The Geography of Hate

Recently, the BBC’s Panorama program did a 30 minute documentary on racism in Polish and Ukrainian football ahead of this summer’s Euro 2012 tournament to be hosted in the two nations.  You can watch the whole thing here. The obvious comment is that the things seen in that video are disgusting and the way Ukraine [...]

Read Full Post »

Auden on modernity

From a documentary he did about the United States: The marvellous machines we have made obey us, And couldn’t care less for the consequences: Nothing good or evil can happen to them. If we want it that way, they will lay waste the earth. Loot the land and leave behind them An irredeemable desolation. Yes, [...]

Read Full Post »

The Problem with Alternative Energies

There are many, many things I love about the so-called “green revolution” but one of the main problems I see with it is the movement’s emphasis on alternative energies and other ways of maintaining our basic way of life without making major adjustments. IE You don’t need to stop driving your car, you just need [...]

Read Full Post »

The resurgence of beautiful churches

They’re on their way back. And not a moment too soon. (Most exciting: One of the featured churches is the not-yet-constructed Thomas Aquinas Church and Newman Center at my alma mater, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.) My favorite building in all of St. Paul is the Cathedral of St. Paul. It was the first time I [...]

Read Full Post »

Making Small Places – Forthcoming Series

Starting on Monday, I’m going to be launching a new series at the blog called Making a Small Place. (There is a new sub-topic under “Place” called “Making a Small Place” so you’ll be able to find all the posts by clicking on that sub-topic under an individual post title or in the category listing [...]

Read Full Post »

“She is not an environmentalist… someone with a program for making herself feel righteous and her neighbors uncomfortable.”

Peters uses an essay by Anthony Esolen in the new The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry as a launching pad for a discussion of creational integration and language.

Read Full Post »

Where Mortals Dwell reviewed at B&C

A few months ago I reviewed Craig Bartholomew’s excellent Where Mortals Dwell for Christianity Today. Now Halee Scott has a review of the book up at Books & Culture. Where Mortals Dwell is remarkable in the sense that it gives a comprehensive answer to a question that many are just beginning to ask: Does place—where we are and what [...]

Read Full Post »

Are e-readers really eco-friendly?

Maybe not, says Nick Moran. That eReader, then, accounts for an initial carbon footprint 200-250% greater than your typical household library, and it increases every time you get a new eReader for Christmas, or every time the latest Apple Keynote lights a fire in your wallet. Also, these figures simply calculate the impact one person’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Russel Arben Fox on small steps toward sustainability

Russel Arben Fox has an exciting post over at FPR about an exciting new community garden happening at Friends University in Wichita. I see more and more of this, all around me, and it is simultaneously hopeful and frustrating. Hopeful because more and more people are recognizing the need to free themselves from those systems [...]

Read Full Post »

Walk dammit, ctd

Part of the issue is that cars have changed the way we think about our roads. From Sarah Goodyear in the Atlantic: Twenty years ago, an out-of-control driver plowed through New York’s Washington Square Park, killing 5 people and injuring 27 others. That horrific incident caused a public outcry and galvanized advocates in what has become known [...]

Read Full Post »