Craft should be useful

Making home is what we do, how we live, who we are. But for a while now I have been growing increasingly uneasy with craft for craft’s sake, or perhaps craft to relieve the acedia that is bound up with modernity.

Ishmael: Chapter 5

According to the beginning and middle parts of the story, humans have arrived on the planet and are ready to fulfill their destiny: the conquest is in full swing. So: how does it end?

Hands off…the future

The only good news I can give you is that we have the tools we need to slow down the rapid heating and give our civilizations a chance. Remarkable news came from Africa last week, where solar mini-grids are starting to roll out at scale, thanks to $30 billion in aid from the World Bank.

Appalachia, Country Music, and American Politics

We have much cause to worry but neither comfort nor clarity will come if we fixate on widening polarization, Constitutional crises, or warring cultures. Those maladies are symptoms of a more profound distress.

Six Reasons for Communitarian Living

Cobb Hill isn’t the only way to find these six things, thank goodness. You’ll find them in smaller groups and larger ones, in cities, in the tropics, on the coast. In this time of transition and reflection in my own family, I hope that knowing they exist in one place might make it easier for you to imagine (or create) them elsewhere, too.