Articles 356
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…
Happy St. Isidore’s Day
In “The Gift of Good Land,” Wendell Berry notes, with a tinge of regret, the largely heroic nature of the stories recorded in the Bible. “It may, in some ways,…
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…
Derby Time
Louisville, Kentucky. It's Derby time here. If you have business to do with someone in Louisville this week, don't expect a quick reply. I have always run hot and cold…
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…
Regarding Porn
As Mary Eberstadt has recently pointed out over at First Things, evidence is accumulating that the current day usage of pornography is taking a toll on marriages and families. And,…
What’s a Localist to Do?
Hidden Springs Lane. It’s not easy being a localist. Vladimir Putin has taken Crimea and many in the West are afraid that he has designs on the rest of Ukraine…
G.K. Chesterton in 1000 Words
I once knew a woman who met Chesterton. It was a brief meeting in the 1920s when she was a girl of about ten or so. Her older sister invited…
Of Bees and Moonshine
Hidden Springs Lane. In the spring of 2012, I started keeping bees. The first thing to notice is that people do not raise bees or herd bees. In fact, one…
The Crafting of the Fourteenth Amendment
Several years ago, after driving past the impressively proportioned Harrison County Courthouse in my hometown of Cadiz for the hundredth time, I thought I ought to stop and look and…
Rock n’ Roll, Inc: The Power Source Behind America’s Founding and its Operational Strength
It is often said that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1839 essay, “Self Reliance”, is the real American Declaration of Independence, and to a certain extent this is true. Emerson was a…
Mumford and Suns
“For a child”, I remember our priest saying a few years ago, ”the sun rises over the barn and sets on the further side of the field”. In the next,…
A Militarism We Call Patriotism
With the U.S. military experience in Iraq finally concluded, in January of 2012, President Barack Obama bookended his State of the Union address with an appeal for the nation to…
Imagining Healthy Work: Why We all Have to Become Monks
This essay was originally presented at Spring Arbor University’s annual Focus series. I am speaking today not as a literature specialist, nor as a professional economist, nor as a business…
