Articles 355
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…
Allan Carlson in St. Louis on 10/15
For those of you in the vicinity of T. S. Eliot’s home town, FPR editor-at-large Allan Carlson will be speaking at Washington University in St. Louis on Thursday, October 15.…
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…
Catholics Discover Distributism
Over at "Inside Catholic," one of their stable of writers, Eric Pavlet, expresses excitement in discovering thoughts on economics that eschew the contemporary statism vs. free market debate. FPR even…
Ghostly Echoes: A Eulogy
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. October is here, the chill wind blows, leaves are on the ground, so it must be time to talk about ghosts. This essay first appeared in the…
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…
Prospect of Gold
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY---Via the Batavia Daily News, Tom Gahr's lovely essay on walking in Batavia: http://thedailynewsonline.com/articles/2009/10/03/opinion/letters/5993934.txt
Notes from the Canal Zone
Claremont, CA. On the flight home, I read an issue of Delta Sky Magazine that listed the Panama Canal as one of “70 Wonders of the World.” The canal was…
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…
Localizing Health Care
Having found fault with Dr. Iliff's admirable efforts, it is incumbent on me to show whether distributism has any real answers or practical plans. There can be no question that…
Ten Key Questions Framing the Health Care Debate
“The burqa is not welcome in French territory,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a June 22nd speech at Versailles. He was referring to the head-to-toe garment worn by some…
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…
The Other Side of China, and What It Might Say When It Speaks
As the heat of late summer subsides here in Nanjing and our university settles into the new semester, many look forward to the annual “Golden Week” holiday in early October. …
At Least Small Communities Are Human
That's the point made darn well by Stefan McDaniel as part of his response to globalization defenders (the link will take you back to the whole debate). A while back,…
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…
This Age of Christian Martyrs
Devon, PA. Everyone knows the "secularization hypothesis" of the West; the only difference between one person and another is whether one also knows that it is garbage. According to secularization…
Two Degrees of Separation
Henry County, Kentucky. Last week here we buried our 97-year-old neighbor, a woman named Thelma Chilton Moody Clark. Until this spring she had never been sick, “and I don't know…
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…
Pan-American Political Science Association?
Russell Arben Fox has treated us to his reflections of the recently concluded APSA annual meeting here. It would be surprising if there were anything as thematic as what he…
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…
