milk and honey

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:11:54 -0500

Only Too True

‘Now, Julian, we don’t want a sermon,’ said Winifred. ‘You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish.’

I reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.

Barbara Pym, Excellent Women (1952)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:02:50 -0500

Skill nostalgia or Necessary Calibration?

This may resonate with some micro.bloggers: “The radical reasons why you dream of making things by hand”

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:26:59 -0500

Subsidiarity and Repair

Too many essays about [name your American institution (in this essay, it was scouting)] end with the same refrain: It isn’t what it used to be, so I’m leaving. Sometimes, that’s the right decision. Institutions can lose their way, and there are moments when fidelity to conscience requires us to walk away. But increasingly I wonder whether our first instinct has become departure rather than stewardship. Progressives are often criticized for believing institutions can simply be rebuilt from scratch. Yet conservatives sometimes make the opposite mistake: assuming that once an institution has changed, it is beyond salvaging. Both forget that institutions become what people make of them. Stated simply, institutions endure only when people remain long enough to preserve what is good and patiently reform what is not.

Can Scouting Still Raise Boys?, LuElla D’Amico, The Dispatch, July 6, 2026

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:55:40 -0500

Two from Cataggio

... imagining an idealized America that never actually existed and then getting mad that modern America doesn’t look more like it is basically Populism 101.
Postliberalism’s core conviction is that any policy problem can be solved with sufficient ruthlessness.

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:04:30 -0500

Archie through the grass

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:40:27 -0500

Finished reading

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford. A ripping plot, fascinating setting (London during the Blitz), spunky (to say the least) protagonist, and real themes about important things. I enjoyed it enormously.

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:25:32 -0500

from Colossal

Animals and Ornament Emerge from Felted Wool in Holly Guertin’s Textiles

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:06:45 -0500

No voice, but I removed my shoes just in case

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:12:21 -0600

RIP, Robert Coles

Here’s a sweet remembrance of Robert Coles, one of America’s great champions of children, written by one of my favorite photographers, Alex Harris. A Wikipedia article about Coles is here.

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:01:42 -0500

King Harvest

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:39:56 -0600

Vacation

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:58:49 -0600

Finished reading…

A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr.

Wonderful, wistful, lovely book. As economical as a poem.

“For goodness’ sake,” he said irritably, “I don’t mean that and you know I don’t, you cagey devil. I mean here, Oxgodby, the friends you’ve made, this marvelous summer, the splendid job you’ve done. I mean the lot. You can only have this piece of cake once, you can’t keep on munching away at it. Sad, but there it is!”

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:52:21 -0600

Rocks and Trees

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 10:24:31 -0600

The (Unofficial) Feast of GKC

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 16:18:41 -0600

Holy cow! I just love to hear the cicadas’ whirring/clacking. Sounds of summer in Texas.

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 18:20:06 -0600

June 6, 2026 - The Eighty-Second Anniversary of D-Day

I was in the backyard this evening just before 7 o’clock when a squall line blew through. In less than five minutes, the temperature dropped probably 10 degrees, the air — which had been heavy and muggy, a real swampy, soupy gravy — suddenly lightened and dried. The wind kicked up and the trees all whooshed and swayed in their tops. Seven or eight birds — just crows, I think — soared, wings spread to the max on the waves of air. The sky darkened. Not to the green light of tornado weather, but deep gray-blue. And something inside me absolutely vibrated with excitement and a kind of joy.

In five minutes the wind died. And… nothing happened. No rain. No thunder. No lightening. No wind.

But for those few minutes when it felt like a little charge, a little danger, a little excitement, like a little (or a lot of) weather was on the march, it was a happy, thrilling joy. Joy is perhaps too strong a word, but I cannot come up with anything more accurate. I prayed a thank-you prayer, and then came inside.

I am certain that were it not for Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry — their books and their poetry — I wouldn’t have noticed; I would have come inside too soon and missed that brief interlude of aliveness. Thank you, God, for their teaching.

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:47:53 -0600

“A Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew Walk Into a Bar”

Worth your time. Noah Eckstein, Harvard 2026:

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 18:06:47 -0600

“To Thine Own Self…” (Polonius was a real ass)

Jonah Goldberg

The older concepts of civic virtue emphasized self-mastery, conquering your impulses to serve a higher cause. Today’s politics treats self-mastery as suspect, a form of fakery or selling out, while asinine self-exposure is proof of depth and authenticity. The older republican tradition asked whether a man could govern himself before entrusting him with power. The new authenticity politics asks whether he seems sufficiently ungoverned to be trusted. [See, e.g., Graham Platner]

“Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law” is the line from “America the Beautiful.” That idea is a joke…, increasingly, in Washington.

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:02:23 -0600

Hello, Dahlia! Well, hello, Dahlia!

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:58:11 -0600

C’est vrai

A very David-French-y column (that’s a positive adjective in my personal dictionary):

In fact, as the show [Hacks] illustrates, concentrating on differences and even mutual interests is a bit beside the point. The question isn’t “How much are we alike?” Rather, it’s “Can I appreciate and even love the person you are?”

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:19:02 -0600

Here comes summer

Fri, 22 May 2026 08:51:04 -0500

This resonates

Matthew Crawford, via Damon Linker

Capital is concentrated to the point that it operates in quasi-governmental ways, abetted by ever more powerful information technology. Arguably, one of the most important functions of the (actual, elected) government, now, is precisely to restrain and regulate the explosion of unaccountable governmentality in our dealings with outsized commercial enterprises.

The World Beyond Your Head

Ah! If only…

Mon, 18 May 2026 19:23:35 -0500

Finished reading: Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford 📚

Praise him in all the postcodes, thinks Ben.
’______________________________________________________________________

Praise him on the commuter trains: praise him upon the drum and bass. Praise him at the Ritz: praise him in the piss-stained doorways. Praise him in nail bars: praise him with beard oil. Praise him in toddler groups: praise him at food banks. Praise him in the parks and playgrounds: praise him down in the Tube station at midnight. Praise him with doner kebabs: praise him with Michelin stars. Praise him on pirate radio: praise him on LBC and Capital: praise him at Broadcasting House. Praise him at Poundland: praise him at Harvey Nichols. Praise him among the trafficked and exploited: praise him in hipster coffee houses. Praise him in the industrial estates: praise him in leather bars. Praise him on the dancefloors: praise him on the sickbeds. Praise him in the high court of Parliament: praise him in the prisons and crack houses. Praise him at Pride: praise him at Carnival: praise him at Millwall and West Ham, Arsenal and Chelsea and Spurs. Praise him at Eid: praise him at High Mass: praise him on Shabbat: praise him in the gospel choirs. Praise him, all who hope: praise him, all who fear: praise him, all who dream: praise him, all who remember. Praise him in trouble. Praise him in joy. Let everything that has breath, give praise.

Wonderful. Highly recommend.

Thu, 14 May 2026 08:57:56 -0500

Guy Clark was right

Tue, 12 May 2026 11:02:08 -0500

Vitex (and a bee)