Architecture, the Public Realm, and Small-Town America

Returning to North Judson typically leads to my resuming a favored pastime, to wit, engaging in crosstown perambulations that usually lead me to no destination other than, ultimately, home, the starting point of these jaunts. In such an eminently walkable small town where I know as many citizens as I do, these generally prove to [...]

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s [...]

Bookbag: Property, Community, and the Good Life

Private property promotes individual good to the degree that it enables individuals to thrive. Secure property helps individuals live “a fully human life,” as legal scholar Joseph William Singer has put it:
Access to material resources is a precondition, not only of subsistence, but of the capacity to shape one’s life, to create a home, to [...]

Christmas Goodies

Though a subscriber to their nightly e-mail, I’m not always the biggest fan of the LewRockwell.Com cabal — they’re good, well-meaning folks, I think, but misguided, I believe, in their adherence to Austrian economics, which, John Médaille has noted from Mises’ own words, is incompatible with (Catholic) Christianity. However, they often offer some first-rate material, [...]

Welcome to the world, Hazel Mae Iafrate!

Emily Iafrate, wife of Michael, of Catholic Anarchy, gave birth, today, to Hazel Mae — 6 lb. 10 oz., 20 in., born 1:43pm, lots of hair. Congratulations to, and God bless, them all.

Live-web-logging, so I don’t have to

Massie

McArdle

Klein
Larison
< Sullivan

The Hobbesian-Hamiltonian curse

Robert Higgs: “The people who ratified the original Constitution never intended the presidency to be a powerful office spawning “great men.” Article II, Sections 2-4, which enumerate the powers of the president, comprise but four paragraphs, most of which deal with appointments and minor duties.”
The founders who ratified the Constitution, of course, were idiots. [...]

How I’m spending Saturday afternoon

Goooooooooooooo Irish!

Go Irish!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeet Aztecs!

Beat Aztecs!

My new favorite web-log is disastrously sweet.

Cake Wrecks

Sullivan on Libertarianism

“Libertarianism does not mean refusing to understand the consequences of our choices in a free society. It’s about allowing those choices to take place.” I’m, of course, not really a libertarian, but I have strong sympathies, and I think this passage, pretty succinctly, provides at least a potential justification for the libertarian(-ish) orthodox Catholic.