Russellarbenfox

LATEST ARTICLES ( 622 )

• 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

• From the Distant Liberal Consensus, a Defiant Conservative Yelp

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]As I write this review, I keep hearing about Jeb Bush, campaigning for president, talking about how the invasion of Iraq... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2015 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Look Away"

  "[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 16 August 2015 SOCIETY

• Does Repugnance Matter, Or Not?

  

  I haven't written about abortion for years, and I've resisted writing anything about the controversy which the Planned Parenthood videos has generated across th... Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2015 SOCIETY

• Bernie Sanders: Front Porch Socialist?

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]This October, Front Porch Republic--the motley gang of reactionary radicals that I've been hanging out with, arguing... Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2015 SOCIETY

• Sobering Numbers on a Sobering Day

  

  I'm not quite willing, I think, to go along with multiple friends of mine who look at the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, as a "war... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2015 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Breezin'"

  "[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 02 August 2015 SOCIETY