Great news -- Culture11.com has launched! It's the new Slate-ish site for conservatives, put out by our friends David Kuo, James Poulos and others. I'm really excited about it. I'm a contributor to Culture11, and have begun with an essay about the existential dread urban agrarianism sparks; it's called "My Chicken Problem -- and Ours." Excerpt:
"I don't get your attitude," Julie said to me. "You're supposed to be the crunchy conservative, right? So why are you so against chickens?"
She had a point. I'm the guy who wrote a book about how contemporary conservatives have lost touch with the natural world, especially with how we raise and prepare our food. Crunchy Cons called on the Right to rebel against the bland, mass-production consumer economy. And that includes supporting small farming, farmer's markets, and suchlike.
So why, my wife wanted to know, was I so unnerved by the prospect of getting a few chickens for our backyard? "I want us to be a house that not only consumes, but produces," she said, making her case emphatically. I couldn't disagree with any of it. Compounding the mystery of my resistance, I grew up in the country, around chickens and other farm animals, and with a big vegetable garden every summer. Julie is a child of the suburbs. Farming and gardening is new to her, and she loves it. It's not new to me at all, and I love it in theory, but....
Read the whole thing. It's basically Woody Allen meets Junior Samples.
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What Mike just said. It was as if he were channelling Wendell Berry, especially in his third paragraph. As I dab my eyes a bit with the corners of one of Dave Letterman's index cards, I recall an old line from his NBC days: "We were tired - but it was a good kind of tired."
And I hope to heaven Alicia's mention of Jean de Florette triggers you all to watch it, and especially its sequel, Manon des Sources (Manon of the Spring), which haunts me even more. Beauty at its purest - and not just for the Blakean divinity of seeing Emmanuelle Béart bathing in a brook...*
*from Songs of Innocence promptings, I promise, not from my Dark Satanic Mills...
Beautiful piece, Rod. It really hit home. Thank you. I'll definitely bookmark Culture 11.
The Spinal Tap reference occurred to me, too. It's certainly cheerier than thinking 11 refers to "the eleventh hour."
Ok, Rod. Have it your way. But I STILL WISH YOU'D GROW A SPINE.
You are the guy in charge... You choose what you allow and what you don't. But for some reason, it seems you're perfectly willing to smile and never comment on people who come here and declare conservatism a character defect, or that all conservatives are racist, etc.
You allow the most personally insulting, denigrating, and offensive liberal steretypes to go unchallenged, uncensored. The whole of beliefnet seriously challenges my ability to remain even slightly calm, with it's endless repetition, aimed personally DIRECTLY at people who believe as I do, with the most UN Christian and UN kind and IN tolerant language, implications, and outright accusations, along with the standard aforementioned "stereotypical assumptions".
With few exceptions, even the blog owners here would NEVER pass my mother's "sniff test". She'd say that people who engage in that kind of talk about others are ... well, let's say it's not good.
Am I abrasive? Sure. I used to be the most diplomatic and kind and "understanding" of debaters, until I realized that I was being nice to people who hate my guts with a deadly passion. They wished I was dead, and some have even threatened to attempt that end...
Why should conservatives bother being "nice"? Liberals do not. They hate, with unending, unabashed, and unapologetic vehemence all who do not conform to their orthodoxy. They seem to consider disagreement personal affront. They don't just want their ideas to win, they want to defeat others and force themselves and their dogma upon them.
But let me guess at what you got all bothered about... Your comments about Hillary and if she'd been this way, she'd get elected kind of comment.
Rod, that is the most incredibly INFURIATING insult thrown at the American people I have read in a long time. And from you? How could you? Hillary lies. She's shallow. She's arrogant. She's utterly out of touch. She's a self-important and presumtuous lib. And to think that if she'd just have better packaging and be more "on the attack" she should or would win the hearts of the people? What KIND of people? Anyone who falls for that, or is PRESUMED to fall for it? That's an insult!
Nothing said at the DNC convention is ANYTHING BUT AN INSULT. We know they're dishonest, we know they're self-serving politicians, with nil for real human concerns governing their decisions and statements and even policy ramblings.
We laugh at Obama's shallow emptiness. And then presume that the public in general can't see it. How insulting to the public.
So, I dare you. Raise the level if you wish. But RAISE IT. Really raise it. Grow a spine. Tell the libs "this is right, this is wrong, walk this way." If you don't want mud flung, don't fling it. Tell EVERYONE what the real standards are, and then STICK TO THEM for all.
Apply serious judgement, Rod. It's good to know you're at least reading, though. I just wish you had some real stones in your gut. Go forth and do battle, fearlessly. Got it?
Glad to see some fans of "Good Neighbors" over here!
Remember the episode where Tom's chicken gets away? He chases it through the neighborhood, and catches up to it just in time to see it step onto a bus--pure comedy gold! But it gets serious many, many times, as the Goods face one setback after another, addressing issues Rod raised about fear of looking foolish and failing to live out one's convictions.
Maybe if the urban farming trend takes hold in Dallas, our PBS affiliate will run it again, with Rod and his associate J at the newspaper leading the campaign to get it back on the air.
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