Culture, High & Low 729
Rollin Coal and the Empire of Desire
Thanks to a good friend, I’m now up to speed on the phenomenon of “Rollin Coal,” which one commentator describes as “a new trend in which anti-environmentalist idiots with nothing…
Place and the Role of Planning
[This post is adapted with permission from “The Space Was Ours Before We Were the Place’s,” an essay in the anthology Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in…
Civic Engagement and the “Native Country”
[This post is adapted with permission from “Making American Places: Civic Engagement Rightly Understood,” an essay in the anthology Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in Modern America,…
Architecture and Urbanism: Traditional vs. Modern
[This post is adapted with permission from “Metaphysical Realism, Modernity, and Traditional Cultures of Building,” an essay in the anthology Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in Modern…
An Alternative to Cosmopolitanism
[This post is adapted with permission from “Making Places: The Cosmopolitan Temptation,” an essay in the anthology Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in Modern America, edited by…
Patriot Games
Holland, MI [Note: This is the shirt my son wore to the big screen simulcast on the lawn of the Ford Presidential Museum for the US v Belgium soccer game.…
Walker Percy and the Recovery of Place
[This post is adapted with permission from “GPS and the End of the Road,” an essay in the anthology Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in Modern America,…
Fences, Vines, Bees, and Huge Chickens
Hidden Springs Lane. We’re building fence this summer. I purchased 150 eight foot posts and we’ve been slowly planting them. We’re putting a paddock in the front and a larger…
Vulgar Adolescent Bigness Fetishizers
I reflected what a Mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this Nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us." --Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift Boy…
Love: Needs, Risks, Opportunities
Love – it draws out the timeworn clichés and greeting card verse in us, yet it is serious and necessary and hard. Without it, there would be no popular culture;…
Roots Along the River
Historically, the locals have called Pompaples, Switzerland the “milieu du monde.” Not to be confused as a claim about its importance as a cultural or political influence, the title refers…
Soylent: It’s What’s for Dinner (and Lunch and Breakfast)
Hidden Springs Lane. What if you never had to worry about food again? Possible answers: 1) Wow! Think of all the time I can save, all the hassle of shopping,…
Thoughts on a Graduation Weekend
“We have a world bursting with new ideas, new plans, and new hopes. The world was never so young as it is today, so impatient of old and crusty things.” …
Mapping A Melancholy Soul: A Review of Leil Leibovitz’s A Broken Hallelujah: Rock ‘n’ Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen occupies an unusual position in popular music history. He is routinely neglected by those “Best of the 60's” nostalgia-fests you see on VH1, CNN, or PBS, yet when…
Natural Law and Love
The following is an excerpt from R.J. Snell's new book The Perspective of Love: Natural Law in a New Mode. Preface: According to the rightly celebrated theorist J. Budziszewski, natural…
Piketty’s Challenge: A Past That Consumes the Future
But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low…
A Tale of Two Bodies
With pollen blanketing my car, I stopped by a “local” pharmacy on the way to work this morning. It’s an impressive new building, with a substantial parking lot, gleaming façade,…
(Civic) Myths over (Religious) Markets: Defending the National Day of Prayer
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I don't often disagree with my old friend Michael Austin, partly because he's much smarter and much better read than I, and partly because he's…
Death and Life in the Country
Hidden Springs Lane. There is something especially sad about opening up a hive full of dead bees. Several weeks ago I wrote about my hives and my hope that they…
Something Better than a Giant
This Christmas my daughter bought for me a CD of Welsh hymns, folk songs, and patriotic anthems, sung by the burly baritone Bryn Terfel. He's a tremendous performer, apparently renowned…
How Equality Makes Us Better (and Stupid)
Hidden Springs Lane. The concept of equality lies at the heart of the American system. School children learn by heart (or used to) those memorable lines from the Declaration of…
Dollarocracy: Money-Power, Media-Framed Elections and Inequality
When searching for semi-precious stones, one must at times loosen jewels from the mineral deposits in which they’re locked. This consideration applies to books as well as nature’s treasures. One…
Hemp, Hemp, Hooray!
From the perspective of a patriotic American who’s just researched hemp’s potential from Canada to Hawaii, Germany to Colorado, things are moving from fantasy to reality so quickly that it’s…
Equality and the Culture of Perpetual Offense
Hidden Springs Lane. Rod Dreher has recently been pointing out (for example here) the various ways that those who voice public opposition to certain positions (especially gay marriage) are routinely…