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2015 APL Conference

The annual conference of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters will once again be held in Baltimore this year at the BWI Doubletree. The dates are June 12-14. This year's…
Jeff Polet
April 29, 2015

Daddy, Where Do Seeds Come From?

Perhaps as our teachers sometimes tell us, there is no such thing as a bad question. That doesn’t mean that some questions aren’t better than others. It was some years…
April 29, 2015

Localist Linkfest

If Rush Limbaugh hates it, it's probably a good idea: When Dan Price said last week that he would cut his own pay and profits to make it possible to…
April 24, 2015

Localist Linkfest

Hillary Clinton's Chipotle order: Hillary Clinton, fighter of children A bizarre and perverse paragraph in the New York Times: Traveling this fascinating and contradictory land today, one must acknowledge a…
April 17, 2015

Once Again, the Opponents of Unsupervised Children are Revealed

The story is pretty much the same as before: you have children that are placed in a situation which many people would consider less than ideal, a situation which--as it…
April 13, 2015

Localist Linkfest

Police are investigating a sighting of an alligator in the Monongahela River Archaeologists defy ISIS by finding new artifacts in Iraq Earth Island Journal interviews Wendell Berry: I've already explained…
April 12, 2015

Spangled Webb

On James Webb, novelist-politician.
April 10, 2015

Our Lawns, Our Eden

Last spring I posted a piece on dandelions, after I had been struck by the preponderance of death-dealing chemicals in the ‘lawn and garden' section at the local big box store.…
April 8, 2015

The Locality of the Church. Or, Where’s Wilson?

Such is the wisdom of James Matthew Wilson that it appears a jewel precious in the eyes of Jason Peters.  This Peters will embarrass  and pester and spout folk wisdom, and then engage…

Alienated Children and Inalienable Rights

We describe the most fundamental principles of American politics in terms of “rights.” According to the Declaration of Independence, which constitutes the philosophical foundation of American politics, it is “self-evident”…
April 3, 2015

An Amazon Rhythm

There’s a recent piece in The New Yorker on the new Amazon Dash Button. For those who don’t know, the Dash Button is a small button you place in your…
April 3, 2015

Localist Linkfest

If you come across articles I should include in this weekly round-up, email me at bloom.jordan[at]gmail[dot]com or tweet me here. The City of Detroit is pettifogging one of the best…
April 3, 2015

Missouri Loves Company

I’ve caught a lot of lucky breaks (or unmerited graces) in my life. For instance, I had two superb editors at Henry Holt, which in 2003 published Dispatches from the…
March 30, 2015

“I’ve been called a Marxist and a conservative. I guess both are kind of true.”

Matthew Crawford, about whom we have talked a good deal before here at Front Porch Republic, is back with a new book. Like so many other wise observers of our…
March 26, 2015

Localist Roundup: A New Localist Roundup

You may have noticed that Localist Roundup—FPR’s bi-weekly short post collecting articles of interest from across the internet—has vanished in recent weeks. This post is a continuation of that series,…
March 25, 2015

Living Pleasantly from the Land

“In the first place, thanks to those who work it, the land bears not only the means for people to live, but also bears the means for them to live…
March 20, 2015

The Home Economy: A Symposium. Register Now.

Please join us for a Family in America Capitol Hill Symposium, cosponsored with the Front Porch Republic, a panel discussion of the topic: “Rediscovering the Home Economy” Friday, March 27,…
Mark T. Mitchell
March 16, 2015

The Problem with TNR’s Pope Francis Cover Story

I have a long piece up at TheDC, more words than you probably wanted to read on the New Republic's cover story on Pope Francis, but it touches on certain…
March 12, 2015

The Death of a Tree

I have never thought much about the death of trees. Until today. I have thought about the death of farm animals, since I kill with my own hands the pigs…
March 11, 2015

Picture-Books in Winter

“Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture storybooks. … How am I to sing your praise,…
March 5, 2015

The Future Mayor of Urbanism?

The mayor of Ithaca NY seems to have a good understanding of how to move cities in the right sorts of directions.
Jeff Polet
March 3, 2015

Apocalypticism for Porchers

If it's your thing -- and it's certainly not everybody's thing -- it's not a bad time to be an apocalypticist. A few weeks ago, Pope Francis once again implored…
March 2, 2015

Clean Eyes

“Again, one time Sophocles, who was Pericles’ fellow-commissioner in the generalship, was going on board with him, and praised the beauty of a youth they met with on the way…
February 25, 2015

White Hunter, Iraq Heart

From Reason, the excellent Jesse Walker locates American Sniper within a semi-nativist (if sometimes anti-native) American antiwar tradition. For what it's worth, I found it a powerful film, and not…
February 21, 2015