The Water Dipper 328
R. S. Thomas, Paul Kingsnorth, and Monsanto’s “Demise”
“Poetic Orthodoxy.” Peter Leithart writes about the faith and the conflicted attachment to Wales that animate R. S. Thomas’s poems. “Why ‘Monsanto’ is No More.” Don’t get your hopes up.…
Habermas on the Public Square, Polarization, and Kernza
“Carmen.” Stromae has a music video that’s relevant to our recent conversation about localist social media. Here’s what I want to know: What might happen if the Big Blue Bird…
Disenchantment, Facebookistan, and John Ruskin
“Disenchantment, Actually.” Doug Sikkema reviews The Myth of Dis enchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences by Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm. He’s not entirely convinced: “Yes, religion and…
Deneen and Kauffman, Walker Percy, and Manufactured Rituals
“Wendell Berry’s Works are a Multi-Plattered Feast.” Nick Offerman praises Wendell Berry’s writing: Here in these stories, you will find a great entertainment. Laced throughout, however, will also be a…
A Wendell Berry Weekend, Stanley Hauerwas, and Russell Kirk’s Correspondence
“Huppert Dairy among Hundreds Selling Out.” Boyd Huppert mourns a loss that is both personal and cultural: “The upper Midwest has been losing dairy farms at a rate once unimaginable.…
Rural Kansas, Moby-Dick, and Online “Community”
“The Tweeting of the Lambs: A Day in the Life of a Modern Shepherd.” Sam Knight profiles James Rebanks, a shepherd in England’s Lake District and the author of The…
Nick Offerman, Alan Jacobs, and Robert Farrar Capon
“Five Questions with Nick Offerman about Wendell Berry.” Nick Offerman talks about Look & See, which aired on PBS this week. “Remembering the ‘Spooky Wisdom’ of Our Agrarian Past.” Gracy…
Dirt, Manners, and Patrick McManus
“Can Dirt Save the Earth?” Moises Velasquez-Manoff’s long essay is worth reading. A taste: “If you focus on the health of the soil and not on yield, eventually you come…
Localism in the New York Times, Wendell Berry on Dairy Farmers, and More
“Trump’s Enemy is Not Your Friend: Why We Shouldn’t Defend Amazon.” Thomas Frank doesn’t like the false dichotomy that Trump’s recent attacks on Amazon seem to pose. Do we really…
University Press of Kentucky, Group Think, the Farm Bill, and more
“An Open Letter.” The bad news is that the University Press of Kentucky lost some of their funding in the new state budget. The good news is that UK and…
Baseball, Liberty Hyde Bailey, and more
“Quit Trying to ‘Fix’ Baseball: Its Leisurely Pace Is Just What Our Society Needs.” Gregory Hillis tells Rob Manfred (and the rest of us) that we need what baseball offers:…
Convenience, Digitized Childhood, Hunters, and more
“Make Communities Great Again.” James Bruce argues the federal government should adopt policies that would strengthen local communities. “The Tyranny of Convenience.” Tim Wu writes about how our quest for…
Tanya Berry, Bitcoin, Technology, and more
“Staying Human: The Tech Issue.” Plough Quarterly has a new issue on technology with several thoughtful essays. My favorite is Susannah Black’s profile of Jack and Amy Baumgartner, “The Perfect…
Wendell Berry Interview, Life after Liberalism, and More
“The Agrarian Life with Wendell Berry.” Bryan Wood and Mike Kline from Back to the Roots Podcast conduct a long interview with Wendell Berry. It’s worth setting aside the time…
Loneliness, Rural College Students, and More
It's been a busy first week on the remodeled porch, and we have an excellent lineup of new essays coming next week. For now, though, here are some of the…
Technological Failures, New Localism, and More
Each week, I’ll try to post links to recent essays and stories that might interest Porchers. If you have additional essays to recommend, please link to them in the comments.…