Culture, High & Low 728
Although it’s been said many times, many ways…
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY---Merry Christmas to all friends (and enemies, too) of Front Porch Republic! Don't you worry 'bout that quaffer-scoffer in the Quad Cities. Come December 24 he'll be reading…
The New Prohibitionists
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. Something is not right on The Porch. But on my porch, things are just dandy, so smoke 'em if you got 'em boys! Puff puff puff and…
It’s a Wonderful Subdivision
Tonight the classic Capra film "It's a Wonderful Life" is airing on network television, as good an occasion as any to re-publish here my reflections on the film. My…
Kill Your Kindle
Claremont, CA. When my mother came to visit last week, she brought a copy of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union with her. Before she departed for the airport this morning, she…
Crass Christmas
The celebration of Jesus Christ's birth gives us an opportunity not only to act upon the principles of peace, sharing, and selflessness, but also to pass them onto our children…
Burn the Vineyard
I have just returned from one of the most remarkable journeys of my life, a ten day tour of Romania to promote an anthology of distributist and localist essays, Economic…
Homewreckers
County Kildare, Ireland. A couple I know – we’ll call them Bob and Nancy -- lived in a century-old house in the middle of their town, a few miles from…
Words, Meaning, and Power
Kearneysville, WV. The publication of Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue, provides an opportunity to discuss contemporary political rhetoric, especially the use of certain words that have the effect of shutting…
Imitation and the Art of Flattery: the Cold War of the Imagination
Washington, Connecticut. At the end of his introduction to a re-publication of the Marquis de Custine’s "Empire of the Czar, A Journey Through Eternal Russia," George F. Kennan recalls a…
The Grinch Who Moved Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving---or pre-Christmas, as it is known in marketing circles---is upon us, and between reading Truman Capote ("A Thanksgiving Visitor") and Lydia Maria Child ("Thanksgiving Day") and tossing around the football…
Education as Moral Formation: A Localist Proposal
Holland, MI. I heard many fine presentations at Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Ethics and Culture from November 12-14, and one in particular that piqued my interest was…
What’s Not the Matter With Kansas
Tonight I happened to attend a pair of extremely interesting, and strikingly juxtaposed, events. The first was a Bradley Lecture at AEI delivered by Peter Berkowitz entited "The New Progressivism."…
Same-Sex Marriage, Abortion, and the Limits of Localism
Kearneysville, WV. Last week I published a piece suggesting ten positions that might serve to constitute a platform for those who are disillusioned by both major political parties and who…
The Romance of Conservatism
Moorpark, CA. This is the main body of a lecture I delivered at the ISI Spring Leadership Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana, April 14, 2007. This conference focused on the work of Russell…
Social Injustice
{This column appears in today's Hoya, Georgetown's student newspaper. My column is published fortnightly.} If there is one thing about which we are certain that we are pursuing at Georgetown,…
The Stories We Tell…
Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family, place, and story. In a contemplative…
You’re Probably Looking For Porn
Claremont, CA. If you don’t want to read the new report from Harvard Business School, titled “Understanding Users of Social Networks,” you can just listen to the song from Avenue…
Progressive Liberalism Or: How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Big Government
American Liberalism: An Interpretation for Our Time by John McGowan. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Moorpark, CA. If the current administration is liberal, it matters what kind…
Obama v. Fox News
Kearneysville, WV. It’s official. The Obama White House has declared that Fox News presents a slanted view of the news, one congenial to the Republicans and antagonistic to the administration.…
The Final Word On Cell Phones
Rock Island, IL In the early days of FPR, and then again more recently, I was impertinent enough to write disparaging remarks about cell phones, which as everyone knows are…
Swine Flu’s Real Exposure
Claremont, CA. The most haunting, awful scenes in Thucydides’s history of the Pelopponesian war are those describing the Athenian plague. The plague emerged in the second year of the war,…
My Hair, My Self?
Cincinnati, OH. Standing before the dripping bathroom mirror while the shower haze slowly melts, I’m startled once again that my beard’s gone missing. It lasted seven years – longer than any…
Sharing the Kids Equally
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS So, Melissa has flown the coop, escaping to Washington D.C. for the next four days to hang out with friends old and new,…
Academic Porn
The latest from the University of Maryland is a brohaha over the effort by a state legislator to discourage (through the threat of withholding funding) the showing of pornographic films…