The Brass Spittoon frontporchrepublic

Longtime ghostwriter Nancy French tells her own tale in the Ghosted:  An American Life.  French was raised in rural Tennessee and would later provide the words behind famous talking heads but found her own enchanting voice amid political and personal tumult.   
Highlights
1:15                Mud pies for Parisians
6:00                Hillbillies on the run
9:30                Romney/Palin ‘08
11:00              Prison break with the Kardashians
13:30              Pulling political punches
20:00              Google University School of Journalism
27:30              French Holy Ghost revival
31:30              Befriending a critic
38:00              Laker girl
39:30              Trusting God with cancer
42:00              Back on the case
Resources
Nancy’s website and buy the book
John’s review
Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

Timothy Carney, an AEI senior fellow and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, talks about the village it takes to raise a child and the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) rise of “No Children Allowed” signs.
Highlights
2:30       A lively home and coffee shop
4:00       Trumpy Christians?
7:15       Find a secular van fam, win a free book!
16:30    Was Hillary right?
22:15    Trickling down to Fishtown?
29:30    House plans, town plans
36:30    Work from home
43:45    Childless for the planet or better by the trillion
54:00    Ponzi scheme or Korean contagion
57:00    The sporting life
Resources
Tim’s bio and buy the book
FPR at 15
Churchy Trump resistance column
Nancy Pearcey’s  “Common Good Men”
Korean “Child Free”Zones
Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state).   Bill Kauffman, author and regular conference closer, weaves Wisconsin professors of the past and the robo-umps of tomorrow into a seamless and side-splitting localist garment.  Rory Groves introduces the duo and ponders a porch free of PhDs.    
 
Highlights
1:30       Rory Groves, unlikely agrarian
Ashley Colby:  “Doomer Optimism: Life Adjacent to the Machine”
5:30       Adjacent, whether we like it or not
7:45       Donkey driving, mastodon ranching, hospitality boot camp
12:00    Alaskan laundries and cider-sipping city dwellers
Bill Kauffman:  “Off the Empire, On Wisconsin”
17:15    A thieving historian
22:00    Rural drama
26:00    Little things mean a lot
33:00    You’re out!
38:30    A midnight tale
 
Resources
Speaker bios and conference videos
FPR Books and bookshop
Conference co-sponsor Plough
Thanks to Wendell Kimbrough for our theme music

Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm.
Highlights
1:30       Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer
5:45       A monastic text
11:15    Man of letters
14:00    Pesto chango
15:30    Remote control
18:00    Growing pains
23:00    Lamb on the lam
27:15    The rest of the story
Resources
Buy the book
An excerpt at FPR
Brian’s farm and blog
Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer”

Adam Smith, a philosopher at the University of Dubuque, counterattacks the disenchanted War on Suffering.  FPR President Mark Mitchell goes biblical to bring down a heightened politics of insanity.  Brass Spittoon podcaster John Murdock looks at a key architect of religious politics and wonders what might happen if his blueprints were followed.  Gerald Ford groupie and FPR perfect attendance award winner Jeff Polet opens by reflecting on political goats.    
 
Highlights
Jeff Polet:  Introduction
1:30       Statistical sirens
3:00       Humane oxymorons
5:15       Dirty politics
6:15       Animal farm
9:45       Oh yeah, the intros!
Adam Smith: “The Politics of Reenchantment”
10:15    A reading from St. Aldo’s almanac
11:45    Frontlines in the War on Suffering
20:00    Enchanting politics with fairies and green fire
24:00    Institutionalizing flatness
31:00    Supernaturally small
Mark Mitchell: “Politics in Babel”
33:00    Towers trump?
38:00    Name callers
42:00    Crashing symbols
46:00    Abraham skips the bricks
47:15    Hope in failure
John Murdock: “Back to the Future of the Religious Right”
51:45    “The Poll” and holy holes
57:00    Franciscan biography
62:00    White and wrongs
66:00    The limits of integrity
69:00    Polyface politics and ravines made for walking
 
Resources
Speaker bios and conference videos
FPR Books and bookshop
Conference co-sponsor Plough
Thanks to Wendell Kimbrough for our theme music

Jeff Bilbro, FPR’s super-beaver EIC and Grove City College professor, looks to ancient mythology to assess modern technology and fiction of the future.  Cassandra Nelson of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture is stuck in the middle, a bit like AI itself.  Author, teacher, and mother Tessa Carman looks for life in abundance in Minnesota and Maryland.  Writer and Berry Center board member Kate Dalton Boyer introduces the speakers.
 
Highlights
1:00       Kate kicks things off
Jeff Bilbro:  “Where Now Are Wayland’s Bones?”
3:30       Kingsnorth and Norse smith explained
12:30    Tempted by ease and justice
15:00    AI amigos for the autonomous
19:00    Computerized convocations
22:00    Wise touch
Cassandra Nelson: “Median Humans and the Life That Really is Life”
26:00    Harboring a secret subtitle
29:15    A hallucinating average machine
34:30    M.A.D. results
41:00    Fancy tooters over computers
45:00    Against photocopies
Tessa Carman: “The Joy of Tech Resistance”
46:30    FPR Match Game
48:00    Manifestos and better tools
51:00    You don’t have to!
55:00    Postman knocks, people dance
63:00    Better names and best practices
 
Resources
Speaker bios and conference videos
Interview with Jeanne Schindler on Postman Pledge
FPR Books and bookshop
Conference co-sponsor Plough
Thanks to Wendell Kimbrough for our theme music