2,018 words
Marty Phillips
Let Them Look West
Jackalope Hill: 2021
Economics. Christian theology. State-level politics. Journalism. Wyoming History. One will learn a lot about each of these topics when reading Let Them Look West by Marty Phillips. But the novel is so much more than all this. (more…)
2,710 words
Do not believe the poster of this 1952 film. Do not. Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie, isn’t the pleasant, bubbly, Technicolor singfest that is promised, although the song with all its nostalgic sentiment is there. Its appearances, however, evoke sadness and regret, much like old family photos tend to.
The action begins in the 1890s aboard a train chugging to Chicago, carrying Ben Harper (David Wayne) and Nellie (Jean Peters). (more…)
2,756 words
Richard Lyman Bushman
The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century
New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018
Most of us who are not farmers are tempted to take farming for granted. We certainly see the results of farming in the produce sections of our supermarkets. Beyond that, we have pleasant images of industrious country folk in denim overalls just doin’ their thing amid amber waves of grain. (more…)
Stephen Quinlan, Casper, Wyoming, ca. 1960.
1,356 words
“Localism” is a favored tendency among paleoconservatives of the Rod Dreher variety. They dream of a politics rooted in small towns that just focus on their immediate surroundings. No national or international concerns intrude into the idyllic rural town. (more…)
1,358 words
The new COVID stimulus bill excludes white men from important government subsidies. There’s a farm aid provision that offers debt forgiveness exclusively to “socially disadvantaged” minority farmers — whites need not apply. There’s also restaurant aid that prioritizes woman- and minority-owned businesses; white men have to wait in the back of the line for assistance. (more…)
1,566 words
Kevin D. Williamson
Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the “Real America”
Washington, DC: Regnery, 2020
I suppose the author and publisher meant the title Big White Ghetto (etc.) to be eye-catching and amusing, (more…)
J. D. Vance.
2,212 words
There are many odd and irksome things about the new Hillbilly Elegy movie on Netflix. For my money, the strangest aspect of the production is that it has only a superficial resemblance to J. D. Vance’s 2016 book. It’s as though you were to make a movie of Moby-Dick, knowing only that it has a ship and a white spermaceti whale and a mad captain who stumps around on a peg-leg. (more…)