Articles 356
The Rationality of the Doctrine of Creation
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. This is not an argument for intelligent design. It is, however, an argument that creation is the only scientifically acceptable explanation for the existence of the universe.…
An Elegy for South Bend
Devon, PA. Some years ago, early in my graduate student days in South Bend, I was invited to begin an opinion column in the campus newspaper, The Observer. The…
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.…
Write Home
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY. Via the University Bookman, herewith my introduction to its recent special issue on Regionalism, which featured contributions from Frank Bryan, Kate Dalton, Jeff Cain, Jeremy Beer, Jesse…
Growth or Virtue?
RINGOES, NJ. The numbers keep rolling in. The Dow is below 7000. Unemployment is above 8%. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the economy contracted at a rate of 3.8%.…
Octo-Us
Claremont, CA. Here in southern California, local woman Nadya Suleman has been holding her own on the front pages, alongside arguably more pressing stories about the flailing economy. It's easy…
Death of a Farmer
He traveled the three miles to the mill 63 times during the 87th harvest of his life, his old International pulling the wagon my uncle filled with beans or corn.…
Food and Freedom
RINGOES, NJ. Isn’t it interesting how quickly speculation becomes conventional wisdom? Back in the fall, when we began to hear rumblings of economic catastrophe, things were a bit vague. Most…
What the Fork; Or, Why You Should Not Eat the Person Sitting Next to You
Alexandria, VA . The causes of the current economic collapse have been widely discussed and minutely explored. However, to date I do not believe that I have yet seen…
No Wealth But Life
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. William Allen White, the noted editorialist of Emporia, once named our shared home country America’s tenth muse—the muse of prophecy. If Kansas is muse, surely one of…
The Human Meaning of Property
MT. AIRY, PHILADELPHIA. Before I say something rather abstract about concrete things, a few personal words about what (and who) lies behind these thoughts may be in order. The photo…
A Note on Immigration
South Bend, IN. Back here, in the city where the St. Joseph River takes her perpetual turn for the worse, my family and I have come to pay our last…
Patrimony And Autonomy
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. I appreciated Professor Deneen's discussion of the problem of free-riding, and I agree that ours is a precarious position, but I would suggest that it is also paradoxically…
“For all the Small Schools”: Or, It’s Hoosiers Time
'Tis the season to hie on down to the high school gym. Via First Principles, herewith my piece on Hoosiers, one of the precious few good films ever made about…
Back to the Land Economy
Well, we are all localists here, watching our national economy stagger and moan. Is there any room for a conversation about local economies? What would a local economy mean? One of…
Free Riding
Alexandria, VA A few nights ago in Washington D.C., Wendell Berry was among the speakers at what turned out to be a pep rally for opponents of global warming. They…
David Brooks Does (In) Edmund Burke
SOUTH BEND, IN. Edmund Burke's reputation has suffered much among conservatives during the past few years. Russell Kirk, of course, held him up as an exemplary genius of the conservative…
Prosperity, Myth and Liberty
E.D. Kain identifies a paradox in modern American conservatism that will be familiar to students of George Grant. Forty years ago, Grant wrote this in his essay, "In Defence of…
Homes, New and Old
CLAREMONT, CA. We have become homeowners. This week, my husband and I are moving boxes from our latest rental into a house that we may finally call home. It’s a…
Churches with Porches
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. In the comments somewhere below, Prof. Fox mentions the regional artist John Steuart Curry. A fitting topic for my first foray into this space, not only because…
Time-Travel Economics with Jonathan Swift
Rock Island, Illlinois. It’s a little-known fact that many of our finest writers owned time machines and paid frequent visits to the future. Furious John Ruskin (1819-1900), for example, that…
Agrarians Rejoice!
We do live in a remarkable age. The last time agrarianism and distributism were taken seriously in America was during the 1930s. The economic crisis of that decade forced people to…
Made in Vermont
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY. It’s town meeting day in the once and future republic of Vermont. Herewith, from the American Conservative, my profile of Frank Bryan, the University of Vermont professor…
Communication
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Via Derbyshire, this Terry Teachout column makes an important observation that relates back to Derbyshire's criticism of the influence of talk radio and my post on community: The information…