Reviewed Elsewhere [Vol. 1, #37]
The full text of Gene Logsdon’s
agrarian parable “The Man Who Created
Foreword by Wendell Berry
http://organictobe.org/index.php/2008/09/02/the-man-who-created-paradise-by-gene-logsdon/
Gene Logsdon has recently released a web version of this classic, on his blog.
From the foreword by Wendell Berry:
“… This, then, is a story of two visions: one of disease, one of health. Or to put it another way, Gene Logsdon has had the generosity and the courage to allow a vision of Hell to call forth in himself its natural opposite. But can we properly dignify the story of Wally Spero by the term “vision,” or is it merely a reactionary fantasy? In my opinion, if you think this is merely a fantasy, you had better be careful. If you can look at the landscapes produced by strip mining without reacting toward some vision of the land restored, then you not only are looking at one of the versions of Hell; you are in it.
But can somebody really or “realistically” hope to accomplish what is accomplished in this story? Well, so far as I know, we don’t yet have an example of a whole new community sprouting from the spoil banks of a strip mine. But it is possible for one inspired man and an old bulldozer to make a creditable beginning, as Gene Logsdon knows, because he has seen it, as I have myself. … “
Read the full fable here:
http://organictobe.org/index.php/2008/09/02/the-man-who-created-paradise-by-gene-logsdon/
Gene Logsdon.
The Man Who Created
Hardcover.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $16] [ Amazon ]
“Learning Like a Christian”
The Other Journal Interviews
about Christianity and Education
http://www.theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=426
” HAUERWAS: …[T]he idea that you can separate economics from politics and create departments of economics and departments of political science that are separate from one another reinforces the presumption that economic relations are fundamentally relationships of exchange that don’t have anything to do with questions of the overarching and common good. Hence, this structure never leads you to the idea that human and social relations—whether they be of the economic or political sort—don’t have to function the way that they currently do. For example, the explanatory models for understanding relationships between nations and foreign policy in terms of balances of power write into those narratives the necessity of war so that you don’t even know how to begin to think of a world in which war is not a necessity. …”
Read the full review:
http://www.theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=426
The State of the University:
Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God
Paperback. Blackwell Academic. 2007.
Buy now from: [ Amazon ]
A review of The Option of Urbanism
by Christopher Leinberger.
http://americancity.org/magazine/article/pedestrianism-fact-and-fancy/
“In The Option of Urbanism, Christopher B. Leinberger aims to present a happy alternative to the usual apocalyptic accounts of urban sprawl and its consequences. This developer and professor of real estate at the University of Michigan suggests that walkable urbanism, which he defines as a type of settlement in which “you could satisfy most everyday needs … within walking distance from your home,” is absolutely attainable; we just have to choose it, like we chose “driveable sub-urbanism” in the ’50s and ’60s. He urges planners, architects, developers, and public officials to invest in this growing trend.
How did we find ourselves living in a world so averse to pedestrians? Leinberger locates the origins of postwar suburban development in media representations of the luxuriousness and ease of life outside the city. Spacious homes with large cars parked in the driveway, speeding to work on a super-highway, finally moving out of that inner-city walkup — these were the ideals that fueled the American Dream of the ’40s and ’50s. Yet, since the ’90s, American values have been undergoing a change. …”
Read the full review:
http://americancity.org/magazine/article/pedestrianism-fact-and-fancy/
The Option of Urbanism:
Investing in a New American Dream.
Christopher Leinberger.
Paperback. Island Press. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $21 ] [ Amazon ]
