Who paid for this? There’s a certain meme that I see making the rounds on Facebook every so often about the bucolic nature of life in the Shire, from Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord o…
Collections: Why Celebrimbor Fell but Boromir Conquered: the Moral Universe of Tolkien
This week (and probably next) I want to talk a bit more Tolkien, but in a somewhat different vein from normal. Rather than discussing the historicity of Tolkien’s world or adaptations of it, …
Middle-Earth Quest
Middle-Earth Quest is a Bluesky labeler that randomly assigns you a role in Tolkien's world. You might become a Hobbit of the Shire, an Orc of Mordor, an Elf of Rivendell, or one of dozens of other fates. Your role is displayed on your profile as a label — visible to all other players who have subscribed.
What it cost an early-medieval civilisation to put a single book on the road to Rome: a flock of cattle, several years of scribal labour, the grain to feed sixty monks for the duration, and the life of one of its most accomplished men. Eight centuries later a person publishes an essay on a laptop, pays nothing, and reaches more readers in an afternoon than the Codex has been read in thirteen hundred years.
Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part II: Scouring in the Shire
This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This is the second part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles (parti…
Collections: How Gandalf Proved Mightiest: Spiritual Power in Tolkien
This week, I want to keep unloading my Tolkien-related thoughts, turning from last week’s character study to a look at the way ‘magic’ and spiritual power work in Tolkien’s …
The Power of Conversation: A Lesson from CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien | The Art of Manliness
Using an example from the lives of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, we look at the power and importance of face-to-face conversation.
A quote by Anatole France
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
Can Money Serve Life? How to Fund Communities Doing the Real Work with Matthew Monahan
‘Doves and food and fun’: the fight to save a farming pioneer
Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hives
The Origin and Future of Economic Inequality
Pluralistic: They’re just trying to earn a buck (07 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Life as a prisoner of the neoliberal mind palace must suck: it's a world where every person who suffers under predatory business practices is a "consumer" who has "revealed a preference" for being screwed:
Being a Circle in a World Made for Triangles
Alanna (Krause) Irving is working with Open Collective, gathering stories at the forefront of transparent community-driven financial power.
The tragedy of the commons is a false and dangerous myth | Aeon Essays
Far from being profoundly destructive, we humans have deep capacities for sharing resources with generosity and foresight
Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ 十 Tʜᴇ Sʏʟʟᴀʙᴜꜱ (ORI) - CC0 on Twitter / X
Our obedience is costly not in the sense that we are torching a million dollars, but that we are investing a million dollars into something that will grow to a billion. There is a *lot* of the former that is then claimed as Christian morality.— Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ 十 Tʜᴇ Sʏʟʟᴀʙᴜꜱ (ORI) - CC0 (@sunriseoath) November 2, 2026
Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part I: Households
This is the first post in a series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the basic contours of life – birth, marriage, labor, subsistence, death – of pre-modern peas…
