The Editors
Articles by The Editors
The Cardinal and the Capitalist
A cleric with the ear of Pope Francis recently sent Catholic defenders of free markets into a tizzy. At a press conference, Cardinal Oscar Rodriquez Maradiaga of Honduras tossed out…
Comedians in Togas
The Greeks were funny. We don’t usually think of them that way; we think of them as marbled patriarchs in togas, Really Important Men We Revere for Some Reason. Admittedly,…
Scary Students
There's a piece at Vox by Edward Schlosser (a pseudonym) entitled "I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me." In the piece, the author confesses his own terror of…
New Author Site and Archive
Somewhere between three and seven readers of FPR will be pleased to hear that I have launched a new website that serves to archive publications from various magazines and journals,…
Double Feature
Two articles caught the attention of my Porcher sensibilities today. The first was a piece in the New York Times on urban gardening: Kerry Trueman and Matt Rosenberg began by growing tomatoes…
A Presidential Proposal Worthy of the Porch
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The blogger, pundit, screenwriter, and all-around mensch Noah Millman has come up with a brilliant idea--Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont, and Jim Webb, former…
One Faithful Bee
“Some have affirmed that bees possess a share Of the divine mind and drink ethereal draughts; For God, they say, pervades the whole of creation." …
The Celebratory Layoff
The Atlantic ran a piece this morning on how a California-based company called HopeLab is trying to make layoffs and firings more enlivening: Chris Murchison, the company’s vice president of…
Localist Linkfest
From "Homeschooling and Christian Duty," by Sally Thomas, in First Things: The idea of sending a child daily into a hostile environment—if not actively hostile, as in bullying, then certainly philosophically…
The Mythology of an Anti-Christian Bigot
Though far, in its main argument, from the central concerns of the Porch, some readers may be interested in my account of mythos and the nature of culture as an…
High Salaries, Low Corruption?
I read a piece in The Week today, provocatively entitled "Pay politicians like movie stars!" The author, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, has taken aim against cronyism: But much of it, as you already…
Tom Fleming Retires
Rockford, Illinois. After thirty-one years at Chronicles Magazine—thirty of them as editor—classicist, poet and polemicist Tom Fleming has retired. During his tenure at this small but influential magazine of the…
Witchcraft in Church? Against Glamorous Worship
Recently, our local Trappist Monastery, the Abbey of the Genesee, unveiled a renovation of the sanctuary of the Abbey church. To the shock of some — those who often claim to…
The True Conservative
Writes Pat Buchanan of his work these last ten years: Our agenda in that decade was—stay out of wars that are not our business, economic patriotism, secure borders, and America…
Localist linkfest
Patrick Deneen in First Things, on Indiana's RFRA fight: This past spring, we saw something quite different and revealing and worrying. With the imprimatur of American elites, which was clearly given…
Hanging Out with, and Learning from, Some Thoroughly Material Benedictines
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A few weeks ago I was able to, once again, do something that I enjoy doing immensely--take a group of students out on a local…
Remembering a Good Oak
Trees cannot talk, but they do speak. With our eyes focused on franticly flickering screens, perhaps our ears have grown dull to their still small voices, yet they whisper on.…
For the Sake of the Children
“… but the soul of the hearer must be prepared by good habits to rejoice in the good and hate the evil, just as the soil must be well tilled…
The Trouble with Limits
Modern persons have a problem with limits, three in fact. They want every good thing to be unlimitedly available for their desires, and scarcity is taken for a cause of…
The Gentlemen from Indiana
Booth Tarkington and Jeremy Beer, that is. From The American Conservative. And what the hell, here's R. Dean Taylor (a Canadian) too.
Localist linkfest
Sarah Perry, who appeared in these pages this week, has another piece at Ribbonfarm on "weaponized sacredness": Preference falsification is a mechanism by which sacredness can operate. But sacredness is…
Silence of the Forest
“The treasures within the earth were long hidden, and trees and forests were thought of as her ultimate gift to mankind. … Even images of shining gold and ivory are…
FPR Annual Conference: James Howard Kunstler in Geneseo
Join us on October 3 in Geneseo, NY for our fifth annual conference. Our keynote speaker this year will be New York native James Howard Kunstler. This is shaping up…
Localist Linkfest
The John Jay Institute's symposium on home is online now. Go read it, lots of great stuff in there. The State Dept won't let an Iraqi nun in to testify…