Last weekend friends dragged me to a Woody Guthrie tribute show where a dozen local bands performed the songs of the Folky Okie in celebration of his 100th birthday. It was a star-spangled occasion: a night of red rhetoric, white…
Much has been written about Mayberry, North Carolina, since the death last week of Andy Griffith — about his show’s “false cornpone nostalgia,” about the star’s indifference toward his Blue Ridge Mountain hometown of Mount Airy. But no writer to…
Rob Sisson is green and proud of it. As president of ConservAmerica, the conservative organization promoting the stewardship of our natural resources, Sisson is fighting a lonely, acclivous battle. Most conservatives have forsaken environmental issues and left the field entirely…
Pity the poor stay-at-home mom. In one ear there is Mainstream Society pressuring her to work outside the home so her family can enjoy all the middle-class luxuries (the McMansion, the speed boat, the Harley Davidson, the latest electronic gadgets)….
Jury Duty. A civic obligation. A shared American tradition. A chance to see the inner workings of our justice system, big hairy warts and all. I had been summoned to jury duty once before, when I lived in rural Monroe…
It must have seemed a good idea at the time. A brand new town dreamt up by Jane Jacobs’ acolytes, utilizing what is called Traditional Neighborhood Design. A town with none of the defects of conventional suburbs: big lots, wide…
“You’ll go far,” a well-intentioned high school English teacher once told me. Wouldn’t he be disappointed to learn that I am still living a meager fifteen miles from my alma mater? No doubt he would protest that he was using…
For many reasons, all of them excellent, I have never been asked to deliver a commencement address. I have been asked to keep quiet at a commencement address — often by the womenfolk — but never to speak. This was…
“Of all the bewildering things about a new country,” wrote the novelist Willa Cather, “the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.” Willa, a Nebraska import, and I are kindred spirits in that respect. Growing…
It is a familiar sight here in the inner-city: young men in the prime of life aimlessly hanging out on stoops at midday, smoking and listening to hip hop music. Government statistics tell only half of the story. One in…