Over at Current Affairs, Nathan Robinson interviews Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. Robinson writes: Johann Hari has written multiple bestselling nonfiction books including Chasing the Scream, Lost Connections, and most recently Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. All […]
Way of Improvement
Woody Guthrie’s family tells Missouri Senator Josh Hawley to stop using his lyrics
Here is Daniel Desrochers at The Kansas City Star: Sen. Josh Hawley referenced Woody Guthrie last week when he sponsored a bill to prevent people associated with the Chinese Communist Party from owning U.S. farmland and called it the “This […]
My father didn’t need James Dobson to teach him how to be a patriarch. Focus on the Family had a different influence on him.
I’ve made this point before, but I recently made it again on a WNYC (New York City’s National Public Radio station) podcast called “On the Divided Dial.” (It was repackaged and rereleased last week). I appreciate journalist Katie Thornton willingness […]
Jerry Falwell Jr. is suing Liberty University
Falwell Jr. says his former employer owes him over $8.5 million. Here is Jacob Hunziker at ABC 13 News in Lynchburg, Virginia: Liberty University is facing a new lawsuit — this one coming from its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr., […]
Commonplace Book #249
So people whose views have been religiously formed have to learn, and many have learned, to express them in ways that make sense to irreligious or differently religious fellow citizens. Talk of God’s will and appeals to revealed truth are […]
Doug Mastriano’s comeback
The Pennsylvania Christian nationalist was defeated soundly in the November 2020 gubernatorial election. He is now staging a comeback. Here is WKOK News with a piece from Penn Live’s Charles Thompson: Doug Mastriano was back on the political stage in […]
The Author’s Corner with Christian Goodwillie
Christian Goodwillie is Director and Curator of Special Collections at Hamilton College, Burke Library and Associate Editor of the Richard W. Couper Press. This interview is based on his new book, Richard McNemar: Frontier Heretic and Shaker Apostle (Indiana University […]
Evangelical roundup for March 13, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical Land?: A veteran religion writer tackles women in the ministry. Baptists and Pentecostals lead the way in the promotion of God-fueled American exceptionalism. Ten books about Billy Graham. Ed Stetzer’s nameplate: How Rick Warren changed […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: The 1850s Black Convention movement Kevin McCarthy joins the insurrection Elizabeth Bruenig on Lent Francis: the first Jesuit Pope Rod Dreher’s last American Conservative blog post Bob Smietana reviews Lerone […]
Commonplace Book #248
The White workers who voted in large numbers for Donald Trump in 2020 are often described as nationalists–or, better, as men and women who have bought into a nationalist politics. But they don’t have anything like a national history. They […]
Commonplace Book #247
It is no affront to liberal socialist egalitarianism, as I understand it, if the entrepreneur who sells portable ventilators makes more money than I do and is more widely known than I am. The socialist state should not interfere with […]
Rod Dreher’s funder pulls the plug
Howard Ahmanson Jr,. the sole benefactor of Rod Dreher’s blog at The American Conservative, just pulled the plug on the conservative commentator. Here is Caleb Ecarma at Vanity Fair: …But one particular reader, upon reading the last of said posts, […]
Inside Tucker’s head
I ran across this video today: And then I read David French’s recent column at The New York Times. A taste: On Tuesday evening, two news reports caught my attention. The first was an Emerson College poll of Republican primary voters in […]
Commonplace Book #246
I don’t think that the adjective ‘liberal’ necessarily pushes the nouns that it modifies in the direction of complacency and compromise. In the cases relevant here, it is indeed the noun that carries the radicalism and requires those it describes […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Arena blog:
Historical thinking is often paradoxical thinking
WHYY in Philadelphia recently hosted an interesting conversation between Dolly Chuch, a psychologist, and Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a historian. Chuch argues that it is difficult to get people to accept the fact that two seemingly contradictory ideas can exist at […]
The Author’s Corner with Alison Bell
Alison Bell is Professor of Anthropology at Washington and Lee University. This interview is based on her new book, The Vital Dead: Making Meaning, Identity, and Community through Cemeteries (University of Tennessee Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write The Vital Dead? […]
Patrick Spero is the new Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon
Big news in the world of presidential and revolutionary-era American history: The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association is proud to announce the appointment of Patrick Spero, Ph.D., as the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library housed within the Fred W. Smith National Library […]
Commonplace Book #245
The existence of millions of fellow citizens who believe in “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories strongly suggests that our schools aren’t producing enough science-savvy and tough minded realists. What seems most necessary right now is an enhanced education in what […]
More on the censure of Trump lawyer and evangelical pundit Jenna Ellis
As I wrote last night in this post, Jenna Ellis rarely tweets without claiming that she is a great defender of truth. She has built a platform on defending Donald Trump and contesting the 2020 election and now she had […]