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...
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’...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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.”...
Anthony Bourdain, the Galloping Gourmet, and Reading Together
“Flourishing in a Digital World.” John Fea records a live episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast. Near the end, the conversation...
Agroecology, Eric Miller, and Manual Labor
“Bringing Farming Back to Nature.” Daniel Moss and Mark Bittman report on the encouraging growth of agroecology. (Recommended by Tom Bilbro.)
“The Oak Tree Almanac.”...