Culture, High & Low

Magpie Education for Small-Mouth Bass

We’re like small-mouth bass, and we’ve swallowed the technological treble hook.

Why We Need Jane Austen or How to be a Gentleman...

Austen provides something for which young people—even the jaded ones—secretly long.

Baseball: Official Sport of the Front Porch Republic?

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball” –Jacques Barzun Grove City, PA. Opening Day, 2011 Dutifully following the links...

A Tip of the Hat to Courtesy

Grand Rapids, MI. Strange things happen in the checkout lane. The elderly man at the head of the line was pausing to look at...

Wendell Berry and the New Urbanism: Agrarian Remedies, Urban Prospects

The problem is a result of the underlying specialization—not of people but of places—for what could be more specialized than designing a town according to discrete zones designated by use?

On Competitiveness

“Competitiveness” is the new “proactive” – the word, to paraphrase The Simpsons, that dumb people are using to sound important. Or, more precisely, it’s the word that ostensibly smart people are using to try to cover up really dumb thinking.

Whom You Have Sex With is My Business

BYU’s suspension of forward Brandon Davies for having sex with his girlfriend has divided the sports blogosphere between those who applaud the University for...

Are You Free?

What would Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson say if they were transported to our day?

Stoic Sex in Evanston

Tucson, AZ. One of the pleasing genres of contemporary journalism is the coverage of bizarre happenings in academe that shock the sensibility of the...

Eating for Another Fifty (Centuries)

Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson would like you to think of the Farm Bill as an Eating Bill.