The Editors

  I delivered a version of the following text as a lecture at Augustana College last Tuesday, April 28 (all errors of fact and interpretation should be ascribed to my…

BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY--Hey, it’s time once again to send Mom that special e-card. From the vaults, the story of the men who voted against the first Mother’s Day: In the…

Wichita, KS. Fifteen years ago, when my wife and I got married, we had a lot of inchoate ideas and aspirations, many of which were relatively humble, generally egalitarian, and…

Princeton, NJ At most cafes today there is a station where packets of sugar, canisters of milk and cream, and coffee stirrers are conveniently available for the personalization of each…

Irving, Texas. G. K. Chesterton begins his Utopia of Usurers with a description of a world in which all art has become commercial art. He does not find it out…

"Would that thou couldst last for aye, Merry, ever-merry May!" William D. Gallagher (the forgotten Ohio poet) BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY--The clouds of April have scattered, so look skyward (while keeping…

Drilling with the Pitchfork (photo by AMS) JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.  The call came from the neighbor yesterday at about four in the afternoon.  Your cows are out.  Damn!  I was…

New Castle, Kentucky. We can't talk about the economy all the time, or anyway I can't.  Today instead I want to sing a song of the literature of place--and my refrain is,…

I've been reviewing a number of the online offerings of Chris Martenson, whose "crash course" on contemporary economics was made known to me on a recent "Kunstlercast." I was particularly…

I'm willing to bet that in all likelihood, a large majority of those reading this site do not have kind feelings for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, assuming they…

Mt. Pleasant, SC--As little as I wished to make my first post for FPR an overtly political essay on contemporary affairs--I had meant to rumination growing up in a small…

My piece, titled as above, on the future of publishing, and particularly "conservative" publishing, is up now for subscribers at the American Conservative. You should subscribe. It's worth it --…

Claremont, CA - The first thing you see, when you enter the Memphis Rock N Soul Museum, is a front porch. This front porch is a dilapidated thing, decorated with…

Wichita, KS I was born in 1968, and my childhood was the 1970s. My family lived, during those years, in five different homes (all in the same county, though, so…

JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.  The review below was first published in the Intercollegiate Review in the fall of 2006.  Look Homeward, America was my first introduction to the work of the…

The Bar Jester is nearly as funny as Jeremy's limp cigar and Carrie Nation look of shocked indignation at the beverage he has just been served.  And this bit By my…

I posted this piece at What I Saw In America on Friday last; for any readers of both these sites, I apologize for the redundancy.  However, I think this posting…

Via a friendly reader, comes a link to this fine and wise comment about the important role which public transportation ought to play in the minds of anyone who is…

In case you missed it, 2009 is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Earlier this week I participated in a roundtable discussion on Lincoln’s legacy sponsored by Messiah College and…

In addition to frequent searches that lead people to an earlier posting on "monoculture" on my site "What I Saw in America," among the most frequently searched words that bring…

Devon, PA.  Upon reading an essay of Patrick Deneen's, a close and dear relative recently wrote me, protesting the uselessness of the terms "liberal" and "conservative."  They are simplifying terms, and inadequate…

Wichita, KS. Not too long ago, I asked my readers at my main blog just what sort of geek I should be. (The answer, in case it wasn't apparent at…

Last week's motley collection of protests against taxation, centralization and the Government are now old news, but their spirit remains perennially relevant. Invoked in the name of the original "Boston…

JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.*  In 1947, two titans of 20th-century economic theory, Ludwig von Mises and Wilhelm Röpke, met in Röpke's home of Geneva, Switzerland. During the war, the Genevan fathers coped…