Culture, High & Low 728

In 1852, the first piano arrived in Stockton, California. Imported from Cincinnati, it was a gift to Mary Kroh from her father, a minister who had traveled west to preach…

Like other readers here at FPR, and across the web, I have been following the Great Salyer/Carter Debate of 2012 with much interest. I thought Mr. Salyer’s original article was…

Washington, Ct. The recent contretemps between the blessedly described “liberal conservatives” at the First Things web site and our own clutch of barking mongrels here at the homespun Porch revealed…

Local man Jim Wheeler has finally had enough of the free website Front Porch Republic, which boasts an annual budget of less than $500. Although Wheeler contributes neither money nor…

One thing that has amused me in these first three years of FPR’s existence is the tendency of some readers to single out one or two articles and lament that…

A response to Joe Carter from flyover country.

Several times lately I’ve opened my email and found notices about people who want to friend me, but I don’t think that means they want to befriend me. Thanks to…

Some friends and I are celebrating the good news that one of our company was expecting another child. None of us are the Duggars, and the offspring of the three…

I’ve just finished Andrea Wulf’s beguiling book entitled “ Founding Gardeners, The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation”. Published this year by Knopf, it delves into…

Give me smartassery. Give me a yawning match.

I am angry with my friend; he has betrayed a secret of mine perhaps, or maybe instead he has formed an intimacy with persons he knows to be my enemies. …

The Euro is in trouble, and the news just keeps getting worse. There is now open talk of a post-Euro Europe, and such a turn would be a serious strike…

Burned-Over District, NY---I’m reading Charles J. Shields’s absorbing new biography of Kurt Vonnegut, And So It Goes, and while its morose subject deservedly never won Father or Husband of the…

One pernicious aspect of our age is its commitment to techne, the quasi-religious belief that all manner of things shall be made well with the right tool, expertise, specialist, or…

The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was a civil rights legend and American hero. Born deep in the Jim Crow south during the 1920s, he grew from the humble, but durable roots…

If we expect others to rely on our fairness and justice we must show that we rely on their fairness and justice. —Calvin Coolidge My wife and I recently vacationed…

The Spring 2011 issue of The City includes an insightful piece by Wilfred McClay on “The Illusion of Mastery” in public policy. When the “will of God” no longer suffices…

Late last week, The New Inquiry published an email exchange between Daniel Larison of The American Conservative and political theorist Corey Robin. Larison had taken issue with Robin's argument that…

Devon, PA.  Last week, Villanova University's Office of Mission and Ministry invited several faculty members to speak about the contributions of their religious faith traditions to the life and mission…

I want to see films for all ages, devoid of hip countercultural irony. I want to see low-budget teleplays in which today’s equivalent of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland put…

Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.

In 2010, for the first time in our nation’s history, men constituted a minority of the nation’s workforce. Colleges typically boast a 60-40 female-male ratio. Women make up an ever-larger…

Like so many others, I spent too much time hoodwinked by the story of liberation, emancipation, and autonomy. What it meant to be free, I supposed, was to be free…

If you are planning to run for president, here’s a word of advice: you must assert regularly and with great conviction your belief in American Exceptionalism. This seems especially true…