Say no to elimination
Elimination is the keyword that runs through many of the atrocious tales that assail us from around the world. Elimination is a solution to no problem. The wish to eliminate others as the source of our problems is based on a wildly false premise,...
[Read More]Stop the warmongering
Bombs are never an answer to problems, no more than guns are. Repeatedly resorting to weapons as a solution to complex, conflictual situations should not be seen as a sign of strength or intelligence. It is an admission of weakness, of inability, of failure, of lack of imagination, even of insanity...
[Read More]Who cares? We do!
While people drool over the sex scandals of the US president, more pressing and life-threatening issues go unattended... [Read More]
Tribute: young people show the way
“We were always taught from a very early age to be the change we wish to see in the world…” Elijah Abraham, student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school... [Read More]
Women’s Day 2018
International women's Day 2018. "We are strong. We bow to no one. We are the creative force of this world. We give birth to the future, our future..." Annie Wight, Stories People Tell... [Read More]
Brexit and the fantasies that ensue
Brexit: what better illustration of how a new word can become the vehicle for so much wishful thinking, so many fantasies and such terrible nightmares, as well as a festering breeding-ground for divisive thinking and extreme ideologies. First of all, there was a vote. A referendum. Living as I do [Read More]
Boycotting Apple and Amazon over National R*fle Association streaming app
Activists are calling for a one-day boycott of Apple and Amazon on March 1st because they host an app streaming material for the American National R*fle Association. In many European countries advertising cigarettes is banned because encouraging behaviour that damages health is considered socially and legally unacceptable. So it makes [Read More]
Beyond elimination – rethinking democracy
That Donald Trump is a grave danger to humanity leaves no doubt. That his supporters and backers are criminal in their intention to ransack the world and blight the poor, the marginalised and the needy for their own gain is clear to see. But let not the looming catastrophe blind us to the fact that, above all, it is the functioning of the democratic system that needs fixing... [Read More]
Climate breakdown says George Monbiot, not change
Climate breakdown, not climate change. The words we use to discuss an issue like the impact of climate on the world have an important effect on the way we communicate and the way we understand what is happening. George Monbiot underlines this fact in an article entitled Natural Language saying: If we want people to engage with the living world, we should stop using such constipated terms to describe our relationship to it. ...
[Read More]Every life matters!
Enough is enough. The violence has to stop! Eight-year-old Aseel Tareq Abu Oun was killed after being rammed by an Israeli settler's car, near Furush Beit Dajan area, east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The girl was leaving a supermarket with a friend when she was struck and killed in broad daylight in front of her father. In a time of wide-spread violence and rampant disregard for life, it is so easy to banalise a death here and a murder there. Aseel Tareq Abu Oun was not just another victim. Every life matters! It is our responsibility to shout that from the roof tops...
[Read More]Who said climate change didn’t exist?
Hurricane Harvey and climate change denial - just one more recipe for disaster. Who said climate change didn't exist? How is it possible to be so blind or short-sighted when proof is screaming at you from Texas as well as from many other places around the world? It's a crime to deny such massive devastation and prolonged hardship especially of the less well-off with the short-term goal of filling the coffers of a limited number of people... [Read More]
Guardian interview with Felicity Lawrence
The Guardian has published an interview with Felicity Lawrence, recent recipient of the Orwell Prize for investigative journalism. Here is how the introduction to the interview begins: Felicity Lawrence has reported on some of the most challenging issues facing the modern world, from corporate power – especially in the food system – to migration, the re-emergence of slavery, climate change, and global tax avoidance. ... [Read More]
It’s important! Kimberly Crenshaw on Intersectionality
Understanding what is happening in our complex society requires thinking of situations in terms of the interaction between simultaneous factors taking place on multiple levels. But even if we do think in these terms we can still miss gross injustices or patent failings in our well-meaning actions. Why? Because if we consider situations from separate multiple perspectives, many things that happen at the intersection of these perspectives or factors fall through the cracks and we fail to see injustice or violence or disempowerment or disqualification that happen just there... [Read More]
Faster than a car!
Ivan Illich famously said that the bicycle was faster than the car, all considered. Of course, there are some preconditions to be fulfilled before that can be true which have more to do with society than bicycles or cars... [Read More]
Questioning research
Beyond the question of the responsibility of major corporations in funding research to further their vested interests ... [Read More]
Naomi Klein: No is not enough
Naomi Klein's book, No is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics. is thought-provoking, inspiring and extremely moving... [Read More]
From information to opinions to decisions
By delegitimising media and expert opinion, and thus removing any possible checks and balances, it could be argued that Forty-Five produces political discourse as if it were publicity... [Read More]
Checks and balances
There's a key lesson to be learnt by Americans from the disastrous Brexit process. Theresa May wanted to bypass parliament and dictate her own path but the judiciary said otherwise. The right-wing press tried to shoot the judges down, but the fact remains that an individual does not govern alone in our countries... [Read More]
Tromper
Many think that the surname Tr**mp has its origins in the musical instrument consisting of a twisted metal tube through which hot air is blown via pursed lips to produce a throaty, almost bodily sound designed to impress enemies in battle. Others maintain that the word springs from a long [Read More]
The Forty-fiver syndrome
There are a good many people like Forty-five* in the world, brash, outspoken individuals who insist they have the answer to the problem at hand. Each of us has come across them. Forty-fivers have an inflated sense of their worth but have no idea that they lack the competences needed for the task they insist on doing... [Read More]
The Hinkley black hole
Hinkley Point: a black hole through which Britain will disappear in a cloud of invisible toxic smoke while the Chinese and French tiptoe away... [Read More]
Utility versus quality of life
Would you plant a stinky dustbin right in front of your door so that it greets anyone come to see you? Probably not. Then why have the local administration built a waste collection site right by the station where potential visitors arrive in Saint-Blaise? [Read More]
Universal bullshit
The map depicts those parts of Switzerland where the Swiss Post may no longer be required to deliver post in the very near future as cuts are made in so-called universal service. No doubt this evolution is the impact of extensive internet penetration, the liberalisation of postal services, sparking fierce competition particularly in parcels, and a general tendency to slash the budgets of state-run services... [Read More]
A dance for life
For all its cry of sadness and rage - at the Orlando shooting tragedy - this music/dance video by Sia, with the dancer Maddie Ziegler, is a call to life... [Read More]
Nano what?
Research showed that, breathed in through the nose, nano particles of Magnetite (an oxide of iron) entered the brain via the olfactory nerve. These nano particles are thought to play a role in degenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer... [Read More]