Culture, High & Low 728
Frank Rich Slams Harvard
Frank Rich goes after the "go-go" ethos that has been deeply etched in our elite institutions and advanced by the cultural elite - regardless of Party - over the past…
The Bar Jester Chronicles 7: Morning Cyanide
Rock Island, IL “Morning Cyanide” is a fun game for the whole family. The best thing about it is this: not everyone has to be awake at the same time…
Conservatism as Literary Movement
Devon, PA. Last month, I alerted FPR readers to the appearance of the first part of my essay, "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic," in First Principles. The primary…
The Old College Try
Claremont, CA. The New York Times has joined a host of other publications asking the question: Is college worth it? And again, just like every time I read an article…
Defending Lasch, Left and/or Right
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS. No one, I think, has ever summed up the longing for a life with front porches--the localist longing which is this blog's raison…
Making Progress?
Writing on the occasion of Ronald Reagan's death, the NY Times columnist David Brooks articulated the roots of Reagan's success in as accurate and succinct a way as I've seen.…
Eric Miller on The Lost Cause of the Midwest
Devon, PA. If you have not encountered Eric Miller's savage indignation elsewhere, here is a fine place to start: his review of David S. Brown's Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern…
Happy Uniform Holiday Number 3!
“When a nation’s Holy-days are treated with indifference and neglect, it should be considered a sign of national degeneracy and decay.” --Walt Whitman Burned-Over District, NY. When tradition faces off…
Liberal Education, Stewardship, and the Cosmopolitan Temptation
Kearneysville, WV. When speaking of the proper care for the natural world, the word that best describes our efforts is stewardship. Stewards are care-takers. They lovingly guide, protect, and cultivate…
Waiting for the Americans…
In the late 1970s, my grandfather’s older brother, already in his nineties, was pressing his almost deaf ears to a little portable radio still hoping to hear that “the Americans…
Last Call at Descartes’ Bar and Grill
Washington, Connecticut. The urge, some might say mania with which our species has attempted to distance itself from Nature is a defining occupation and it appears to be quickening in…
Table Games and the Politics of Corruption
Jefferson County, WV. In December my county will hold a referendum to decide whether or not table games will be permitted at the local race track/slot machine palace. Only two…
Who Was Richard Blaine? Myth, History, and the Great American Conversation
Moorpark, CA. The first time is not always the best, but it is often the most revealing. The first time I saw Casablanca I brought a borrowed memory of seeing…
A Lost Job and a New Life
Kearneysville, WV. At 10:00pm on New Year’s Eve 2008, just as his shift was ending, Patrick McCarron was asked to turn in his badge and keys and to clean out…
Electrifying
This article caught my attention yesterday - our hunger for electricity to power our "personal electronics" has grown so insatiable that very soon the United States will need to build…
Go to the Ant
Jon Stewart's take down of ACORN is quite funny, but as a friend of mine said this morning, the real story is that anyone is shocked or suprised by this…
The Rebirth of Conservatism
Kearneysville, WV. Barack Obama was swept into office as a firm and unmistakable repudiation of George W. Bush. After enduring the longest war in our nation’s history, after cringing at…
The American Aesop
Hillsdale, MI. It is said that Aesop, despite making all his characters animals and thus avoiding being Nathan to his contemporary Davids, was finally thrown over a cliff by the…
The Recovery of American Beauty
Holland, MI The present age remains haunted by the specter of “atheism,” with significant consequences for our understanding of politics. I think we can distinguish between at least three different…
Anti-Culture, America, and the Other
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece on Philip Rieff for the American Conservative. One of the themes of Rieff’s work on which I focused was his concept…
Risk Pool
It has been a year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the subsequent near-collapse of the international economic system followed quickly by the massive increase of (at least visible)…
First They Came for the Horses
Jefferson County, Kansas. The following is a short excerpt from a longer essay in the forthcoming book The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, co-edited by our own Mark Mitchell. Mark…
Thoughts on the Return of College Football
Holland, MI. The beginning of the college football season is the closest thing to a state holiday in Michigan. The release of the new auto line might have at one time…
What’s in a Name?
A new semester begins at Georgetown and around the country, a delicious time of early Fall anticipation of possibility and the unexpected - at least until the second week of…