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3 weeks ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Carter Johnson
Every freshman is required to take boxing at the Virginia Military Institute. I had the particular misfortune to have been registered—not by choice of course—for the 8 a.m. section. After rushing to formation and getting yelled at during breakfast, I’d hurry to change out of my uniform and make it to class. I’d slip on the gloves and quietly move onto the mat. As we started throwing jabs, I felt the pancakes shift in my stomach.
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4 weeks ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Nadya Williams
It is 19:00 hours on a Friday, and the family barber is reporting for duty. I’m the family barber. It started five years ago, during the pandemic lockdown. Since Great Clips was closed for a while—and then reopened with a masking mandate—my husband, who was not interested in growing out his hair then or ever, asked me to trim it. What to do? There were, to be sure, creative DIY solutions available.
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1 month ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Dixie Dillon Lane
Three ash trees once grew in the parking lot next to my childhood home. The first of the three was useless to me, as its lowest branch was far too high to climb. The second had branches more amenable to my purposes, and I climbed them occasionally for a change of pace. But the third—the middle tree in the line of three—was perfect for climbing in every way. The branches began low and were balanced, circling like a staircase up to a high open hand.
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1 month ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | John Murdock
The longtime editor-in-chief of World magazine discusses the Zenger Prize, his new gig at Christianity Today, the temptations of conservative politics (compassionate or otherwise), and his memoir Pivot Points. Highlights1:00 Aspiring galactic editor and globe trotter5:45 Street level reporting v. suite level pontification15:15 BREAKING: Flatwater Free Press on the Zenger Prize long list 18:00 Welcome to the jungle . . .
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1 month ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Marvin Olasky
Zenger House has announced its twelve 2025 awards for ground-level reporting. The winning stories are all excellent, but none emerged primarily from the ground-level reporting of local journalists. I chair Zenger House and am one of the five judges of the prizes, now in their fourth year.
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2 months ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Dixie Dillon Lane
It was Thursday night, and I really didn’t want to go to book club. “I really don’t want to go to my book club,” I told my friend Nadya in a message. “I’m so tired. I think I should probably just stay in.”Three little dots told me Nadya was thinking, and I had a suspicion I wouldn’t like what she would write: “It matters that you said you would go. Saying you would go means something.”And so of course, I went.
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2 months ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Alex Sosler
I’m not very good at paying attention. My wife would say you either are paying attention or you aren’t. “Not very good” isn’t a category for attention. At least I think that’s what she says. I’m usually not listening. “Paying” is an interesting word to describe attention. It’s a costly language—like love. It takes discipline and work, comes with costs and obligations. The French philosopher Simone Weil once wrote, “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.
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2 months ago | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Nadya Williams
Over the past few years, I have seen a number of debates and research studies critically evaluating the different mediums in which people consume books in the twenty-first century: Reading on paper versus reading on screens (e.g., iPad or Kindle) versus listening to audiobooks. In the case of reading on screens, at least, everyone agrees that this still constitutes reading—albeit there is plenty of science now to explain why this kind of reading is inferior to reading on paper.
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Feb 14, 2025 | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Matt Miller
Branson, Missouri. I guess I always thought there would be a homecoming. Fifteen years ago, I moved from my home state of Nebraska to Missouri to go to graduate school. Fifteen years later, in Missouri I remain. I probably should not be as surprised by this development as I am. I came to Missouri to complete a master’s and then a PhD, and I was never so naive as to think that an academic career was a ticket back to my sparsely populated home state.
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Feb 7, 2025 | 
frontporchrepublic.com | Ethan Jones
A new year. New opportunities. As a professor, the turn of the year means new students, new schedules, and new lectures. With all these changes, not much is certain. But I’m confident in one thing for the spring semester: conversations about AI will rage. I have little interest, or expertise, in evaluating the latest developments. I do have concern, though. Maybe more than concern. Maybe something more like a pebble in the heel of my shoe.