Region & Place 427
Commencement Address
Take heart though, for most of your triumphs, large and small, lie in front of you as well. Which is just to say that you stand at a grand beginning,…
Meritocracy, Urban Design, and Culture: Observations from a Friend
PHOENIX, ARIZONA. (Note: this post has two pages, thanks to webmaster Lundy's new-and-improved FPR technology.) I am gratified by the many responses, here and elsewhere in the sphere, that were…
What Is to be Done?
On Amtrak Regional Train 130 Daniel Larison has written a number of related postings here (and here) and elsewhere that have insistently raised and sought to answer the question: what…
Good Job, Bruce!
A retirement dinner party for an Ivy League professor follows certain conventions. It begins with the cocktail hour where guests renew old and make new acquaintances while sipping wine and nibbling appetizers.…
Localism And Cosmopolites
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Remarking on Jeremy Beer's article on meritocracy, Patrick Deneen concludes with this grim, but correct, observation: This, in a microcosm, is a central paradox of our political system:…
The Great Recession and the Rebirth of Community
An article in last week's Washington Post explores the revival of communities as a response to the economic crisis. According to the article, As the neighbors got out of their…
Practicing the Discipline of Place
My "Place" (Photo by AMS) JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. If you think I'm reprinting yet another old essay because I'm too lazy or beset to keep up with my bettors on…
The Decline of Middle America and the Problem of Meritocracy
I delivered a version of the following text as a lecture at Augustana College last Tuesday, April 28 (all errors of fact and interpretation should be ascribed to my…
How Germany Made Us “Conservative”
Wichita, KS. Fifteen years ago, when my wife and I got married, we had a lot of inchoate ideas and aspirations, many of which were relatively humble, generally egalitarian, and…
Ohio’s Backyard Scientist
"Would that thou couldst last for aye, Merry, ever-merry May!" William D. Gallagher (the forgotten Ohio poet) BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY--The clouds of April have scattered, so look skyward (while keeping…
Farm Stories: The Flag of Rough Branch
Drilling with the Pitchfork (photo by AMS) JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. The call came from the neighbor yesterday at about four in the afternoon. Your cows are out. Damn! I was…
Taking Secession Seriously–At Last
Mt. Pleasant, SC--As little as I wished to make my first post for FPR an overtly political essay on contemporary affairs--I had meant to rumination growing up in a small…
A Call to Arms
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. The review below was first published in the Intercollegiate Review in the fall of 2006. Look Homeward, America was my first introduction to the work of the…
Obama’s Small Town Values – Not
I posted this piece at What I Saw In America on Friday last; for any readers of both these sites, I apologize for the redundancy. However, I think this posting…
Abraham Lincoln and the Destruction of Place
In case you missed it, 2009 is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Earlier this week I participated in a roundtable discussion on Lincoln’s legacy sponsored by Messiah College and…
Walkaway
In addition to frequent searches that lead people to an earlier posting on "monoculture" on my site "What I Saw in America," among the most frequently searched words that bring…
To Hell with Earth Day; Long Live Arbor Day!
Once upon a time in America, schoolchildren celebrated a lovely little holiday called Arbor Day. The young scholars would sing songs about Johnny Appleseed, recite Joyce Kilmer into the ground,…
Ain’t No Anglos at the Park
PHOENIX, AZ. If you know me, and if you are not my insurance agent, you may also know that I occasionally enjoy a good cigar. On major holidays (and, let…
Life Amid the Suicide Machines
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. In small town America, business owners get to sponsor everything from the high school wrestling team to the "pride committee" chili cook off. One of the events…
Does the Way of Improvement Lead Home?
First, let me extend my greetings to the readers of the Front Porch Republic. I have been following conversations here at FPR since it launched earlier this year and find…
G.K. Gets Real
I recently received a handsome, newly published copy of the book America Through European Eyes, published by Penn State University Press and edited by Jeffrey Isaac and Aurelian Craiutu. …
The Greatest Forgotten Player
PHOENIX, ARIZONA. Today is opening day, and how sweet it is. But nine days from now comes the most annoying day on the Major League Baseball schedule, when the league…
Iowa… Place of the Drowsy Ones
OWEN TOWNSHIP, WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS: According to one legend, the word Iowa means "Place of the Drowsy Ones" in some extinct Indian tongue. This came to mind yesterday when the…
An Elegy for Tobacco
Henry County, Kentucky. What holds a community together? Or rather, what holds my community together, as I'll have to leave you to worry about yours? I think about it some because…