The Brass Spittoon 31
Mark Mitchell on Plutocratic Socialism
Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism: The Future of Private Property and the Fate of the Middle Class and President of Front Porch Republic, joins the podcast. Mitchell and Murdock…
Focus on the Local: A Conversation with Carl Trueman
Though his recent bestselling books trace the roots of several deeply entrenched beliefs about human nature and our world that have led us into bewildering territory, Trueman concludes both books…
Matt Stewart on Wallace Stegner
Matthew Stewart, author of The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: Wallace Stegner in California, sits down (literally) with host John Murdock to discuss Stegner’s complicated relationship with the American West. …
Katharine Hayhoe Talks Climate Change
Katharine Hayhoe is a professor at Texas Tech and the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy. Her most recent book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing…
Chuck Marohn on the Human Errors of Traffic Engineering
Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns and author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, discusses streets, roads, “stroads,” and the perils of the American traffic system. A trained engineer himself,…
Jessica Hooten Wilson, Doug Sikkema, and Christine Norvell on Rescuing Socrates
One gets the clear sense from Montás that these voices from the past are not just texts with trivial information, but real presences, real friends who have had a significant…
Intellectual Grounding: A Conversation with Wes Jackson
It’s hard to escape from beauty if you’re ready to observe the biotic activity and geologic history of the world. Beauty is essential, and I’m saying that, even with the…
Canadian Story Cycles: A Conversation with author John Van Rys
Van Rys hopes readers are shaped by his tales of domestic comedy to see that love for the long haul, difficult as it is, is not only possible but greatly…
Speaking Freely in Times of Crisis: A Conversation with Paul Kemeny, Ben Faber, and Richard Gamble
Examining, with Paul Kemeny, Richard Gamble, and Ben Faber, fraught moments in history where questions about communication and censorship, politics and propaganda, freedom and government intervention came to a head.…
Poetry and Politics with A.M. Juster
Michael J. Astrue has earned degrees from Yale and Harvard. He had a long and distinguished legal career and held several government positions as well as leadership posts in biotech…
Spiritual Secession: A Conversation with Paul Kingsnorth
" None of your readers need me to tell them that the useful work is practical, particular, small and careful: to get away from screens as much as we can, get…
Will Hoyt‘s Ohio River Journey to the Middle Ages
Host: John Murdock Guest: Will Hoyt Will Hoyt, author of The Seven Ranges, discusses his journey along the Ohio River into the physical, historical and philosophical interior of the strip-mined…
Joseph Loconte on the Imagination of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
Front Porch Republic editor Jeff Bilbro sits down with Joe Loconte of The King’s College for a spirited discussion of the book-turned-film A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War. …
James Rebanks in Conversation: Pastoral Song
James Rebanks and Grace Olmstead discuss his book, Wendell Berry, his vision for future farming methodologies, and the conversations surrounding agricultural reform in both the United States and the United…
Epistemology on the Front Porch: Esther Lightcap Meek
Esther Lightcap Meek on Wendell Berry, Michael Polanyi, and covenant epistemology.
David Cayley on Illich and Institutions
Canadian radio broadcaster David Cayley pulls up a chair to discuss Ivan Illich, a renegade priest and professor who argued against schools, missionaries, and modern medicine. Cayley, author of Ivan…
Ordered for Fruitfulness: An Interview with Michael LeFebvre
In the context of the calendars for holidays, feasts, and Sabbath observance in Leviticus, LeFebvre argues that we need to attend to the creation account in Genesis as a calendar…
Os Guinness on Liberty and Hope
Prolific author and social critic Os Guinness discusses the current challenges for liberty and his hopes for the future. The Chinese-born, English-educated, Irish-rooted scholar who lives in America also shares…
Grace Olmstead on Uprooted, Place, Idaho, and Prairie Lupines
Fidelity to place needn’t (and shouldn’t) result in stuckness, a condemnation of ever moving at all. But we must beware falling into that second trap: rejecting roots altogether.
John de Graaf, Affluenza, and Stewart Udall
Summary Filmmaker John de Graaf pulls up a chair to discuss his 1997 documentary Affluenza; a forthcoming project on Arizona politician and JFK/LBJ’s Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; the…
Prospects for Localism (and a New Podcast)
This recording also serves as the inaugural episode of the Brass Spittoon, a new podcast from the Front Porch Republic. We’ll chew on issues timeless and timely, with a focus…
Lead for America: Encouraging Graduates to Return Home
Jackson, MI. As a college professor and reader of Wendell Berry, I've long been concerned about the dominant narrative of "upward (and lateral) mobility" that draws students to higher education.…
Joel Kotkin on American Neo-Feudalism
There needs to be a concentration of the real: skills training, middle class and upwardly mobile working class jobs. Replace symbolism with real improvements.
Braver Angels and Civil Conversation across Partisan Divides
If you resonate with the conversation below and the aims of Braver Angels, consider signing their new letter: What We Will Do to Hold America Together. Boise, ID. In a…