{"id":413745,"date":"2026-08-22T10:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/413745\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T10:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:24:10","slug":"dickinson-texas-and-petrarch-front-porch-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/413745\/","title":{"rendered":"Dickinson, Texas, and Petrarch – Front Porch Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Cities That Said Yes to Drugs<\/a>.\u201d Michael Powell visits several cities where \u201charm reduction\u201d has led to endemic drug use and many overdose deaths. This is one of the issues (along with Canada\u2019s MAID) where the shortcomings of the techno-liberal philosophy become most apparent. Sometimes\u2014oftentimes!\u2014individuals want what is bad for them, and technologies or policies that enable such desires are, in fact, harmful: \u201cWhat harm was reduced, Nelson asked at a 2023 council hearing, by helping addicts get high? Amber Tejada, an employee of a health nonprofit that had partnered with the city, raised her hand to answer. \u2018I know it can be a little controversial,\u2019 she told the councilwoman, \u2018but one of the key tenets of harm reduction that I see is that we want to be able to facilitate and champion autonomy of people who use drugs.\u2019 Tejada added, \u2018There are folks for whom abstinence is not something by which they measure their success in life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Queer Case of Emily Dickinson<\/a>.\u201d Katherine Dalton wishes people would care, at least a little, about the facts of Dickinson\u2019s life as we know them and not use her to playact their own fantasies: \u201cThese days, we have created a more useful Emily by stealing her life\u2014an act that is all the worse given the sadly predictable confusion the TV-viewing public is going to have about what parts of the on-screen story are true, and what parts are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018Country Hicks\u2019 Who Refused $26 Million from an AI Data Center<\/a>.\u201d There have been several news stories about the two Kentucky women who are refusing to sell their land to a company that wants to build an AI data center. Erich Schwartzel reports on the details and how the controversy is dividing the community: \u201cSeveral of Bare\u2019s neighbors agreed to sell their land for millions of dollars, but others refused. An opposition movement formed, a bipartisan coalition in a county that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1984. It\u2019s hard to say how Maysville writ large feels about the data center, but McHugh believes the town splits this way: 20% are adamantly opposed, 20% are adamantly in support, and the remaining 60% \u201cwould like it to be done and dusted so they don\u2019t have to hear about it anymore.\u2019\u201d (Recommended by Brian Miller.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if America Went Completely Dark<\/a>?\u201d Christopher Cox paints a disturbing picture about the fragility of the cobbled-together power grid that distributes electricity in the US and the manufacturing challenges that make repairing it difficult: \u201c\u2018It is the overwhelming tendency of our time to assume that a big problem calls for a big solution,\u2019 the poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry once wrote. The best solution to a fragile grid may look like a lot of little interventions, distributed widely. That kind of bulk power system, Roberts said, will become \u2018very boringly resilient and reliable.\u2019\u201d (Recommended by Jeff Polet.)<\/p>\n

\u201cStack Underflow: Losing the Craft of Coding<\/a>.\u201d Jarett Malouf wrestles with how risky it is for software engineers to forget how to code and transition to being AI agent managers: \u201cBut how good will we be at our AI-supervision jobs if we lose the skills AI replaces? . . . . There\u2019s an argument to be made \u2014 a bet, more so \u2014 that the hard skills we were once required to master are now and forever obsolete, and thus that the withering away of low-level competencies is unproblematic. But I would venture that what has always been true in software engineering will remain true: he who understands the layer beneath will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese Kids are Learning without Technology in Seattle Public Schools<\/a>.\u201d Claire Bryan talks with parents and students who are opting out of a school district\u2019s computers: \u201cDespite Seattle Public Schools\u2019 district policy to issue devices to each of its nearly 50,000 students, some highly vocal parents are successfully opting their students out of technology altogether. These parents advocating for what they call \u201cintentional technology\u201d are on one end of a fierce debate happening nationwide: How can schools make sure students are equipped for success in a digital future while also retaining true life skills \u2014 like the ability to struggle and think critically in a world of easy AI answers, and to embrace the wonder of friendships, boredom and the real world beyond the dopamine hit of electronic screens?\u201d (Recommended by Tom Bilbro.)<\/p>\n

\u201cA Giant on the Shoulders of Giants<\/a>.\u201d J. C. Scharl reviews A.M. Juster\u2019s new translation of Petrarch\u2019s Canzoniere and makes a case for reading these poems: \u201cThis volume is not merely an excellent translation of an under-read poet; it is a reminder of why Petrarch was so acclaimed in the first place, and an argument that this early Renaissance humanist\u2019s vision of humanity, love, forgiveness, sin, death, and hope can speak directly to our own twenty-first-century hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA Vital Education<\/a>.\u201d Franklin Tucker Eccher considers the history and present of the microcollege movement that has coalesced around Deep Springs College: \u201cThe microcolleges are attempting to revitalize two distinct visions of education grounded in overlapping traditions of Progressive thought: Nunn\u2019s work college and the folk school. One emphasizes the universality of the human condition, and the other, our rootedness\u2014in places, in social and economic conditions, in history. For both, education is that which increases our power to bring forth what is vital in us and in the world, the life of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Passing of the American Century<\/a>.\u201d Modern Age republished a penetrating review by Lee Congdon of John Lukacs\u2019s classic Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century. His emphasis on the importance of accepting limits is particularly salutary: \u201cIn a defiant effort to assert their cultural-spiritual independence, [Americans] have stubbornly refused to affirm the truth\u2014experienced by Europeans at the Marne, at Dachau, and at Munich\u2014that man is finite and sinful. They are, that is, unwilling to abandon the nineteenth-century idea of progress, with its attendant idolization of science and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTexans Revolt Against a Border Wall in the Wilderness<\/a>.\u201d Carrie McKean describes how, during the first Trump administration, \u201cnew barriers were erected and strengthened in the regions where authorities determined they were most needed, such as near ports of entry in El Paso, San Diego, and elsewhere. But the wild lands of the Big Bend region were safe. Eight years later, that common sense is gone. Grief and anger are rising among West Texans who are paying attention to what\u2019s unfolding in Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and the surrounding wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and private land that make up the 517-mile long Big Bend Sector border.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Cities That Said Yes to Drugs.\u201d Michael Powell visits several cities where \u201charm reduction\u201d has led to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-413745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}