If we’re going to pick our favorite posts from the last three years for this League Journal, we’re going to have to remember what was posted in that time. I’ve been making my way through 2010 and I can say that these were some of my favorite posts of 2010. Now, via the comments, we can start winnowing them down to about ten… or, at least, reminiscing about the good old days back when we whiled away the hours talking about peasant food and Red Tories. Feel free to make more suggestions for 2010 if I missed something great. Ahem! In reverse chronological order:
December 2010.
E.D. Kain: “The Death of Custom and the Rise of Nationalism in the Post-colonial State“.
D.A. Ridgelely: “Some Noise about Signals, Education, & Other Likely Stories“.
Lisa Kramer: “I Suppose the Political is Personal Too“.
Jason Kuznicki: “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Blogger“.
E.D. Kain: “Limits and Liberty“.
Tony Comstock: “On Consumerism, Living the Dream, and Hope“.
E.C. Gach: “Exceptionalism, Imperialism, and the Necessity of ‘Closed Systems‘”.
November 2010.
Jason Kuznicki: “The Remnant“.
William Brafford: “Ludwig und Yeezy“.
Rufus F.: “The Aura of Expertise“.
J.L. Wall: “Springsteen’s America Versus Reagan’s America“.
John Rowe: “The Christian Nation Controversy“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Armistice Day“.
J.L. Wall: “Ezra Pound and the Worthlessness of War“.
Rufus F.: “Quote for Today“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Western Culture is so Wonderful“.
October, 2010.
Will: “Secret Socialism“.
J.L. Wall: “Broken Culture, Broken Politics“.
William Brafford: “Empty Days“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Gay Teen Suicides“.
Ned Resnikoff: “Whose Fault is Generation Me?”
Jason Kuznicki: “Anomie Domine“.
David Schaengold: “A Communist Thesis“.
Rufus F.: “The Trouble with the Culture Wars“.
September, 2010.
Mark Thompson: “Homogenization and the State“.
Lisa Kramer: “Liberalism is elitism“.
Austin Bramwell: “Defiling our Beloved G.K. Chesterton“.
David Schaengold: “In Defense of Chesterton“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Roads, Serfdom“.
Rufus F.: “Harlan County USA“.
E.D. Kain: “On Conservatism and Such“.
August, 2010.
David Schaengold: “The Mosque and the Meta-debate“.
Matthew Schmitz: “Erotic Capital“.
Lisa Kramer: “From the Land of Pleasant Living“.
Scott Payne: “This is America! An Interview with Aziz Poonawalla on the Cordoba House Project“.
E.D. Kain: “Hippies with iPhones“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Perry, Hayek, and Immanent Critique“.
July, 2010.
E.D. Kain: “Joy, Purpose, and the hard work of Parenting“.
David Schaengold: “Everything is Always about the Culture War“.
E.D. Kain: “Toward a Positive Conservatism“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Managed Ignorance“.
Mark Thompson: “Liberaltarianism Again“.
Mark Thompson: “The US: A Special Case for Open Borders“.
Mark Thompson: “What Liberals Want: An Interview with Freddie deBoer“.
Rufus F.: “Notes Toward a Confucian Politics“.
June, 2010.
David Schaengold: “We need to use less oil so we can keep using oil longer“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Weasel Stomping Day“
Lisa Kramer: “Work, as a financial reality: The Lesson of Norma Rae“.
Lisa Kramer: “The South, Realignment, and the Consistency of Political Parties“.
E.D. Kain: “Toward an Organic Society“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Eve Tushnet in the New York Times“.
May, 2010.
Jason Kuznicki: “Liberaltarianism as a Disposition“.
Will: “The Conservative Disposition“.
Mark Thompson: “Once more into the Libraltarian Breach“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Why this and not that?“
Jason Kuznicki: “The Idiocy of Rural Food“.
E.D. Kain: “Red Families & Blue Families“.
Chris Dierkes: “Response to Jason: Are Christianity and Homosexuality Reconcilable?”
Jason Kuznicki: “My Life is the Poem I would have Scrawled on the Men’s Room Wall“.
Scott H. Payne: “How can Love function as a Political Concept?“
Mark Thompson: “Geography, Politics, and Arrogance“.
April, 2010.
E.D. Kain: “Folk Wisdom and the Tyranny of Experts“.
E.D. Kain: “Arizona and the failure of the Right“.
E.D. Kain: “Folkways and knowledge“.
E.D. Kain: “Protecting the Music Industry from those Pesky Consumers“.
Chris Dierkes: “(Political) Myths Doesn’t Equal Unreal“.
Chris Dierkes: “Holy (and Wholly Misunderstood) Saturday“.
Jason Kuznicki: “A 4/20 Reminder“.
Jason Kuznicki: “The Price of Bibles“.
March, 2010.
Rufus F.: “The Polls and the Polis“.
Matthew Schmitz: “Talking about Rohmer“.
Chris Dierkes: “There is no Plan B for Mideast Peace (and why we need one)“.
Chris Dierkes: “Brief Explanation of the Meaning of Resurrection“.
Jason Kuznicki: “The Next Step“.
E.D. Kain: “The Case Against Teaching Math“.
Jason Kuznicki: “For Non-Blonds“.
Chris Dierkes: “Blond with Sandel(s)“.
David Schaengold: “Blond at Georgetown II“
Will: “Blond at Georgetown“.
Matthew Schmitz: “My Problem with St. Patrick’s Day“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Truth without Falsification“.
February, 2010.
Will: “Friendship and Civic Virtue“.
Jason Kuznicki: “Why I hate Politics“.
E.D. Kain: “The Politics of Pettiness”.
Scott H. Payne: “Living in the Love of the Common People“.
David Schaengold: “The Architecture of Modernity and the Joy of Science“.
David Schaengold: “The Banal Sublimity of Martin Scorsese“.
Rufus F.: “Bach BWV 82“.
Rufus F.: “Notes on Populism“.
E.D. Kain: “A modest proposal for childhood obesity“.
January, 2010.
Will: “In Defense of Holden Caulfield“.
Mark Thompson: “We Hate Big Government, Except when we don’t“.
Will: “Marginalizing Extremists, at Home and Abroad“.
Will: “The Age of Ideological Uncertainty“.
E.D. Kain: “Culture is everything (well, almost everything)“.
Mark Thompson: “Sacrificing Ideology at the Altar of Culture“.
Scott H. Payne: “Further Adventures in the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations“.
E.D. Kain: “Writing as Conversation“.
Scott H. Payne: “Can you imagine if an Obama effigy were hung from a noose?’ and Other Thoughts on Modern Politics“.
Every time I read one of Kuznicki’s, I said “oooh, I like this one more than the last one!” If I had to pick ONE, I’d pick either Truth Without Falsification, The Next Step, or A 4/20 Reminder (but I don’t know if I picked that last one so I could say “you know who else remembered 4/20!!!” so let’s just go with those first two).
For Kain, I liked Red Families, Blue Families and Folk Wisdom and the Tyranny of Experts.
For Thompson, We Hate Big Government, Except When We Don’t and Once More into the Liber-al-tarian Breach were fun (Thompson’s September post was written by Kain, though).
I loved your Harlan County, USA, The Polls and the Polis, and The Trouble with the Culture Wars posts.
Ridgley’s Some Noise About Signals, Education & Other Likely Stories was downright precient, wasn’t it? Damn. I have to vote for that one too.
Payne’s Living in the Love of the Common People was really, really good too…
The Architecture of Modernity & the Joy of Science was a great intro from Schaengold (whatever happened to him?)
I also enjoyed pretty much everything Kraemer wrote, but if I had to pick one thing, Liberalism is Elitism would be it.
And I should stop lest my comment look ever more like your post.Report
I’m with you on Schaengold, Payne, and Ridgeley, and just realized I should have searched Hanley by name too. I’ll see what he had in 2010.Report
My preference is going to be for posts that are less topical and more universal. So….
Starting with the obvious one(IMHO), the Lisa Kramer piece on the personal and political is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing ever put up on this site.
The Kuznicki posts you selected were well-chosen. I especially love the Armistice Day post and the Truth Without Falsification post. And, of course, the Managed Ignorance post is legend.
The JL Wall Springsteen/Reagan post is fantastic. But I would say that.
