… Neither Proud Nor Lonely
C.S. Lewis noted that “If you had asked Lazamon or Chaucer ‘Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?’ I...
A Global Mea Culpa
I screwed up but I don’t know how to apologize to the parties involved. In this age of global communication, highspeed networks, and...
False Economics and Malignant Growth
Patrick Deneen's excellent post this morning on populism, directly invoking Kansas, gives me the occassion to repost a short essay I wrote last year for my...
Same-Sex Marriage, Abortion, and the Limits of Localism
Kearneysville, WV. Last week I published a piece suggesting ten positions that might serve to constitute a platform for those who are disillusioned by...
Under the Mogollon Rim
Washington Park, Arizona. It used to take seven hours to get here by car, even though the journey was only some 90 miles from...
Social Injustice
{This column appears in today's Hoya, Georgetown's student newspaper. My column is published fortnightly.}
If there is one thing about which we are certain that...
Jawboning: A Tale of Two Hardware Stores
Hamilton, Ontario. The other day I was standing in a cavernous mega-chain hardware store looking for gardening supplies. This was not an easy task...
The Stories We Tell…
Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family,...
What’s Local?
Hillsdale, MI. A Mormon friend of mine once argued that the LDS prohibition of alcohol was right and proper not only because it was...
Basque in It
BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY. I have never really given a damn about my own mongrel ethnicity—I care about place, not race—and besides, there are many...