Russellarbenfox

LATEST ARTICLES ( 600 )

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Better Than a Hallelujah"

  I've listened to Amy Grant on and off ever since my church to mission to South Korea a quarter-century ago. Christian pop never penetrated American Mormonism th... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2014 SOCIETY

• "I Just Started the Paleo Diet Yesterday, and I’m Wondering If There’s a Way to...

  

  Via Samuel Brown, via The Toast, comes "All The Comments on Every Recipe Blog." Enjoy.“I didn’t have any eggs, so I replaced them with a banana-chia-flaxseed... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Kansas: 20-Day Predictions

  

  Walking out from a Wal-Mart this morning, someone approached me, and asked if he'd seen me before. Since I've been doing quite a bit of television work on... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Rough Boys"

  Scholars and sociologists and historians of sexuality can talk all they want about fluid gender orientations, the gay sub-culture of the 1960s and 70s, leather... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2014 SOCIETY

• My Favorite Live (Single) Albums

  

  My old friend David Jenkins challenged me to provide some Friday night discussion by listing my five favorite live albums. Well, I'm sorry Dave: I can't. I can'... Read more

  Posted on 11 October 2014 SOCIETY

• "This Bald Chick; What's With Her Head?"

  The news of the death of Jan Hooks, a delightfully funny woman whose tenure on Saturday Night Live and Primetime Glick gave me many a laugh, put me in mind of... Read more

  Posted on 10 October 2014 SOCIETY

• The Settled and the Strange: Seven Thoughts for Sukkot

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Today is the first full day of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, one of several Jewish holidays that I have long felt a... Read more

  Posted on 09 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Three Ways Sam Brownback Could Keep Gay Marriage Illegal in Kansas: Some Free...

  

  In the few days since the Supreme Court declined to review the decision of the 10th Circuit Court that Utah’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, there... Read more

  Posted on 08 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "I Want You to Want Me"

  Quite possibly the greatest power pop single ever, off one of the greatest live albums of all time. Cheap Trick's backlog can't begin to compare with the piles... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Mid-Size Meditations #4: City Liberty, Country Liberty

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]It's clear to me that one of the primary things people (in the United States, certainly, but also elsewhere) think about... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Meeting the Ups

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Just so you know, there's probably no way that anyone who doesn't fit into the very narrow Venn overlap of "church-going... Read more

  Posted on 02 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Predictable Predictions About Kansas

  

  The Wichita Eagle ran another one of my columns this morning; this is a slightly expanded version of it:Politics in Kansas today is suddenly big news. Read more

  Posted on 02 October 2014 SOCIETY

• Moyer's Worlds

  

  Via Lawyers, Guns Money, I see that Bill Moyers, one of the absolute icons of progressive liberal journalism in America, is at long last retiring. Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Mid-Sized Meditations #3: Seeing Our (Non-Cosmopolitan) Selves

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] Some years ago, some of the folks behind F5, an alternative weekly newspaper here in Wichita, started a different (and, a... Read more

  Posted on 29 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Mid-Size Meditations #2: The Range of the Mittelpolitan

  

  So, following up on my initial posting on Friday, I've received some good feedback (particularly from Doug Merrill of Fistful of Euros, Matt Lister, and my old... Read more

  Posted on 22 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Mid-Size Meditations #1: The Mittelpolitan Possibility

  

  When I first expressed an interest in studying, and hopefully writing a book about, a theory of mid-sized cities for my sabbatical, I had all sorts of random... Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Happy Constitution Day! Now Go and Read This

  

  When I was an undergraduate studying international relations and political philosophy back in the early, circa 1990-1993, Francis Fukuyama was huge. Read more

  Posted on 17 September 2014 SOCIETY

• What Would the Father of Nationalism Say About Scottish Independence?

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] On Thursday, voters in Scotland will go to the polls and either choose "Yes," meaning that they want Scotland to become a... Read more

  Posted on 16 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Bloody Mary Morning"

  Via Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns Money comes a link to not only this fine, long profile of Willie Nelson, but also this little-seen gem: Willie from almost... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2014 SOCIETY

• Saturday Night Live Music: "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)"

  It's very easy--and entirely justified--to write A Flock of Seagulls off has a band who only manged to break out in the early days of MTV because of singer... Read more

  Posted on 31 August 2014 SOCIETY