“Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite.” Michael Lind has a new book coming out about the new class war (look for FPR’s review on Monday). The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt:
This is the new class war. Forget the familiar three-way social diagram, with a big middle class bracketed on either end by a small upper class and small lower or impoverished class. The deepest cleavage in Western democracies yawns between college-educated managers and professionals—a third of the population, at most—and the majority who lack college educations.
“They Wanted to Remake the World; Instead We Got President Trump.” Beverly Gage reviews Andrew Bacevich’s new book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory: “Though no fan of the current president, Bacevich reserves his greatest ire for establishment types who spend their time griping about Trump while refusing to examine their own role in creating the inequalities and foreign policy disasters of recent decades.”
“Climate Change Could Make Pawpaws a Valuable Crop for Northern Farmers.” Erik Hoffner explains why pawpaws are a much-loved crop, and one that is indigenous to the US. He even provides guidance for starting your own pawpaw orchard.
“Missouri Charmer Led Double Life, Masterminded One of the Biggest Frauds in Farm History.” Mike Hendricks describes the tragic story of Randy Constant’s fraudulent “organic” farming operation.
“The Hounds in Full Cry: Roger Scruton’s Conservatism.” There have been many moving remembrances of Roger Scruton after his death this week. Bradley Birzer’s is one of the best.
“Who Killed Civil Society?.” Andrew Spencer reviews Howard Husock’s Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bourgeois Norms, which narrates “the shift from civil society functioning to alleviate poverty to the dominance of government programs.
“From Context Collapse to Content Collapse.” Nick Carr defines “content collapse, “the tendency of social media to blur traditional distinctions among once distinct types of information,” and outlines some of its consequences:
It wasn’t just that the headlines, free-floating, decontextualized motes of journalism ginned up to trigger reflexive mouse clicks, had displaced the stories. It was that the whole organizing structure of the newspaper, its epistemological architecture, had been junked. The news section (with its local, national, and international subsections), the sports section, the arts section, the living section, the opinion pages: they’d all been fed through a shredder, then thrown into a wind tunnel. What appeared on the screen was a jumble, high mixed with low, silly with smart, tragic with trivial. The cacophony of the RSS feed, it’s now clear, heralded a sea change in the distribution and consumption of information. The new order would be disorder.
“In the Rush to Solve Climate Change with Lab-Based Foods, Don’t Write off Farming.” Twilight Greenaway responds to the crazy—but increasingly popular—idea that we can make food without farming: “Agriculture isn’t something to dismiss; it’s one of the most important ways that humans interact with the natural world. It’s also, last I checked, still a huge part of what makes rural communities viable.”
“Faltering at Birth.” Brian Miller reflects on the joys—and sorrows—of lambing season.
“Christopher Tolkien, Curator of Middle-earth, Has Died, and a Letter from His Father.” Brenton Dickieson mourns the death of this great defender of Middle Earth.
“Texas History Gets Supersized.” David J. Davis reviews Stephen Harrigan’s Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas. It sounds like a delightfully big book (944 pages) about a big place with a rich history.
“Michigan County Threatens to Bulldoze Amish Homes in Poop Dispute.” Ted Roelofs reports on over-zealous county health officials who want to tear down Amish homes because they rely on outhouses. (Recommended by Jeff Polet.)
It’s ironic—the more I read articles on and from FPR, the more convinced I am that I should stop reading decontextualized articles on my smartphone and instead read a book, walk outside, or talk to people nearby.
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