The Editors

I have a friend who is a cloistered Trappist monk and his current obsession is the ‘outer’ and decidedly non-sedentary goal of running a marathon (on the back forty of…

Berwyn, PA.  Mark Mitchell, FPR's founding father and Editor-in-Chief, will deliver a lecture at Villanova University next week.  The event is open to the public, and any FPR readers in…

Like dew on the gowan lying Is the fa’ o’ her fairy feet; Like winds in summer sighing, Her voice is low and sweet. Her voice is low and sweet,…

Washington, Connecticut. As I watched Senator Rand Paul slurp his dripping candy bar, a sinking feeling set in. This does not diminish his determined stance but one should rightly be…

I've been sitting in an airport most of today, subject to the inescapable barrage of manufactured outrage that is CNN, and was offered this lifeline of sanity from a reader.…

About a month ago I happened upon a copy of The Concord, student newspaper of Bellarmine University. In particular my eye was caught by a letter to the editor whereby…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Senator Rand Paul's filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan to be head of the CIA--something that he did in order to "draw attention to…

An address given to the Ciceronian Society at Mount St. Mary's University, March 3. At the start of each semester, I ask my MBA students, “What are you here for?…

For four years, with the exception of our annual conference, FPR has been primarily a digital venture. But like most reasonably healthy men and women, we crave a physical connection.…

If you had told me, a happy and professionally satisfied D.C. lawyer living on Capitol Hill, just over a year ago, that I would be back someday soon living in…

When in 1967 my parents were the thirteenth family to move into newly minted Columbia, Maryland, I was three months old. The American dream at that time generally took the…

Having had a day off last week in honor of the past presidents, I am loathe to disagree with former presidents (in this case, of the American Historical Association). But…

...a Utica Club.

Thee let old men, Thee let young men, Thee let boys in chorus sing; Matrons, virgins, little maidens, With glad voices answering: Let their guileless songs re-echo, And the heart…

Hilaire Belloc once wrote that he never burned anything but oak in the huge fireplace of his ancient home in West Sussex. For a while I considered doing the same…

Via Reason, my review of Amy S. Greenberg's A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico: http://reason.com/archives/2013/02/05/americas-war-with-mexico.

In Summa Theologica 2-2.1.4, Aquinas argues that every action can be understood in two ways: according to its order of intention–the goal one has in mind when one acts, and…

Women are now cleared for combat positions in the American armed forces, and for all the ladder-climbing that now allows. On January 24th, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the direct…

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”  --Wallace Stevens January 25,  the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, will mark the fifth time in the last decade that…

Imagine a new father looking into the eyes of his child.  A wisp of blond hair curls about the scalp.  The fingers, wrinkled like those of an old man, curl…

As President Obama contemplates the political obstacles looming before the gun control agenda he announced on Wednesday, he might look closer to home for their cause.  It is not the…

Three articles recently caught my eye, all of which having to do with scholars' fame, only two having to do with their libraries. The bookless one involved a professor of…

Part III in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church.  Read Part I, and Part II. Berwyn, PA.  In the last installment of this series, I contended that an…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] So Glenn Beck has proposed his grandest scheme yet: the construction of separate planned community, literally built around (in terms of architecture and overall design)…