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The Water Dipper 328

Grimsby, Bureaucracy, and Brave New World

“Left Behind in Grimsby.” Simon Cross narrates the tensions he experienced ministering in a neighborhood where he wasn’t stuck: “There’s a feeling of inadequacy that comes with knowing how little…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 16, 2024

Syncretism, Saints, and Childhood

“Against Syncretism, For Christians Building Like Christians.” Jake Meador provides a good summary of and response to Paul Kingsnorth’s recent lecture: “Bucer's measure of judging a Christian society was not…

Dinosaurs, Screens, and Symbols

“Dinner with Dinosaurs.” In a wide-ranging and probing essay, Lauren Spohn considers what kind of narrative we need to motivate human action and guide our technological and cultural project: “It’s…

Boethius, History, and Charm

“Love Letter to America.” A.M. Hickman takes a hard look at America’s many dysfunctions: “Then the realization sinks in like news of a dear old friend’s death: There beneath the…

Ducks, Hitler, and Gridlock

“The Place of Tides by James Rebanks Review—Ducking Out of a Midlife Crisis.” Helen Davies praises Rebanks’s “quietly profound book. It is a story about a still-essential way of living…

Children, Pawpaws, and Ticks

“Against Killing Children.” In a new essay, Wendell Berry speaks against the violence on which our machine age runs and invites us to imagine an alternative way of relating to…

Berry, MacIntyre, and Screens

“News from the Berry Center.” The Berry Center fall newsletter provides updates on their ongoing work, and Mary Berry’s opening letter serves as a good reminder of their vision for…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 28, 2024

Work, Repair, and Reading

“In Defiance of All Powers.” Peter Mommsen introduces Plough’s new issue on Freedom. It looks quite promising, but my physical copy hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m exercising restraint: “as my…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 21, 2024

Cheese, Solidarity, and Tradwives

“How a Vermont Cheesemaker Helps Local Farms Thrive.” The essay up on FPR’s front page right now by Lenny Wells describes some possibilities for small farmers to find a “seam”…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 14, 2024

Contaminated Farms, Individualism, and Art

“Twelve Months to Fall Back in Love with America.” Anarchist, hobo, Coast Guardsman, Catholic, Front Porch Republic conference-goer, and now newlywed A.M. Hickman is traveling America with his wife Keturah…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 7, 2024

Volunteering, Urban Farms, and Grocery Stores

We’ve now posted the FPR conference schedule. Based on feedback from recent conferences, we've built a bit more elbow room into the schedule to allow for more mingling and discussion.…

Contrary U, New Verse Review, and Vinyl Records

“Captive Users.” Alexander Stern pens a thoughtful review essay that puts Cory Doctorow’s The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation in conversation with Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web…

Nisbet, Fact-Checking, and Leopold

“Robert Nisbet for the Present Age.” Kirstin Birkhaug describes the experience of teaching Robert Nisbet’s The Present Age and watching her students respond to his analysis of America’s twinned statism…

Wendell Berry, the Pioneer Fire, and Idols

“‘Your Friend, Wendell’: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry.” To mark Wendell Berry’s 90th birthday, The Library of America published a set of reflections by several of the people…

Motherhood, Rural Decline, and Phoenix

I’ll be logging off the internet for a few weeks and thus pausing these Water Dippers. I aim to resume them in early August. In the meantime, make plans to…
Jeffrey Bilbro
June 29, 2024

Maurin, Partisanship, and Myth

"Ideas and Historical Consequences." Mars Hill Audio released the full version of an old interview with John Lukacs. FPR readers can up for a free FPR affiliate membership at Mars…
Jeffrey Bilbro
June 22, 2024

Math, Antitrust, and Work

“Computers Can’t Do Math.” David Schaengold has a clear and provocative essay on the differences between computer “thinking” and human thinking: “we can be sure there are world states beyond…
Jeffrey Bilbro
June 15, 2024

COVID, ChatGPT, and PFAS

“The Cultural Roots of Our Demographic Ennui.” Patrick Brown argues that affluence—what regular FPR contributor John de Graaf labeled “affluenza”—lies behind many of our cultural ills: “A world of creature…
Jeffrey Bilbro
June 8, 2024

Lobsters, Resilience, and Scouting

“DIY.” Bud Smith details the joys of fixing anything that’s broken with the help of the Internet: “YouTube has all the right answers and all the wrong answers. All you…
Jeffrey Bilbro
June 1, 2024

Patriotism, Realtors, and Men

“The Big AI Risk Not Enough People Are Seeing.” Tyler Austin Harper draws on Ivan Illich to distinguish between technologies that empower us and those that erode our human nature:…
Jeffrey Bilbro
May 25, 2024

Reading, Undset, and Tariffs

“Hope for the Organization Kid.” Joshua Hochschild revisits David Brooks’ classic 2004 essay on college students and considers what’s changed in the two decades since: “I doubt that the keenest…
Jeffrey Bilbro
May 18, 2024

Reading, Chatbots, and Home

“Our Draymond Green Problem.” Elizabeth Stice draws on Draymond Green and Hannah Arendt to consider what responsibilities we might have for our allies: “What we need then is not exactly…
Jeffrey Bilbro
May 11, 2024

Hipsters, Cellphones, and Mondragón

“Is Ethical Shopping Only for Hipsters?” Kate Lucky wrestles with ethical shopping, effective charity, and the upside down extravagance of the Kingdom of God: “We anticipate an abundant new earth,…
Jeffrey Bilbro
May 4, 2024

The Midwest, Adderall, and Avian Flu

“Ending Agriculture isn’t the Climate-Crisis Solution Some Think It Is.” Taras Grescoe weighs in on the debate about lab-grown protein and makes a sensible defense of farming: “we need to…
Jeffrey Bilbro
April 27, 2024