Russellarbenfox
MY BLOGS
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In Medias Res
http://inmedias.blogspot.com/
Essays, notes, and fragments--personal, political, and philosophical--from the midst of things
LATEST ARTICLES ( 588 )
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Five Farewells to Our Thin White Duke
Innumerable tributes will pore forth today for David Bowie, who passed away yesterday from cancer, just two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his... Read more
Posted on 11 January 2016 SOCIETY -
A Year of Hard Love
[Cross-posted to By Common Consent]I've joked for years about being a closet Lutheran--joked about it for so long, in fact, I can't remember when I first starte... Read more
Posted on 31 December 2015 SOCIETY -
The Ten Best Books I Read in 2015
This year's top ten reads reflects my interests pretty well: only one work of fiction, one memoir, one work of scripture, and the rest all research or theory... Read more
Posted on 31 December 2015 SOCIETY -
Mid-Sized Meditations #9: Sustainability in Cities That Hold Steady
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]Wichita, KS, is a large city, a regional center for manufacturing, medicine, finance, and the arts. Read more
Posted on 30 December 2015 SOCIETY -
The Ten Best Movies I Saw in 2015
As before, these are the ten best movies I managed to watch this year, whether they are old or new. In alphabetical order:American Hustle: a movie with wonderfu... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2015 SOCIETY -
Ten Psalms to Remember
[Cross-posted to By Common Consent] Last week, continuing my slow journey through the Old Testament, I finished the Book of Psalms, aided as always by the work... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2015 SOCIETY -
J.J. Abrams: Theologian (Or, Fate Has Everything to Do with It)
Merry Christmas, everyone. The gifts are open, so let's talk spoilers about The Force Awakens, which we saw as a family as our Christmas Eve movie yesterday. Read more
Posted on 25 December 2015 SOCIETY -
Hey, I Got a Christmas Card from Bernie Sanders!
"Stick fast to your banner, stand solid, nor veer / 'Till the cause of the workers renews earth again." Good advice to those of us laboring in the pro-Sanders... Read more
Posted on 24 December 2015 SOCIETY -
Barns I Have Known
"Dad," he had once asked when he was a little boy, "what is a stable?""It's just a barn," his father had replied, "like ours."Then Jesus had been born in a barn... Read more
Posted on 23 December 2015 SOCIETY -
A Tale of Two Superheroine TV Shows
Kristen, our youngest daughter (age 9), and I have finished catching up on Supergirl, which just entered into its winter break. We're loving it, and it's a blas... Read more
Posted on 15 December 2015 SOCIETY -
Saturday Night Live Music: "Did It in a Minute"
Daryl Hall and John Oates are having a blast here. The keyboards are going wild, they're playing with feedback, everyone in the band looks freshly scrubbed and... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2015 SOCIETY -
Saturday Night Live Music: "In The Air Tonight"
So, Phil Collins is coming out of retirement. Does that scare you, this Halloween night? It shouldn't. No, Collins isn't a profound musical genius. Read more
Posted on 01 November 2015 SOCIETY -
Thoughts on Wolin
[Cross-posted to Political Context]Yesterday evening, at the reception to mark the opening of this year's Association for Political Theory conference, a moment... Read more
Posted on 23 October 2015 SOCIETY -
The Future of (Education at Places Like) Friends
It's simply a glorious October day here at Friends University--blue sky, light wind, temps in the 60s, the leaves of the trees (as I take in their colors throug... Read more
Posted on 16 October 2015 SOCIETY -
Saturday Night Live Music: "Tall Trees in Georgia"
Like almost everyone (unlike Mick Fleetwood!), I discovered the folk singer and jazz interpreter Eva Cassidy too late, long after she had died of melanoma in... Read more
Posted on 11 October 2015 SOCIETY -
Christopher Lasch and the Lasting Delimma of Localism
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]This past weekend, at the annual Front Porch Republic gathering (this year held at SUNY-Geneseo), three scholars... Read more
Posted on 06 October 2015 SOCIETY -
Mid-Sized Meditations #8: Wichita and Facing the Mittelpolitan Dilemma
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]There's been some depressing news here in Wichita, Kansas, of late. Not the sort of depressing news that one might... Read more
Posted on 01 October 2015 SOCIETY -
Explaining Sanders's "Socialism" to Kansans
[Cross-posted to Political Context]I appreciate the kind attention which The Wichita Eagle recently paid to us local Democrats, progressive liberals, Christian... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2015 SOCIETY -
Saturday Night Live Music: "Treasure/September"
"[T]he press was still the last resource of the educated poor who could not be artists and would not be tutors. Any man who was fit for nothing else could... Read more
Posted on 13 September 2015 SOCIETY -
Whatever Happened to Communitarianism?
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]Twenty years ago, the concept and label "communitarianism" was riding high, or at least as high as any broadly applicable... Read more
Posted on 08 September 2015 SOCIETY