Tag: community
The Final Word On Cell Phones
Rock Island, IL
In the early days of FPR, and then again more recently, I was impertinent enough to write disparaging remarks about cell phones,...
Swine Flu’s Real Exposure
Claremont, CA. The most haunting, awful scenes in Thucydides’s history of the Pelopponesian war are those describing the Athenian plague.
The plague emerged in the...
Waiting for the Americans…
In the late 1970s, my grandfather’s older brother, already in his nineties, was pressing his almost deaf ears to a little portable radio still...
The Reluctant Southerner: Reflections on Home and History
Moorpark, CA. In October of 1997 I attended the Southern Historical Association’s convention in Atlanta because I wanted to hear Paul Conkin’s presidential address,...
You’ve Got Mail. But Not For Long.
Claremont, CA. Tomato, the main character in Erika Lopez’s terrifically kooky Flaming Iguanas, loves the post office. She says, to be precise, that she...
Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look...
It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas...
Tocqueville on the Shores of Titicaca
Amid Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings on revolution in France, there is a passage that rings true for those of us who have spent time...
Cocktails at the Dump
My father in-law, Ron, tells me a story of what life was like when he moved his young family (my wife not yet born)...
“On the Grid”: When Electricity (and Other Things) Came to the...
“Come in and look,” Quintín urged me, as he disappeared with a shuffle through the low doorway in his adobe house. I got up...
In Praise of States (and Why There Should be More of...
Wichita, KS
Over the July 4th weekend, we made a quick trip south to Dallas, and were blessed with a brief look at that particular...