Friday, August 8, 2025

Literary Ruralism (Part L): Farming debates and farmer decision-making in Louise Erdrich's "The Mighty Red"

›
In a prior post about Louise Erdrich's The Mighty Red , I highlighted some excerpts about small-town life.  In this post, I'm going ...
Sunday, August 3, 2025

Literary Ruralism (Part XLIX): Rural life in "The Mighty Red" by Louise Erdrich

›
I've very much enjoyed L ouise Erdrich's latest novel, The Mighty Red (2024), set in the farming exurbs near Fargo, North Dakota, al...
Sunday, July 27, 2025

New Hampshire (once again) tries to restrict student voting (Part III): The "problem" of student voting

›
This is Part III in my look at New Hampshire's history of attempting to disenfranchise college student voters. For Part I, which provide...
Friday, July 25, 2025

Planned Parenthood closes five California clinics, two of them rural(ish)

›
This story  in the San Francisco Chronicle  by Sara DiNatale reports that recent budget cuts in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill...
Thursday, July 24, 2025

Getting to the bottom of the rural health "slush fund"

›
When the U.S. Senate passed Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" a few weeks ago, considerable attention was paid to the sweetheart de...
Sunday, July 20, 2025

Cutbacks to public media likely to hurt rural communities the most

›
The disporportionate impact that federal funding cuts to public media will have on rural communities has been a theme of several publication...
Monday, July 14, 2025

Are rural residents incapable of understanding government's role in health care availability?

›
I don't know the answer to that question, but that is a conclusion suggested by two stories in the mainstream media today.  An alternati...
Saturday, July 12, 2025

That which sets rural search-and-rescue apart from the urban counterpart

›
The New York Times reports today from Kerrville, Texas, more than a week after last week's tragic flood.  This story pays attention to ...
Friday, July 11, 2025

Small-town government run amok (Part XIII): Is Kerr County partly to blame for the high death toll at Camp Mystic?

›
I've already written this week about the catastrophic flooding in Kerr County, Texas.  What I am going to highlight in this post is rec...
Wednesday, July 9, 2025

My Rural Travelogue (Part XLII): Promoting local food, including wild edibles, in Japan

›
Ad for ice cream at a Teshikaga (Hokkaido) ramen house features a photo of the farm family (4 children!) who produce the milk-- and, of cour...