Articles 356
Riverboat Pilots and Economists
In “Life on the Mississippi,” Mark Twain recounts his earnest desire to become a Mississippi steamboat pilot, and his struggles to master the pilot’s craft—a craft that demanded technical knowledge…
The Ailing Parson Malthus Project and the “New Sin of Pride”
Anyone who's had the good fortune to spend time reading Christopher Lasch might be able to identify with the specific experience of risable joy I feel when putting myself in…
Rituals of Embodiedness
[or “Talking with Our Stuff,” or “Salvation by Coffee”] This spring I had to buy a new coffee mill. Facing the loss of both my electric coffee grinder and my…
Something’s Fishy–But Not Very–At Dinnertime
Ingham County, MI As darkness falls upon what a friend of mine charitably calls “Jack-Ass Acres,” and as the promise of rain comes with the moving clouds at the end…
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…
Trust, Community Ties, and Letting Your Children Play
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The story has exploded all over the internet : Debra Harrell, a Georgia woman, dropped her 9-year-old child off at a park–not an isolated and…
The Dumb Ass Suffers a Cardio-Semantic Arrest
It’s the Big One. Tell the kids I love them. Wait at least a week to remarry.
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,…
Accreditation to the Rescue (for real?)
Hillsdale, Michigan. I am a little late to the surge of 1s and 0s in response to Peter Conn's less than tepid essay about faith and higher education. The gist…
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…
Who Knew Independence Could Be This Easy?
Hillsdale, Michigan: While Americans are gearing up for fireworks, automobile sales, and burnt hot dogs, the Scots are debating whether to declare their independence from the United Kingdom. It…
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…
Common Good Politics: A Review of Nader’s Book
In his new book, Ralph Nader argues that the Left and the Right should unite against the economic and political establishment in the Center.
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…
How Marx Explains the Pomo-Con/Front-Porch Divide, In Four Easy Steps
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Via Rod Dreher, I see that the occasionally interesting blog Postmodern Conservative has departed its longtime home at the (often, if not always) theoconservative journal…
Whisky Tales
In a full bottle of whisky are all the aspirations of mankind, and in an empty one are all the failures of man. Mike Drury As we emerge into adulthood,…
Public Schools, Local Schools, Family Schools
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Yesterday was the final day of the school year at Peterson Elementary School, the public school which three of our four daughters have attended. It…