Discovering Secret Paths: the crazy world we live in
Bombs are never an answer to problems. No more than guns are. Repeatedly resorting to weapons as a solution to complex, conflictual situations is not a sign of strength or intelligence. On the contrary. It is an admission of weakness, of inability, of failure, of lack of imagination, even of insanity.… (Read more...)
While people drool over the sex scandals of the US president, more pressing and life-threatening issues go unattended.
Over a million people march the streets, most of them children and young people, listening to the inspiring speeches of student victims in a protest against guns and gun violence in the US.… (Read more...)
Elijah Abraham, student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school
No student should have to cover themselves with a dead student to survive. But I was that student.… (Read more...)
The fact that an International Women’s Day, at least taken literally, is eminently binary – yes/no, woman/man, good/bad – is troubling. It might just be words playing tricks on us, as they invariably do, but the apparent trap of hard and fast categories is worth exploring. Especially at a time when boundaries between categories are becoming more fluid.… (Read more...)
“We are strong. We bow to no one. We are the creative force of this world. We give birth to the future, our future. (…) We call out with confidence, a mighty ‘Yes’ to a future we create ourselves.” Annie Wight during a speech to women gathered in Covent Garden Market, Stories People Tell.… (Read more...)
The above cartoon is by Chappatte and was published in Le Temps today. The inscription on the canon reads, Commercial War. Trump is saying, “Take that, Chinese.” To which the glum official points out, “There? That’s Canada.”
The whole farcical situation of the Trump presidency underlines the fact that not everybody, no matter how bloated their ego or how bent on destruction their followers, is suited to head a country.… (Read more...)
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 in Switzerland which regularly holds such votes on all manner of issues, it is well known that many voters do not respond to the question asked, but a question of their own choosing.… (Read more...)
In a flash fiction I wrote in 2013 entitled The bacon at the end I echoed a recurrent dream from my youth in which I was condemned to choose between eating poisoned bacon and waiting for the world to end in five minutes due to a nuclear strike. I never could choose.… (Read more...)