My wife Marilyn has a thing about Anthony Bourdain. It’s not a celebrity crush, exactly. She says she wants to be him when she grows up. And who can blame her? The guy has a pretty extraordinary gig, wandering the world, exploring cultures and conflicts, with food and as a focal point and an extended cultural metaphor. The May 20 […]
Crumbling Colossus
Looks like the punditry is catching up to a principle that underpins The Running Iron Report’s worldview: The Imperial Colossus is just too damn big. In a May 11 op-ed in The New York Times, sociology professor Neil Gross notes that: Last month the Pew Research Center released a poll showing that Americans are losing faith in their system of […]
The Widening Gyre, Berlin Edition
My wife Marilyn and I have spent evenings of late in the weird and wild metropolis that was Berlin in 1929. After being besieged by rave reviews from people I respect, we fired up the Netfix and dived into Babylon Berlin, the international hit German TV series. It’s supposedly the most expensive production in German history, and it […]
Nannies Run Amok
My life was shaped by tramping through forests, mountains and deserts. That may be an exceptional thing for someone who grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the latter half of the 20th century, but it is true. When I was 3–1/2 years old, my little sister Cathie was born with severe cerebral palsy. She would […]
Becoming Native To Your Place — Metro Edition
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Rick Schwertfeger of Austin Texas. Rick is an outdoorsman, a historian and a contributor at FrontierPartisans.com. This article is inspired by Running Iron Report’s Craig Rullman, and his righteous, passionate initiative to become native to the lands and animals of his Figure 8 Ranch. As an outdoorsman who has lived […]
True Myths & Mythic Truths
Last week I went to Port Townsend, Washington, for some “executive training,” since I’ve taken on full management responsibilities at the paper where I work — the revenue side as well as the content side. During our session, each of the participants was invited to make a one sentence statement about what makes us tick. I did not miss […]
Dispatches From The Wasteland — No. 2
• Chemical atrocity. The Syrian government allegedly unleashed another chemical attack on its own people last weekend. Russia is warning of “most serious consequences” if the U.S. strikes Syria over the attack. Get the feeling that we’re walking along the crumbling edges of an abyss? From the New York Times: BEIRUT, Lebanon — Dozens of Syrians choked to […]
The Circle Of Trust
I like big things: Big mountains; vast swaths of desert; endless forests lorded over by towering, majestic trees. Big steaks. Big-bored blackpowder rifles that make a big boom and a tremendous cloud of white smoke. A big, steaming mug of coffee on a chilly morning. Big books. But big human organizations suck. A great many of modern civilization’s discontents can […]
Repair As Rebellion
“…When fixing items is actively discouraged by manufacturers, repair becomes a political act.” — Stuart Ward, repair café volunteer My grandfather made his own electric lawn mower out of a pair of scrap metal blades and a washing machine motor that he pulled out of one of the machines at an apartment complex he owned, and repaired. One of […]
A Relic Of The 18th Century
“…Demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.” — Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens I have been naïve. My temperament has always bent toward seeking common ground — the Willie Nelson ethic of bringing the cowboys and the hippies together. I have opined multiple times in the newspaper […]
The Myth Of Rugged Individualism
No matter how a man alone ain’t got no bloody fucking chance. — Ernest Hemingway, To Have And Have Not On March 1, 2017, I did something dumb. Call it an error of judgment. The winter had been hellacious: Unusually cold and one heavy snowstorm after another. We were measuring the stuff in feet, not inches. The weather warmed […]
A Lighthouse And A Field Hospital
Recognition was a long time a‑borning. Not the recognition that something is deeply, profoundly wrong with American culture and society — and that of the West generally. That has been easy enough to perceive for, well … decades. It’s only been in the past few years that I have been forced to reckon with a hard truth: What’s broken […]
