Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by in Dubuque
One Weird Trick to Getting a Perfect Education
My wife tells me about the first day we met. We were twelve, and I was visiting her 7th grade classroom because my parents were thinking of sending me to school. The teacher invited me to sit at the back and observe while the students reviewed for a quiz. What Elisa remembers is that I answered all his questions out loud, before he could call on anybody. I didn’t know you were supposed to raise your hand and wait.
On Courage - Front Porch Republic
I’d like to extend some remarks I made recently to a group of students at our university, on the subject of courage. I note the original context for what I’m about to say because one thing I want to say is that the virtue of courage has always been of special importance for young people, and that it is especially important for young people today. I guess I’m not what my students would call young, though it still feels odd to call myself old.
What Plays in Peoria
People used to talk about whether something would “play in Peoria.” I don’t know if it matters anymore. Caterpillar left the city for Deerfield in 2017 (and then left Deerfield for Texas). A few years later, the proverbial center of American normalcy was one of the country’s fastest shrinking cities. When most people leave, how normal are the ones who stay? Every summer we camp with family at a farm not far from Peoria.
Democracy Against Localism
Like any theory of politics, localism is not without its ambiguities. It is not even clear that localism is a “theory.” Some might say it’s more like a sensibility, with room for many different theories. Many porchers call themselves conservatives, but we also have socialist localists like Russell Arben Fox, and this is perfectly coherent. Localists believe that small is beautiful, but localism is a big tent. Ambiguities are useful.
Localism without Nostalgia
These summers were long ago, so long ago that cigarettes were given to high school students by cigarette companies as a way to get them started and hooked; so long ago nobody had televisions and there were shows on the radio to listen to in the nights, back when portable radios cost an arm and a leg and took close to four pounds of batteries just to keep the tubes going for an hour and a half; and African-American people were kept from voting in the South and other places and did not have...
Camping and Homemaking
From our place in Iowa, the way to the Dunes goes through Chicago. The Dunes are big old hills of sand on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, staked down by beachgrass and swamp oak. Chicago, of course, is a city on the same shore. It is big, and it is old enough, by American lights, to inspire poetry: “Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning,” said Sandberg. But he said that a hundred years ago.
Liberalism, Postliberalism, and Localism: A Review of Justice By Means of Democracy
Last month, Patrick Deneen came to bury liberalism; Danielle Allen comes now to save it. Deneen’s Regime Change aims for the heart of our ruling idea. Allen’s Justice By Means of Democracy tries to absorb that blow and make liberalism stronger. At times, I think she almost succeeds. But I have some questions. I hope you’ll forgive a theorist for theorizing at some length.
Is Regime Change too Radical? Or too Conservative?
Dubuque, IA. I suspect most critics will say that the problem with Patrick Deneen’s new book is that it’s just too radical. I suspect I myself would have said so, just a few years back. These days, I wonder if it’s not radical enough. That’s the radical part of me talking. The radical part of me thinks the argument in Regime Change doesn’t add up to real change. My radical side wants more than the replacement of one elite by another, which is what Deneen wants.
Observing Limits to Re-enchant a Mute World: A Review of The Uncontrollability of the World
Dubuque, IA. Some people who have heard me speak glowingly of “limits” might get confused when they hear me complain mightily about “rules.” If I like “limits” so much, why do I talk trash about bureaucrats and administrators and other professional limit-mongers? What’s the difference between what I want and what they’re selling? You can find many good responses to this question in the FPR archives. As Jeff Polet notes, “it is useful . . .
Localism as a Form of Government, or Localism as a Way of Life?
Dubuque, IA. If there’s one single book most localists won’t read but should, it’s this one. Small Isn’t Beautiful: A Case Against Localism is a bracing challenge to people (like me) whose shelves are stocked mainly with localism’s friends. Trevor Latimer is not exactly its enemy; while his book is subtitled “the case against localism,” the case is more subtle than that. But he is certainly what they call a “worthy opponent,” and he deserves very careful attention.
Putting Two Things Together: Reflections on Institution Building
Dubuque, IA. Steubenville is an old coal and steel town on the Ohio River, just west of Pittsburgh. It’s the kind of place you might visit if you were making a poignant documentary about the Rust Belt or writing an article for the Atlantic about Trump voters. Dean Martin grew up in Steubenville. If you’re not a Rat Pack fan, you might know it better as the setting for a 2012 rape case, which got national attention because the crime was recorded and posted on social media.
Where Is Our Freedom to Exercise Sympathy?
Dubuque, IA. When I was growing up on the family farm near Delphi, Indiana, my relatives included one college professor. He was a great uncle, married to my grandma’s sister Betty. Betty taught music at Westmar College, in Iowa, and her husband Art taught history there. I never met Uncle Art. All I ever learned about him is that he could tell you a fact, and then he could tell you which book contained the fact, and then he could tell you which page in the book you’d find it on.
On the Front Porch with Ursula Le Guin
Dubuque, IA. I’d like to welcome a special guest to the front porch: the writer Ursula Le Guin. I hope she “takes off her coat and stays a while,” as my grandpa always put it, and I think people here will like her, if they don’t already know her. Those who do know her work might be a bit surprised if I suggest that Le Guin has a real porcher sensibility. She’s a left-leaning feminist, an explorer of new territory in sexuality and gender, and something of an anarchist.
Joy In Medical Practice: Clinician Satisfaction In The Healthy Work Place Trial
To better understand how clinicians’ job satisfaction relates to work conditions and outcomes for clinicians and patients, we examined data from the Healthy Work Place trial. Data were collected from physicians and advanced practice providers at baseline and approximately one year later. At baseline, 74 percent of respondents indicated job satisfaction.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with in
Contact in, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack