Finding Our Hope in the Beauty of America

"The next time the urge to consume and to be entertained attacks, take it for a drive to a place of beauty."

 

Tillamook County, Oregon

The American Spectator  "Every month, my work takes me driving on country roads through the Amish country of eastern Ohio in Holmes, Coshocton, and Tuscarawas Counties. I look forward to it, except if the weather is bad and those roads pose a challenge. It is beautiful in a very specific way. The country vistas soothe the eye wherever one might be. But the way that the people inhabit the land is a part of the beauty that is so consistently present for me when I am there.

"One my way east from my home in southwestern Ohio, I see the great corn and bean farms on the flat expanses mid-state, far away from the bluffs that lead down to the Ohio River along its long course and away from the edges of Appalachia in the south and the mid- and southeast.

"In those prairie lands, the farms are on a giant scale, the farmhouses far apart, and the machinery that works the land is huge and costs hundreds of thousands to buy. The country roads are quiet, and few people are to be seen, save those zipping somewhere enclosed in their vehicles.

"These farms are awesome. They are efficient and competitive and have fed and continue to feed far more than doomsaying economists ever believed possible, and have led the way in making the world less plagued by famine than at any time in history. And yet, there is a beauty that once was present in these lands that is now gone.

"That beauty has to do with scale. The scale in Holmes is of a different order. Farmhouses are not so far away from each other that a short walk or a loud shout can reach a neighbor." . . .

10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2021

FIRE  "Every year since 2011, FIRE has published a list of the worst colleges for free speech in America. As always, each year’s “worst of the worst” list is presented in no particular order, and they include both public and private institutions. Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment; the private colleges on these lists, though not required by the Constitution to protect student and faculty speech rights, explicitly promise to do so.

"Starting in 2018, FIRE also began awarding a Lifetime Censorship Award as part of these annual lists. This “honor” goes to the one college or university that is so frequently discussed as a contender for our annual worst colleges for free speech list that it deserves special recognition. DePaul University was the inaugural recipient in 2018 and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute earned the award in 2020. Lifetime Censorship Awards are not given out every year — only in those years where there is a particularly worthy recipient.

Rittenhouse responds to ASU protestors: ‘I’m going to ASU… in person’   After demands from Arizona State University students that Kyle Rittenhouse – the now-18-year-old who was acquitted of all charges brought against him when he defended himself against rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin – be banned from going to ASU, Rittenhouse himself issued a simple response: “I’m going.” 

"In an interview with conservative commentator Steven Crowder, Rittenhouse touched on the “very, very small” ASU student protest against him, calling him a “white supremacist killer,” declaring that, despite the students opposition to him, he still plans to complete his undergraduate degree there.

"“I’m going to ASU in the spring in person”, Rittenhouse said. “I want to do my 4-year [undergraduate degree] there before I take the LSAT and go do my three years of law [school]”. 

"[RELATED: ASU rejects student demands, refuses to ban Rittenhouse from future enrollment]   "Initially, Rittenhouse wanted to become a nurse. But after alleging “prosecutorial misconduct” in his own trial, he now hopes to become a criminal defense attorney.

"Rittenhouse also alleges that, contrary to what ASU claimed in an email to Campus Reform, he was admitted as a student.

“ 'I’m enrolled, I’m just not in any classes. I’m admitted; I have a student portfolio,” Rittenhouse claimed in the interview with Crowder. " . . .