Uncategorized 893
A Good Essayist is Hard to Find
Wiseblood Books is about to publish Dana Gioia's superb "The Catholic Writer Today" as the first in its series of "Wiseblood Essays in Contemporary Culture." Order now: Not for papists…
New England Patriot
From The American Conservative, my appreciation of the decentralist Republican (yes, they do exist) John McClaughry of Vermont.
Room with Askew
Just finished reading a beautifully written, if unsettling, comic gem: The Disaster Artist, an account of the making of the cult movie The Room, by Room costar Greg Sestero and…
Localist Roundup: American Exceptionalism
According to this piece, online grocery shopping is on the up and up. Meanwhile, this article describes something similar happening with book subscriptions. This article tries to delineate boundaries between…
Good Beer
If you've not yet read Jeremy Beer's piece over at Anamnesis on "Communio, Economics, and the Anthropology of Liberalism" - well, what are you waiting for? Get thee and read posthaste.
Localist Roundup: Polar Vortex
As I write this, it's cold. On the political front, this piece tells that the Senate recently propelled a unemployment benefit extension past a key procedural vote. Meanwhile, The Weekly…
Localist Roundup: Horse-Drawn Carriages and Portable Churches
This article reports on the continuing saga of legal challenges to NSA data collection. In other court news, as the Affordable Care Act goes into effect, Justice Sotomayor has issued…
Localist Roundup: Walmarts of Higher Education
Happy New Year! Tomorrow, the Affordable Care Act takes full effect. In other news, this piece looks at Census Bureau statistics and analyzes population shift in the States. The article…
What We Wish at Christmas
In practicing the rites of worship men hope that they will be vouchsafed a share in the superhuman abundance of life. From time immemorial, this very thing has always been…
If On A Northeastern Ohio Winter’s Night a Traveler…
The good folks at Mackinaw Valley Institute ponder the passage of time and the provisioning of shelter, as people travel from place to place, needing to find a home in…
Localist Roundup: Deals and Decisions
This week's news is mostly on the political front. A budget deal seems ready to go through the Senate, wrapping up the congressional conflict from earlier this year. But another…
Has This Guy Never Heard of Downton Abbey?
Hillsdale, Mich. Jack Rakove reviews Yuval Levin's The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (finder's fee to John Fea) and can't figure out…
Waiting for Benedict
Those long haunted by Alasdair MacIntyre's plea at the end of After Virtue - for that matter, even those who aren't - may wish to read Rod Dreher's piece on "The Benedict…
The Gates of Hell
Jeremy Beer gave a brilliant presentation at the FPR Conference on the problems associated with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or "big philanthropy" in general. Over at Mother Jones is…
Teaching Responsibility
Ischomachus’ wife: “My mother told me that my job was to be responsible.” Ischomachus: “Yes, my dear, of course, my father gave me the same advice.” Xenophon, The Estate Manager,…
Visit Michigan
Do Porchers travel? Well, if they do, they can hardly do better than to come to West Michigan - God's country if ever there was one. So says The Lonely…
Flannery Will Get You Everywhere
Superb essay by Dana Gioia--keynote speaker at September's Front Porch Republic conference--on the Catholic writer in America today.
How We Saw Ourselves: circa 1800
I am reading through James Ronda's Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (first published in 1984) and was reminded of how we saw ourselves politically in the early days of…
What Does it Take to Keep Small Rural Towns Alive?
On the basis of this story out of Morland, KS (population 150, or thereabouts), the answer seems to me: community determination (citizens forming a local foundation to purchase and keep…
Youth is NOT Served
I discuss frequently with my Intro to American Government classes what current redistributive policies are likely to mean for them. Along with receiving the majority of the Catholic vote in…
Post-Antibiotic
Every morning when I would shuffle to our refrigerator to lug out the gallon of milk for cereal, or after school when I'd stand in front of it wondering if…
Localist Roundup: Grants for Local Food and Transcendentalists with iPhones
The Black Friday shopping binge starts earlier still this year. On a less depressing note, these study results tell something about how women influence men. And these results list what…
Dwindling Towns
Over at Urbanplains Magazine is this interesting piece on the disappearance of small, urban towns. It's one of the catastrophes of our age.