Articles 355

Christmas celebrates the birth of the Prince of Peace. With all of the clerical cheering on behalf of recent wars, the intertwining of cross and flag, and the blessings bestowed…

  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…

The Manhattan Declaration is almost a month old and it still a statement I regard with great ambivalence. My discomfort owes partly to the name. As a native of Southeastern…

Hillsdale, MI. When I first thought about writing this it was the “Ten Dollar Tomato.”  But historians are more or less required to tell the truth, and it now costs…

Since Caleb wants to argue about it, I will comply. This is a post that I wrote back in November; nice to see it get some attention now... Jacob Weisberg…

Some thinkers on the Left have sniffed the smelling salts and are emerging from their love-fest to notice that the New Boss is increasingly indistinguishable from the Old Boss. As…

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…

Erie, PA. Presidential speeches are evaluated in two basic areas, style/delivery and substance. President Obama’s Afghanistan speech was well delivered. The president appeared serious, determined, candid, and was articulate. Coming…

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…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS The debate over health care reform in the Senate has moved into overdrive, with one possible compromise following another in rapid succession. The…

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…

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…

Devon, PA.  In February 2007, as the Iraq war crept to the end of its fourth year, I published this short essay, proposing a few notions on foreign policy that…

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…

In today's Wall Street Journal I review Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566772944605580.html. Among her subjects is the New England painter Marsden Hartley,…

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…

Hillsdale, MI. This is a true story.  It happened once upon a time in a place I do not now live. After an arduous campaign I was elected to the…

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…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I suppose Front Porch Republic is experiencing growing pains, because all the talk lately is about "what's next?"--what cause, what platform, what principles or agenda…

"What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the…

Otto von Bismark, the 19th century Iron Chancellor and architect of modern Germany, once remarked that “If you like law and sausages, you shouldn't watch either being made.” One could…

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…

As reported in today's New York Times, New Orleans plaintiffs in a civil suit against the U.S. Government are elated at a ruling that has held the Government liable for…

C.S. Lewis noted that “If you had asked Lazamon or Chaucer ‘Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?’ I think they might have replied (in…