Volume 14 Number 2-3, NoVember/December 2010 $5.50 An ideal Distributism is only improbable. Even an ideal Communism is only impossible. But an ideal Capitalism is inconceivable. —G.K. Chesterton The 29th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference Talks Are Here! DaLE aHLquIst (President of the American Chesterton society) “In Praise of Jones” Qty DaVID ZaCH (Futurist) “A Great Many Clever Things: The Mistake about Technology” Qty rICHarD aLEmaN (editor of the Distributist review) “The Mistake about Distributism” Qty JosEPH PEarCE (Author) “The Mistake About Progress” Qty JamEs WooDruFF (Mathematics Instructor at Worcester Academy) “GKC and Edmund Burke: The Mistake about Conservatism” Qty rEGINa DomaN (Author) tom martIN (Philosophy Professor at university of nebraska-Kearney) “The Evangelization of the Imagination”Qty “The Mistake about the Social Sciences”Qty Fr. IaN KEr (theology Professor from oxford university) JamEs o’KEEFE (Independent Video Journalist) “Chesterton and Newman” Qty “The Mistake about the Social Services”Qty Fr. PEtEr MilwarD (Professor emeritus from sophia university, tokyo) Dr. WILLIam marsHNEr (theology Professor at Christendom College) “Chesterton and Shakespeare and Today”Qty “The Mistake about Theology” Qty NaNCy BroWN (Author and ACs Blogmistress) “The Woman Who Was Chesterton” Qty 3 Formats: CDs: Single Talk: $6.00 each OR order the Complete set The American Chesterton Society of CDs for $60.00 (save $12) 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, Mn 55437 mP3 Format: Bundle: 12 Talks in MP3 format on 1 disc: 952-831-3096 • [email protected] $50 www.chesterton.org DVD VIDEo: Single Talk: $12 each OR Conference DVD Bundle: 12 DVDs for $120 (save $24) sHIPPING aND HaNDLING: $3 for 1st disc, plus $1 for each additional disc; conference bundle $10 ❏ CDs ❏ mP3s ❏ DVDs # sINGLE # sEts nAMe: e-MAIL : ______________________ Phone: ( ) ADDress: AMount enCLoseD I’m paying by: q Check q VIsA q MC q DIsC q AMeX card Card #: CItY: sIGnAture: eXP:____________ stAte/ZIP: order online at www.chesterton.org Great Location! Great Talks! Great Arguments! Great Fun! : Ta b l e o f C o n T e n T s : Volume 14 Number 2-3, November/December 2010 4 |:trEmENDous trIFLEs: The Church and The Libertarian Tony Shalhoub: He’s the guy! BooK reVIeW BY rIChArD ALeMAn BY ChrIs ChAn 5 |:LuNaCy & LEttErs: The Guild Idea, 40 |:tHE sIGNaturE oF maN: 7 |:EDItorIaL: The Guild Possibility BY G.K. Chesterton Stained Glass What’s Wrong With The World BY G.K. Chesterton BY DALe AhLquIst An Interview with Dr. William E. Fahey 41 |:CHEstErtoN uNIVErsIty: 9 |:sCHaLL oN CHEstErtoN: BY rIChArD ALeMAn Windows on the Past The Risky Adventure and on the Present BY JAMes V. sChALL, s.J. Distributist Education BY DALe AhLquIst BY Ryan GrAnt 10 |:mIsCELLaNy oF mEN: The D-PAC 42 |:FEar oF FILm: The Smell of Danger BY rIChArD ALeMAn Red Riding Trilogy (2009) BY DALe AhLquIst reVIeWeD BY ChrIs ChAn 31 |:roLLING roaD: Notre Dame 44 |:the DIstrIButIst marKEtPLaCE: BY DALe AhLquIst 45 |:the BaLLaDE oF GILBErt: 32 |:taLEs of the sHort BoW: Americanisation Superstition BY G.K. Chesterton BY John Peterson 12 |:outLINING saNIty: 46 |:CHEstErtoN’s maIL BaG: What’s the Use of Having The Christmas Caper JAMes G. Bruen, Jr. Stuff Anyway? 48 |:NEWs WItH VIEWs: BY thoMAs storCK 35 |:BooK rEVIEW: 50 |:LEttEr to amErICa: Distributism and Marxism The Tudors A Postscript on Liberty BY DonALD P. GooDMAn III reVIeWeD BY DALe AhLquIst BY G.K. Chesterton Toward a Truly Free Market BooK reVIeW BY rIChArD ALeMAn 36 |: the Detection club: Alias Mel Kirby Understanding Subsidiarity BY John Peterson BY David W. CooneY Chesterton’s Bloodthirsty Heirs A Distributist Banking System BrIeF reVIeWs oF the ConteMPorArY BY John MéDAILLe MYsterY sCene BY steVe MILLer Make Your Backyard The Captain Nicholas a Forest Garden Nicholson Casebook BY BILL PoWeLL BY steVe MILLer CoVEr ILLustratIoN By t. sCHLuENDErFrItZ Publisher: Dale Ahlquist, President, ACs EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: sean P. Dailey ART DIrECTOR: ted schluenderfritz LItERARY EDITOR: therese Warmus CoPy EDITOR: susan Meister Senior WrItEr: John Peterson CoNtributing Editors: richard Aleman, David Beresford, nancy Carpentier Brown, Joe Campbell, John C. Chalberg, Christopher Chan, David Paul Deavel, David W. Fagerberg, Kyro Lantsberger, Art Livingston, robert Moore-Jumonville, James V. schall sJ “News witH Views” Editors: nathan Allen, Mark Pilon, Larry Pavlicek, ted olsen SuBsCriptIoNs: (see Coupon Page 6) Credit Card orders: call 1-800-343-2425 or fax 1-270-325-3091 LEttErs and articles: Gilbert magazine, American Chesterton society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, Mn 55437 [email protected] www.gilbertmagazine.com Letters to the editor may be edited for length or clarity. Gilbert MaGazine is published every six weeks by the American Chesterton society, a non-profit corporation established under Paragraph 501(c)(3) of theu .s. tax Code. Donations to the American Chesterton society are tax-deductible in the united states. Your contributions help support the publication of Gilbert magazine. Please send your donations to: the American Chesterton society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, Mn 55437. the views expressed by Gilbert magazine contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editors, or the American Chesterton society. CoPyrIGHt ©2010 By tHE amErICaN CHEstErtoN soCIEty. Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 3 : T r e m e n d o u s T r I f l e s : by Sean P. Dailey t has been confirmed, by no less than American Ches- terton Society president Dale Ahlquist: the 30th Annual in the wake of his successful and contro- G.K. Chesterton Conference will be held August 4-6, 100 versial book, What’s Wrong with the World, 2011, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Sheraton Westport yEars aGo G.K. Chesterton was asked by t.P. o’Connor Lakeside Chalet. The theme of the conference is “Poet to write an article entitled “What is right with the Iand Prophet.” Speakers scheduled so far are: Christopher World” for the Christmas number of T.P.’s Weekly. It Check, Pasquale Accardo, Robert Moore-Jumonville, Carl turned out to be one of his most sublime essays, includ- Hasler, Redd Griffin, Tod Worner, Eleanor Donlan, and Dale ing not only the quote that appears on the ACs coffee Ahlquist. Leah Darrow will also appear. (Why would a beauti- mug (“Daybreak is a never-ending glory; getting out of ful young woman featured on the reality TV show, America’s Next Top Model, speak at a Chesterton conference? Could bed is a never-ending nuisance.”), but several jolts of it be because she is the great-great grand niece of Clarence life-affirming wisdom: “the most dangerous thing in the Darrow, who once debated Chesterton?) There will be talks world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. on Lepanto, The Ballad of the White Horse, William Butler But anyone who shrinks from this is a traitor to the great Yeats, Winston Churchill, vampires, and Chesterton as a scheme and experiment of being.” Franciscan Thomist (or is that a Thomistic Franciscan?). And there will be a performance of Chesterton’s play Magic! He authored the book The Vocation of Business, co-edited More special events are in the works as well. Please stay Economic Liberty: A Profound Romanian Renaissance, tuned to the ACS Web page for more details. and most recently published Toward a Truly Free Market: ¶¶Speaking of the American Chesterton Society Web A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, page, we have revamped, retooled, and remodeled it. It Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More. has all the features you love and expect—quotations, short Ryan Grant is a native of eastern Connecticut. He received essays and snippets of Chesterton, Chesterton 101, and his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology at Fran- plenty of books and other merchandise for sale—now it also ciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and also studied has original, Web-only essays, updates, and best of all, an at Holy Apostles Seminary. He currently teaches Latin in interactive feature, allowing for comments. Stop by at www. Post Falls, Idaho, where he resides with his wife and two chesterton.org and tell us what you think. children. ¶¶Welcome to our special issue on Distributism, where Thomas Storck is the author of Foundations of a Catholic we delve into that most difficult of Chestertonian subjects Political Order, The Catholic Milieu, and Christendom as never before, with book reviews and articles on guilds, and the West. His work has appeared in various publica- a Distributist approach to your back yard, subsidiarity, tions including Homiletic and Pastoral Review and the banking, material goods, loads of Chesterton quotations book Beyond Capitalism and Socialism. Mr. Storck is a on Distributism, and more. Our guest contributors for this former contributing editor of New Oxford Review and issue hail from The Distributist Review. Here they discuss Caelum et Terra, and serves on the editorial board of The the ins and outs of the only economic system that con- Chesterton Review. forms with and has been inspired by Catholic Church social ¶¶The revolution continues: for the Chestertonian who teaching. They are: has everything, a cookbook. Gilbert Magazine publisher David W. Cooney is originally from southern California and Dale Ahlquist writes, “Here is one that is as bizarre and now lives with his wife and two children in Western Wash- wonderful as anything I’ve encountered. A Chesterton ington state where he works as a network administrator. cookbook in Italian! It’s called The Kitchen of The Flying Inn (La cucina dell’Osteria Volante).” The announcement Bill Powell owns Wineskin Media, a graphics design com- came from the book’s author, Luisa Vassallo. Dale adds, pany in Front Royal, Virginia.