Articles 356
Liberal Culture?
The word “culture” readily falls from our lips, but what appears on first glance to be a clear-cut notion becomes much more complex as soon as we attempt to define…
America, One Minor League Ballpark at a Time
Being a report on a journey whereupon I dragged my wife to see seven minor league baseball games in seven days, as well as the National Baseball Hall of Fame,…
Big Society: Can the Britons “Build That”?
The place is Great Britain; the year is 2011. Years of economic downturn have brought the unsustainability of government-funded social services to a crisis point. Prime Minister David Cameron re-launches…
A View from the Studebaker Servants’ Quarters
I’ve breathed its dust in, taken careful note how plastic urns break in the snow; how I can merely mock at stone’s sad history; pronounce its fate, perhaps, but just…
Scotch on the Bruce
Owen Sound, ONT The Bruce Peninsula extends like a claw off Southern Ontario’s main land mass into the Great Lakes basin. Forming a long arc with Manitoulin Island, the Bruce…
Culture War No More
In recent decades we have heard much of the so-called “culture wars.” For many, the idiom of war has come to dominate their thinking in all things cultural and this,…
The View From Your Front Porch
Bethune, S.C. -- I am told there used to be a small dairy farm of less than 50 cows just a quarter-mile down the road from where we stay. If…
Sheep in the Parlor
These are good days for those residing in old homes with wide front porches and easy access to quaint Main Street shopping. After all, trends in urban design seem to…
Romney Photo
I received my official photo of Mitt Romney in the mail today. It came from the Republican National Committee. It shows Governor Romney standing before an unpainted barn, an American…
Tories are Persons, and Persons are Tories (but so too is Labour)
All too many weeks ago, I promised a series of posts on foundations for a new religious right . . . and then I promptly, and happily, disappeared into the…
Caped Crusaders and the Flight From Society
The American appetite for cinematic adaptations of children’s stories about grown men who dress as rodents to save the world from grown men dressed as reptiles is bottomless. The Avengers is already…
The View From Your Front Porch
Anaheim, Calif. - Nestled between busy thoroughfares dotted with low-slung motels, palm readers, and bail bondsmen, around the corner from the Taqueria and the Clinica Medica del Sagrado Corazon, one…
Firm Identities and Loose Borders
Hillsdale, Michigan. A drive back from New England to the upper mid-West on Tuesday gave me ample time to hear the journalistic accounts of the Supreme Court's decision on Arizona's…
Freedom Is Not The Good
As vice-president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Louisville’s own Archbishop Kurtz has led the way in expressing Church disapproval of the Obama administration's health care plan. According…
Gays Acting Badly in the White House: A Comparative Study
Recently I read Up From Slavery, the autobiography of Booker T. Washington. It is an inspiring story of hard work, perseverance, and clear vision. Washington fought an up hill battle…
The Unmaking and Making of Community
The following is a talk given at the annual conference of The Academy of Philosophy and Letters on June 16, 2012 in Baltimore, MD. In her book The Need for…
A Footloose Spring Day
On a gorgeous April Wednesday I am filling in as substitute homeschool teacher. We do arithmetic; we do a language lesson about adverbs and Emily Dickinson. Then—did I mention the…
The Flaw in Jefferson’s Idea of Ward Republics
Thomas Jefferson’s agrarianism has long been vulnerable to attack by unsympathetic critics. Given that Jefferson ultimately banks on virtue rather than folly, this is of course to be expected; but…
What Was High School For Anyway?
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Twenty-five years ago today (I think; my memory is far from perfect) I graduated from Central Valley High School in Spokane Valley (then "Veradale"), WA.…
You Have Thought Up the Wrong World
In the spring of 1994 my grandmother chose to go off dialysis. Four days later, she was dead. I still remember my parents waking me up in the middle of…
Happy Birthday! Hose your Grandkids.
Of all the downsides attendant to turning fifty, none annoys quite so much as receiving membership offers from the AARP. The junk mail invites a response to the effect that…
Creative Destruction and its Benefits, China-Style
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A few weeks ago I was visited by a fellow Wichita resident who was thinking about getting into politics. We talked for a while about…
Flipping the Woolly Bugger
Finding myself 2000 miles from Montana but with a couple of boys who want to go fishing, we ventured into the brown waters of the Shenandoah River. This is, according…