Russellarbenfox

LATEST ARTICLES ( 606 )

• Songs of '83: "Come On Eileen"

  

  Shooting up the Billboard charts 40 years ago this week, right behind "Billie Jean" (and right ahead of Michael Jackson too; this song eventually landed for... Read more

  Posted on 30 January 2023 SOCIETY

• Songs of '83: "Billie Jean" (Also: Michael Jackson, MTV, and the Year Some...

  

  Forty years ago yesterday, Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," the second single off his early-80s-defining album Thriller, entered the Billboard chart. By March i... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2023 SOCIETY

• The 10 Best Books I Read in 2022

  

  The ten best--most enjoyable, most thought-provoking, most edifying, most question-raising, most fun--books I read this past year, in alphabetical order by... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2022 SOCIETY

• The 10 Best Movies I Watched in 2022

  

  As always, the movies which I watched in 2022, whether they were released this year or not, that I thought the best and/or that I got the most out of, in... Read more

  Posted on 29 December 2022 SOCIETY

• Blame Christmas

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Towards the end W.H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, written 80 years ago, Auden gives an imaginative... Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2022 SOCIETY

• Justice and Inclusion: From Isaiah’s Pen to Our Eyes and Ears

  

  [Cross-posted to Religious Socialism. A version of this post originally appeared on By Common Consent]Back in 2014, I embarked on a read of the complete Old... Read more

  Posted on 23 December 2022 SOCIETY

• Bono, Christian Neoliberal (but Also, Perhaps, a Little Bit More)

  

  [I was asked to write about Bono's memoir for Current; my review is here, but, as usual, I've posted my longer version here, as a Christmas gift to U2 haters an... Read more

  Posted on 22 December 2022 SOCIETY

• Friendly Disagreements with Justice Stegall (A Continuing Series)

  

  [This is an expanded version of a column of mine making the rounds here in Kansas; as usual, I pretentiously felt I needed more space to make my point... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2022 SOCIETY

• Thoughts on Reading (and Being Surprised By) Isaiah

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Back in 2014, I embarked on a read of the complete Old Testament, with a close focus on the text. Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2022 SOCIETY

• Planning and "The Politics of Beauty": Reflections on Stewart Udall

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] John de Graaf, an author, filmmaker, and friend of Front Porch Republic, has recently completed a documentary tribute to ... Read more

  Posted on 11 November 2022 SOCIETY

• Wondering About a (Highly Unlikely, But Not Inconceiveable) Local Wave

  

  At the Great Plains Political Science Association annual conference held last weekend at Wichita State University, four political observers--three of them... Read more

  Posted on 02 November 2022 SOCIETY

• Two Voices for Evan McMullin

  

  [I've written about the intriguing Mike Lee-Evan McMullin Senate race in Utah before, and it's not hard to figure out where someone like me would stand in such ... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2022 SOCIETY

• Back to the Bottom-Line (Apocalyptically and Practically Speaking) at the Land...

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]The cabin pictured here, both with its original inhabitant and with some of my students and I standing in front of it, is ... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2022 SOCIETY

• On Philosophy, Religion, Nazis, Conservatives, Leftists, Damon Linker, and Me

  

  [Damon Linker--pundit, author, oft-infuritating centrist, and all-around great human being--recently lost his father, and is taking a break from his Substack... Read more

  Posted on 04 October 2022 SOCIETY

• What Emporia (and Kansas) Has Lost

  

  [Two weeks ago, Emporia State University President Ken Hush pushed through a plan that allowed him to engage in a devastating "restructuring" of this small,... Read more

  Posted on 28 September 2022 SOCIETY

• A Comic (But Not Comical) Take on Mormon History

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent] As an intellectually-inclined, book-obsessed, life-long member of the Mormon Church, I have read many histories of my... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2022 SOCIETY

• Biden's "Soul of the Nation" Speech, Take 2

  

  [This is a rewritten version of a post of mine from two weeks ago, which this morning appears on the website Current. My thanks to Eric Miller for editing and... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2022 SOCIETY

• On Constitutions, Democracy, Fascism, and Biden's Big Plea

  

  "It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire [extreme MAGA] philosophy that underpins [it]….it’s like semi-fascism."Biden did not say those words in his “Soul of the... Read more

  Posted on 02 September 2022 SOCIETY

• A Random Thought on Mikey Kaus

  

  A few days ago Robert Farley, of Lawyers, Guns Money, posted the latest entry in his wonderful "Oral History of the Blogosphere" project, this one focusing... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2022 SOCIETY

• Seven Theses on Kansas, "Popularism," and Value Them Both

  

  Well, my predictions from yesterday were wrong (mostly; I was still right about Kris Kobach getting the Republican Attorney General nomination). Read more

  Posted on 03 August 2022 SOCIETY