Russellarbenfox

LATEST ARTICLES ( 622 )

• Listening to Lennon: Rock 'n' Roll (along with McCartney's CHOBA B CCCP and Run...

  

  It would be nice to believe that Lennon wanted, in early 1975, with his immigration woes and his conflicts with the U.S. government apparently finally coming... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2025 SOCIETY

• Two Comments and Two Questions About Religious Liberty

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Last week I attended the "Kansas Summit for Religious Freedom," a gathering designed to provide representatives of multiple... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #5: Walls and Bridges

  

  Lennon recorded Walls and Bridges back in New York City, in the summer of 1974, after having lived for most of the previous year away from Yoko Ono in Los... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2025 SOCIETY

• Rauch Among the Mormons

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, the latest book by the longtime policy... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2025 SOCIETY

• Could President Trump Take Over Policing in Wyandotte County? (A Brief Primer...

  

  [An expanded version of my Insight Kansas column, which appeared in Kansas newspapers this weekend.] Three weeks ago, President Trump declared that "the Distric... Read more

  Posted on 31 August 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #4: Mind Games

  

  Mind Games is usually seen as Lennon backing away from the direct, seemingly (but in actual fact almost never truly) spontaneous engagement with radical and... Read more

  Posted on 31 August 2025 SOCIETY

• An Urban History of Prosperity’s Menace, and Those Who Sought (and Still Seek) t...

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] Regarding Abundance One of the big topics of conversation among left-leaning and liberal pundits, politicians, and... Read more

  Posted on 11 August 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #3: Some Time in New York City

  

  In August of 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved to New York City, according to them to help Yoko obtain custody of her daughter Kyoko (which was a failure;... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2025 SOCIETY

• On Superman, Sentimentality, and Citizenship (or, What Gunn's Superman Knows...

  

  Daniel McCarthy expanded upon his New York Post editorial, the one I responded to previously, in the pages of his journal, Modern Age. Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2025 SOCIETY

• Defending Superman's Sentimentality

  

  [Note: Spoilers follow.] I’ve seen James Gunn’s Superman, and I’ve written up my take on it on social media: I thought it was absolutely wonderful, one of the... Read more

  Posted on 16 July 2025 SOCIETY

• Stella, My Dear

  

  Martha my dear, / Though I spend my days in conversation, / Please remember me.At roughly 12:30am this morning, the fog and pain and confusion and frustration... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #2: Imagine

  

  By the spring of 1971, Lennon's confused mess of anger, resentment, and frustration had a focus: his oldest and truest friend, Paul McCartney. Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #1: Plastic Ono Band

  

  So, as promised, my review of Lennon's solo albums begins.By January of 1970, the last time the Beatles ever worked together as "The Beatles" was more than... Read more

  Posted on 30 May 2025 SOCIETY

• Thoughts on MacIntyre

  

  Via Alan Jacobs, I’ve learned that Alasdair MacIntyre passed away on Thursday, at the age of 96. Unlike other philosophers, theologians, and political... Read more

  Posted on 23 May 2025 SOCIETY

• Regarding John (and Paul, and the Beatles Too, but Mostly John)

  

  Paul McCartney has been my favorite Beatle for years, as the long journey I took in 2019 through Macca's then-nearly-50-years' worth of solo, non-Beatles... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2025 SOCIETY

• Thoughts on Dylan

  

  1) I saw Bob Dylan on Saturday here in Wichita, which was only the second show of his 2025 extension of his never ending tour (nominally supporting his most... Read more

  Posted on 30 March 2025 SOCIETY

• Minding Laurie Johnson’s Gap

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] President Trump has been in office a month as of today, and the maelstrom of orders and actions which he has taken has... Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2025 SOCIETY

• Leslie's Love Story in Songs, and Ours Too.

  

  Ian Leslie's John Paul: A Love Story in Songs is a terrific book. I say that as a major Beatles fan, though not, as I've confessed before, a fanatic. Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2025 SOCIETY

• Justice Together: Praying, Planning, and Partly (but Not Yet Entirely) Pushed...

  

  [Cross-posted to Wichita Story]Before Christmas, I had some complimentary things to say about Wichita’s city council. Here at the end of the year, though, my... Read more

  Posted on 01 January 2025 SOCIETY

• The 10 Best Books I Read in 2024

  

  Ian Angus, The War against the Commons: Dispossession and Resistance in the Making of Capitalism (2023) and Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2024 SOCIETY