For our fearless leader, Mr. Kain: Limits and Liberty; Homogenization and the State(not my post) are both quite good. Red Families, Blue Families is excellent, and Blogging as Conversation is almost a mission statement for this site.
Scott Payne’s (not my) interview with Freddie is a good candidate- no anthology of this site would be complete without a Scott Payne interview.
For Will, I like the Age of Ideological Uncertainty
Schaengold’s Architecture and Modernity piece
Dierkes’ resurrection piece
Your Polls and the Polis and Harlan County USA posts are excellent
For my own contributions, “Once More Into The Liberaltarianism Breach” and “Sacrificing Ideology at the Altar of Culture” are my favorites, though I’m also proud of the back and forth with Erik on Geography and Politics.Report
It’s funny- ever since I first had this idea, Lisa Kramer’s piece on the personal and the political was the first post on my mind. I do hope we can track her down and get her permission.
You also had the same choices as me for Schaengold and Wall.
I agree with you and Jaybird about Kain’s pieces although I’d like to vote for his post on fatherhood as well.Report
Aye- what she lacked in quantity, she made up for by a factor of 1000 in quality.Report
Also – between your selections here and my ongoing project to do the same for 2009, I’m recalling how much I loved Chris Dierkes’ writings on theology, which should say a lot given my agnostic/atheistic leanings. If only the man could have been better at coming up with post titles (do NOT get Will started on that topic!)…
He has a piece that I thought was 2010, but now realize was 2009 on The Meaning of Water and Wine (which even has a good title!) that is permanently burned into my memory.Report
I’m a big, big fan of Truth Without Falsification.
This is *really* hard, by the way. Damn you and your good idea, Rufus.Report
Rufus, the amount of research-energy that went into this reveals a labor of love! I wish I could make suggestions, but I wasn’t around back then.
Also, what ever happened to T. Comstock? I conversed with him only once about ‘rainy day money’ and never saw him here again. I feel some guilt that maybe I drove him off.Report
Ah, maybe he’s sailing around the world. I think he’s got a twitter account somewhere that he’s busy with. I always liked his point of view.
Thanks for the kind words. It was definitely time consuming, but very enjoyable to read through the old posts, and certainly induced plenty of nostalgia.
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Or, conversely, he’s just joined the staff here! Talk about asking and receiving.Report
I just wanted to pop in and say Damn! I hate the fact that this site is blocked from work. That’s been the case for, oh, maybe a year or more now. I miss the conversation here (though not quite enough to show up on nights/weekends, apparently. In my defense, I do have a 2 year old).
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Oh yeah, two year olds will do that.Report
Workplaces block us? Is that because of all the incoming searches for midget porn?Report
Oddly enough, I was once blocked for a solid month or so because my filter software had this place classified as porn. I blame Will. Erik was eventually able to bash enough heads in the software industry to get my access restored.
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Yeah, I thought it was odd too, but this isn’t the only “clearly non-porn” site blocked. Anything that ends in “blogspot” gets blocked, for instance. I think if it’s tagged “blog” in any way, it triggers the filter. This site is ordinary-gentlemen/blog. That’ll do it.Report
And Rufus, thanks for this.Report
Oh, it was my pleasure.Report
From my own posts my favorites are as follows:
“Profession of Faith,” which explains better how I think about public intellectualism than anything else I’ve ever written.
“Perry, Hayek, and Immanent Critique,” provided that we strike the first three paragraphs.
“Anomie Domine.” If not this one, my third absolutely must be a dialogue.
“The Price of Bibles” makes little sense in isolation from the rest of the conversation where it came up.Report
One of your dialogues absolutely needs to be in any anthology.
I, personally, will insist on Managed Ignorance, if only because I liked it so much that the phrase became a permanent part of my lexicon.Report
I wouldn’t want to include this post in the anthology, but I do think the best title I’ve ever written is “My Life Is the Poem I would Have Scribbled on the Men’s Room Wall.”Report
Agreed on both counts.Report
Jason, I’ve also thought of the profession of faith post as one that has to be in the anthology, almost from the beginning; and I agree that there needs to be at least one of your dialogues in there.Report
I’ve struck a bunch of the titles from the record. This is still tough.Report