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Articles Archive

Probable Cause

Attorney John M. Berry Jr. in Kentucky is defending his right to criticize a decision made by the state's Legislative Ethics Commission. Was his language at fault? Or is someone…
Katherine Dalton
April 14, 2011

School Bans Homemade Lunches

Little Village Academy, a public school in Chicago, has banned sack lunches. Unless they can produce a medical excuse, all students are required to purchase lunch in the school's cafeteria…
Mark T. Mitchell
April 12, 2011

Untaxing the Virtues

What the political mainstream ignores, unsurprisingly, is that any change in how we raise revenue cannot be only about balancing the numbers. It also involves judgements about the texture of…
April 12, 2011

Wilfred McClay’s “The Soul & the City”

Many of you will enjoy reading Wilfred McClay's fine article, "The Soul & the City," which was just posted on ANAMNESIS, A Journal for the Study of Tradition, Place, and…

History’s Long Road to Tyranny: Tocqueville and the End of Equality

Devon, PA. I have just finished teaching Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America with my freshmen students.  In a way I have not witnessed before, they were compelled by his…

Why Heirloom Seeds Matter

Does it matter what kind of seeds you plant in your garden? Here is an article explaining why heirloom seeds are the way to go. One advantage is the fact…
Mark T. Mitchell
April 7, 2011

Magpie Education for Small-Mouth Bass

We’re like small-mouth bass, and we’ve swallowed the technological treble hook.
Jason Peters
April 6, 2011

Why We Need Jane Austen or How to be a Gentleman with Examples Good and Bad

Austen provides something for which young people—even the jaded ones—secretly long.
Mark T. Mitchell
April 5, 2011

Baseball: Official Sport of the Front Porch Republic?

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball” –Jacques Barzun Grove City, PA. Opening Day, 2011 Dutifully following the links provided by FPR’s editors, I…
April 4, 2011

Wilson at Steubenville

Devon, PA.  All you who are in the Pittsburg/eastern Ohio region would be most welcome at the talking and reading I shall give this Friday at the Franciscan University of…

Preserving Local Culture

  Last Sunday I sat on the church porch, smoked my pipe and listened as some of our musicians played their guitars and mandolins. One of the songs we sang…
April 1, 2011

New FPR Feature: MLB predictions that you can take to Vegas…

Spring training is over, and I find myself at loose ends. Since moving to Phoenix a few years back, this has become the saddest time of the year for me.…
Jeremy Beer
March 30, 2011

Whose Capitalism? Which Free Market?

Those Front Porchers in the Indianapolis-Fort Wayne area might want to attend the ISI Conference, "Whose Capitalism? Which Free Market?: Exploring the Moral Dimensions of the Market Economy," Saturday, April…

Requiem for the Chapel on the Farm

They say that funerals are for the living, which of course they are. The deceased, now lifeless, causes us to reflect upon their life as well as our own which…
March 29, 2011

It Takes a Village…

The always-interesting Tony Esolen has an article over at First Things called "Restoring the Village" which I highly recommend to those concerned about place, liberty and limits. One recalls that…
Jeff Polet
March 28, 2011

A City upon a Hill

Conservatives are awfully fond of referring to America as a “city upon a hill;” it would be a wonderful thing if they actually made some attempt to understand what that…

Egypt, Tunisia, and the Failure of Neoclassical Economic Theory

The regime changes in Egypt and Tunisia have been hailed as victories for democracy, as proof of the liberalizing power of social networking media, as testimony to the power of…
March 24, 2011

Making Hookups Happen

Enterprising students at the University of Chicago have managed to combine two of the central interests of the contemporary student: casual sex and facebook. They've launched a new UChicago Hookups…
Jeff Polet
March 23, 2011

What Rebelled First: The Chicken or the Egg?

Reason magazine's Jesse Walker notes an outbreak of nullification, dairy-style, in Maine:  http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/22/food-nullification
March 23, 2011

The No-Suicide Pact

You cannot slit your wrists. It says so, right here in your employment contract. And besides, we've installed suicide netting on all of our buildings. So if you manage to…

Critical Thinking

Frank Beckwith has an interesting little article over at "The Catholic Thing" on How Political Correctness Makes Us Dumb. Staying in the academy, if you've read Mary Vander Goot's piece…
Jeff Polet
March 22, 2011

A Tip of the Hat to Courtesy

Grand Rapids, MI. Strange things happen in the checkout lane. The elderly man at the head of the line was pausing to look at something in his hand. No, not…

Meet a Folksinger

I recently received a song from Front Porch Republic reader Michael Johnathon. Michael is a Kentucky based folksinger, songwriter and host of the national syndicated broadcast of the WoodSongs Old-Time…

Wendell Berry and the New Urbanism: Agrarian Remedies, Urban Prospects

The problem is a result of the underlying specialization—not of people but of places—for what could be more specialized than designing a town according to discrete zones designated by use?
Mark T. Mitchell
March 20, 2011