerpt is the second in a three-part series from Eric Jacobsen’s book, The Space Between. Read Part I here. Town Fabric and Placemaking The built environment plays an important…
Place and Space: An Excerpt from The Space Between
Place and Space Place, in contrast to space, is a context-specific, meaning-rich concept. Although many use the two words interchangeably, a fairly clean distinction can be made between them. Space…
Don’t It Make You Wanna Go Home Now?
Joe South, RIP: http://youtu.be/8V1JJqNKjVU. "God, how I wanna go home...."
The Culture of Hospitality
Hidden Springs, VA. In two recent pieces, I argued that 1) the language of “culture war” is not helpful and should be discarded, and 2) that to the extent that…
FPR Conference: Register Now
If you have put off registering for the conference but plan to attend, please register if possible. This will give us a better idea of how much food we'll need…
Senior Moment
If Virginia is for lovers (what an odd campaign that was), Michigan should be for duffers. I understand why some FroPo's may object to the sport alleged to spoil a…
The View From Your Front Porch
Olathe, Kansas -- On Saturday I looked back from my front porch, my walk having been cut short by a soft rain. As you can see, my grass and that…
Against Rationalism, Idealism, and Abstraction
Part II in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I here. Where the traditionalist position I have sketched appears weakest is precisely where it speaks most…
McCarthy on conservatism and the post-Boomer generations
Must-read stuff this morning from Dan McCarthy at the The American Conservative. Dan argues that the Gen X and the Millennial generations are not necessarily more liberal than their Boomer…
“There Was Also Much Singing”: A Review of The Hound of Distributism
In his estimable history of distributism and its major figures, Jobs of Our Own, Australian economist and former MP Race Matthews records an account of the distinctive atmosphere of the…
Neil Armstrong, R.I.P.
Regardless of how one may feel about the Space Age, the reticent Midwesterner who passed away Saturday was an American hero if ever there was one. Prior to his historic race with…
The Problem of Place
Part I in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Devon, PA. Several times during the last couple years, the FPR comment boxes have received protests against the supposed “placelessness”…
Sixth Circuit Rules Even Attorneys Have First Amendment Rights
Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Castle, Kentucky. Late last month the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court judgment and found that the Kentucky Bar Association had violated…
Legitimized Rapes
Claremont, CA. In Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, the hero Howard Roark violently rapes a woman named Dominique, forcing her into submission “like a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession” of a…
Gird Your Loins: It’s an Election
Holland, MI On Inauguration Day 2009 various organizations at my college held a celebration to mark the inauguration of America’s first African-American president. Large TV screens were set up around…
Liberal Culture?
The word “culture” readily falls from our lips, but what appears on first glance to be a clear-cut notion becomes much more complex as soon as we attempt to define…