Articles 356
How To Talk About Race
Hillsdale, Michigan. After the George Zimmerman verdict, President Obama talked about the need for a conversation on race in the United States. He also made the sensible observation that such…
Holy Days, Holidays and the Weekend, or: Are we all Proletarians Now?
Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Franz Stephan of Habsburg-Lothringen, is on the way to her desk. She is about to enact another of…
Veritatis Splendor at 20—Lessons for Localists
Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II’s encyclical letter, The Splendor of Truth, is now twenty years old. Promulgated August 6, 1993, the letter addressed fundamental issues in moral theology, responding particularly…
Pippin the Porcher: Front Porch Themes Take Center Stage on Broadway
“They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.” And indeed, what they say is true. Outside of Nevada, there is no flashier street running through these United States than…
Everywhere at Once, Nowhere at All
“Right now, the main thing I’m taking from this conference is that PowerPoint is destroying the educational process.” The conference, organized around the theme of “Technology and Human Flourishing,” was…
Chicken Palace and Too Many Roosters
Hidden Springs Lane. This spring we got chickens. In preparation for the arrival of the chicks, a coop needed to be built. Being the frugal sort (some mistake that virtue…
The Fate of the Rural Church?
Kilsyth, Ontario Darryl Hart wrote some time ago about the unwillingness of mainline Protestants to serve in rural churches. Employing Wendell Berry, Hart wrote: In his essay, “God and Country,”…
Pondering St. Francisville, Gilead, and our Stories of Place
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Jeremy Beer's recent review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming leads me to once again reflect upon Rod Dreher's excellent book (about which I've…
Economic Smackdown!: ‘Porchers’ vs. ‘Austrians’
Earlier this month, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute held a summer program for college students in Louisville, Kentucky. Titled "Arguing Conservatism," the event featured faculty lectures followed by student debates on issues…
Life Under Compulsion: Contemplation
I am looking at another painting by Norman Rockwell, a part of his Four Seasons Calendar: Grandpa and Me in Summer. I know that I am not supposed to enjoy…
A Human Scale Future
Hidden Springs Lane. The notion of scale should be an integral part of the conversation when we consider matters of economic and political import. Unfortunately, this is generally not the…
What Health Insurance Does to Prices
Last summer, my youngest son was on a church trip on the other side of the country, when he hurt his hand. A deep gash on his middle finger required…
Independence Day Discord
As some prepare to don the stars and stripes in all tasteless manners of irony, and speak sarcastically and casually about concepts such as freedom; and as others, who opt…
Radical Traditionalists: The Fall of Triumph Magazine
This article first appeared in Ethika Politika, the journal of the Center for Morality in Public Life. In May of 1970, back from the Vietnam War and newly released from the…
Is There Such a Thing as Private Food?
The following is an excerpt from David E. Gumpert’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights (Chelsea Green, 2013) and is reprinted with permission of the publisher. Learn more about…
Life Under Compulsion: Saying Grace
The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom. 8:21) I am looking at Saying Grace, an…
The War Comes Home
This Friday, June 28, Copperhead, which Ron Maxwell directed from my adaptation of a Harold Frederic novella, opens in about 70 cities. A second wave of openings washes across the…
Do Protestants Belong?
Hillsdale, Mich. Ever since I have lived, moved, and had my being in conservative circles, I have encountered an unspoken ambivalence about Protestantism. (Truth in advertising: I am a Reformed…
Seemliness and Scale
The terms ‘seemly’ (conforming to accepted notions of propriety or good taste) and ‘unseemly’ (not proper or appropriate) describe behaviors which are not, strictly speaking, moral or immoral, legal or illegal,…
American Agrarian (On Sale Now)
How gratifying to learn of the cultural ascendancy of the Porchers! We’ve made it, we’ve convinced Americans of the abiding values of place, limits, and liberty. As evidence, I direct…
On a Sculpture by Herbert Adams
For Adams and his peers the trade of art must have itself seemed an imported thing: threatening, rarified, and set apart like thorned peaks of the Swiss Alps rupturing above…
When Richard Met Barber
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY---“Richard Fenno’s oeuvre is the most important contribution to congressional scholarship during recent generations,” says Yale political scientist David R. Mayhew. Contemporary political science is dominated by quantitative…
It’s a Complicated Life
It’s A Wonderful Life was on my mind again recently, this time while watching Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film, The Bicycle Thief. The leading men in the two films look…
John Taylor of Caroline and Energy Policy
When Odysseus visited Hades, he spoke with many of the greatest fallen Greeks: Achilles, Agamemnon, the prophet Tiresias. He sees many others, and considers seeking out Pirithous and Theseus. “But…