A Real Farmer vs. Agri-intellectuals

This “industrial farmer” is really ticked off by crunchy, porch-bound critics who don’t know what they’re talking about. The truth is that many “industrial farmers” are family farmers; they’re not all that alienated from the land or nature, and they give a . . . . Continue Reading »

Congress and the Brown M&M Test

You’ve probably heard the decades-old tale about how the band Van Halen included a provision in their backstage concert rider that stipulated that brown M&M’s were to be banished from the band’s dressing room. I had always assumed it was another arbitrary and outlandish demand . . . . Continue Reading »

eBaywatch: Rushing the Season

I know, I know. It’s a little early to be thinking about UNIQUE Religious Catholic Advent Calendars.This one is noteworthy, however, in that it gives away, immediately, what it is you await with intense longing all through Advent. Forget the prophetic allusions. Forget the O Antiphons. Forget . . . . Continue Reading »

Death and the Children

Via Howard Friedman , a report that the high court of South Korea has banned columbariums even in churches when those columbariums—columbaria?—are near schools. The problem is that any reminder of death is “likely to have a negative emotional impact on students.” Negative how? . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of End of History

Here’s another segment of my “What Was History (with a Capital H)?” For now, I skipped over the part that both connected and distanced “Historical” thinking from Christian thought. I’m still working on key details of that. Modern thinkers aren’t quite . . . . Continue Reading »

Breakfast in the Kingdom

Have you heard the “ Breakfast Song ”? It is a big hit on Youtube, with about a million hits. It is both very funny and very serious. About six months after this performance, Minister Cleo Clariet was indeed “called home” by his Lord. In the introduction to his song, Minister . . . . Continue Reading »

Roger Scruton on British Pubs

“The British pub was once a mainstay of working-class morality:” All over Britain, in town and village, in the suburbs and in the countryside, you will come across public houses, some still named from the animals—hare, hound, deer and fox; horse, cow, pig and cockerel—through . . . . Continue Reading »

The Ideological Triangle

Economist Arnold Kling reframes an ideological metaphor : Think of three points on an ideological triangle: 1. Point L, where you believe that markets are effective at processing information and solving problems. This position is to take a radically pro-market view, and to let markets fix their own . . . . Continue Reading »