Culture, High & Low 728
Iowa… Place of the Drowsy Ones
OWEN TOWNSHIP, WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS: According to one legend, the word Iowa means "Place of the Drowsy Ones" in some extinct Indian tongue. This came to mind yesterday when the…
No Going Back…So Where Are We Going?
The idealism of the paleoconservative cause is simply too burdened by the idealism of its vision. Politics is not a time machine and we are not ever going to travel…
Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without
Wichita, Kansas. I have a blogging (and occasional real world, actual face-to-face) friend by the name of Laura McKenna. She is funny, smart, occasionally profane, often wise, and very much…
I Did Taste!
Under consideration: Michael Pollan, The Omnivor's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Penguin (2006), 464 pages; and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Penguin (2008), 256 pages.* JEFFERSON…
The Places of Teen Pop Culture
It's not only that the richest people are getting richer; it's the richest places, too. And even within regions -- southern California, say -- rich suburbs have become wealthier and…
One Lawyer, No Money, Plenty of Guns
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY--Now that Russell has smuggled firearms onto the porch I suppose it's only a matter of time before the BATF calls it a "compound." Until then, herewith, via…
Baseball Symposium
John Miller asked me to write on why I love the Diamondbacks. Twenty-nine others pitch in on the rest of the league, if you're interested, including my friends Darryl Hart…
Tocqueville’s Diagnosis
RINGOES, NJ As brilliant minds, armed with apparently endless supplies of money, thrash about Washington desperately attempting to fix what they have broken, it might be useful to step back…
Oiko-Systems
Alexandria, VA. For many years now, "environmentalists" have sought to thwart the extension of forms of commerce and economic development that prove destructive of "eco-systems" or threaten the delicate balance…
Against Monoculture
In plant or animal life, a single virus or bacteria, a single destructive fungus or disease, a single hostile predator or pest would wipe out an entire monoculture without the…
You Say Liturgy, I Say Lechery
I hurried up to Columbia University to inform my friends on the campus that I had located the Communist Party, had made contact with it, and was, in fact, a registered…
The Rediscovery of Agriculture?
RINGOES, NJ. Recently, a friend and I visited Polyface Farm outside Staunton, Virginia. Polyface is owned and operated by Joel Salatin, whose parents started farming these verdant five-hundred acres in…
Ken Myers on Our Culture of One
Ken Myers, editor of the brilliant Mars Hill Audio Journal (on whose board I serve, I should add), essentially offers something of an implicit critique of phenomena like FPR, not…
Men, Boys, and Guns
This past weekend, I was pulled away from the computer, from a sprinkler system that needs to be fixed, from a garden wall that needs to be built, from…
Regionalism in the NY Times
While the pickings are generally slim, the NYTimes can sometimes reveal a glimmer of localism, at least in the only section worth reading, the "City" section on Sundays. A few…
Beer and Civic Life
Claremont, CA. The news is dreadful: According to the Census, since 2006 we have been living in a republic where, for the first time in the history of the republic,…
A Partially Localist Defense of Public Schooling
Wichita, KS President Obama's speech last week on the various hopes and goals his administration has in mind as they address the issue of public education in America gave rise…
The (“Post-“) Modern Cave: An Allegory of the University
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Imagine human beings brought up from childhood in a cave, bound fast with their heads all facing one direction. On the wall before them they see only…
Reach Out and Text Someone
ROCK ISLAND Now that all public space is the exclusive property of cell-phone users and the deaf people they talk to, a jeremiad is in order, though I'm going to try…
The Long Run
Alexandria, VA It has become a commonplace to observe that the thought of John Maynard Keynes is back in fashion. Keynes argued strenuously on behalf of government spending - including…
It was 20 Years Ago Today…Edward Abbey Lives!
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY--Edward Abbey died twenty years ago today. A product of the perfectly named Home, Pennsylvania, son of the conjugation of a Woman’s Christian Temperance Unionist and a Wobbly…
Political Friendship in a Facebook World
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. Everyone here seems to pretty much agree that we are in a pickle. The symptoms are there for anyone to see. The root causes are perhaps more…
Douthat to the Times
Phoenix, Arizona. Catapulted by his inclusion on the exclusive FPR blogroll, Ross Douthat has been tabbed as a new opinion columnist for the New York Times. This is good news.…