Roughing It, Kinda
There was frost on the toilet seat. Not icicles, but frost—a micro-layer of crystalline sheen, the kind you can scrape off with a fingernail, but not a finger. But taking the time to scrape the frost off a seat in
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Suzy Homefaker
When my son was born, my wife and I decided that one of us should stay home with him. Because she makes more money than I ever did, I went from climbing the professional ladder to playing Chutes and Ladders.
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The Rurality of Hunting: A Consequence of…Agriculture
You know the old joke: A man goes fishing, and his wife packs him a lunch. He comes back angry, saying that she forgot to pack the lunch. She says, “I packed it in your tackle box.” The caricature of
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The Hidden Diversity of Rural America
The caricature of America includes a bunch of diverse metro areas strewn across an ethnic void of rural areas. The metros are oases of “culture” in the white-sand desert of Middle America. They’re islands of ethnicity in a sea of
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A Cashless Society? Not Out Here.
She trudged in the wet gravel, down the long driveway, in her shiny red galoshes. The dull red wagon rolled behind her, pressing tracks through the mud, its load of orange pumpkins quivering. The little ones bounced. As she approached
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Within Reach: The Myth of Unaffordable Housing
Be careful, fair readers—the Internet is full of some pretty bizarre stuff. Some of that stuff comes from an outfit called the National Low Income Housing Coalition. It’s okay to view on your work computer, but it’s bizarre, nonetheless. The
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Why All the Stoplights?
The light wasn’t turning. At least I was pretty sure, as the blizzard had spat snow on the red, yellow, and green circles, so the red light was more of a pink glow. The pastel pink seemed less commanding than
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For Fun: The Super-Duper Market (An Ode to Grocery Stores)
My wife lies to me. “I’m going to the grocery store!” she says. She takes a list. She even comes home with food. But she doesn’t go to the grocery store. She goes to the supermarket. There’s a difference. Because
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For Fun: The Rural Minimum
The logic behind minimum-wage laws can be baffling. Specifically, it ignores key differences between rural and urban areas. As I’ve written elsewhere, those differences include costs of living, but they also include, you know, how much work the workers do.
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Left Right Between: The Myths of Self-Sufficiency and Collectivism
The last article presented a case against socialism in favor of cooperation. This article outlines how that cooperation can look. Specifically, it argues against self-sufficiency, and for communities somewhere between socialism and self-sufficiency, or between the political Left and Right.
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Humans Evolved to Share—When They Know Each Other.
The political Left routinely reminds us that humans are social animals, and that we evolved to share resources in egalitarian groups. Fair enough. However, the Left sometimes uses that evolutionary past to justify socialism. That’s quite the evolutionary leap. The
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For Fun: A Small-Town-Diner View of Medicare for All
“I’ll have the country-fried steak breakfast scramble.” (Waiter scribbles.) “With a side of pancakes.” (Waiter scribbles again.) “And an extra egg.” (Waiter scribbles, then reaches into apron to grab another pen—the first one has gone dry.) “And a side of
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The Founders Emphasized States’ Rights, but the States Were the Size of Cities Today.
Our founding fathers intentionally limited the power of the federal government, fearing it was too big. Instead, they chose to defer most authority to the states. At that time, the entire country had fewer people than modern-day Cook County, Illinois.
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In Small Towns, “The Government” Doesn’t Exist.
In progressive cities, “The Government” is viewed as a curious hybrid of queen bee and sacred cow. In rural areas, though, “The Government” is considered a swarm of killer bees, or the running of the bulls. Why? Why are rural
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Friday Night Sights: Why Are People from Small Towns So Obsessed with High-School Football?
You can’t listen to country radio for long without hearing lyrics about a hometown football game. Football is king in rural areas. It’s a stereotype that holds up, and there are several good, logistical reasons why. The first reason boils
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For Fun: FDA Attacks Almond “Milk”; Is Peanut “Butter” Next?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to protect you from mistaking almond milk for cow milk. One immediately sees the urgency: almond milk can come from a cow, at least if a local 4H-er names her cow Almond.
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For Fun: Why Do Tiny Towns Have Three Diners but No Perkins?
Recently I was eating at a diner in a tiny town with someone from a metropolitan area. She said, simultaneously to everyone but no one in particular, “Don’t you just love places like this? I just love places like this.”
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Why Rural Americans Do Not Support a Federal Housing Subsidy
The more progressive wing of the Democratic Party has embraced housing as a human right. This sounds like a good idea—after all, it is the premise for Habitat for Humanity. Unlike Habitat for Humanity, though, how progressives execute their housing
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From Coasts to Countryside, There Can Be No Single Living Wage
“The current federal minimum wage is starvation pay and must become a living wage. We must increase it to fifteen dollars an hour over the next several years.” So says Bernie Sanders on his website, summarizing a common view within
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Tax-Deductible Gym Memberships? Maybe If You Live in a City.
Republicans want to make gym memberships tax-deductible. That idea won’t work out for rural Americans. Peter Suderman, in the libertarian magazine Reason, has highlighted how the GOP wants to incentivize exercise via the tax code. He outlines how the GOP
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