The Central Challenge Of Our Time
What is the central challenge of our time? It is not what most people think it is. It is not race or gender, or climate change, or the environment broadly,…
sociology
The Collapse of Modern Civilization
More than 150 years ago Thoreau commented, “Our sills are all rotten.” He was right. It is for that reason that Western, and Westernized, “modern” “civilization” is collapsing. This could…
US 2020 Election: One Choice Only – The Oligarchy
Chris Hedges states there is no choice in the 2020 US election if it is a choice between Trump and Biden: both are a vote for the consolidation of the…
Importing From China: A Virus? Or A Totalitarian Model Of Elite Control?
Someone prescient once said, “Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for a little security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” We would do well to remember those words now.…
Fantasy and Indoctrination: Rough notes on a few fantasy novels: part two
Here are two more fantasy books that I could not get through. That makes three in a row. And to think, I had a love affair with Terry Brookes’ Shannara…
Fantasy and Indoctrination: Rough notes on a few fantasy novels: part one
New Spring, The Novel: The Wheel Of Time: In The Beginning – Robert Jordan (so the cover says) (Lord of the Rings films and Terry Brookes Shannara novels got me…
Reflections On Stillness & Action
We need stillness and action – both, and urgently so. This should be becoming perfectly clear. I’ve travelled through 20 countries, but still I find stillness the greatest adventure, and…
Degeneration, Collapse, and Rebirth
What we are facing is systemic degeneration: ecologically, culturally, spiritually, intellectually, psychologically, socially, and biologically in terms of degenerating health and shortening life spans. This is the slow-motion collapse of…
Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think – Scientific American
The great divide between our beliefs, our ideals, and reality Source: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think – Scientific American I don’t normally post anything on my…
Lest We Forget: Reflections On Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, and the Current Corporate Assault on Freedom and Democracy Around the World
The 21st century was the most violent and murderous period in human history to date. And with our current direction, the 21st century may well surpass it in violence and…
The Hollow Men – Poem and Commentary, for All Hallow’s Eve
Want something spooky, even terrifying, for Halloween? Read this. The Hollow Men: I think this truly epic poem (one place where the word is meaningfully used) should be read at…
The Hollow Men – Poem and Commentary, for All Hallow’s Eve
Want something spooky, even terrifying, for Halloween? Read this. The Hollow Men: I think this truly epic poem (one place where the word is meaningfully used) should be read at…
A few thoughts on empathy in human beings, and other living creatures
Empathy is natural in human beings, as Jeremy Rifkin has pointed out – and with strong backing by recent scientific findings. Some human beings have more and some less; and…
When Blog Comment Spam Goes Bad
You know you want it! Someone really crossed the line from whoops, to nuclear codes. One of the15,000 weekly blog spam comments that never make it to the human eyes…
Reflections on Chartres Cathedral, the death of civilization and the deification of the banal
Thinking of Chartres Cathedral, I ask myself, what, if anything, have we built in the past eight centuries, that compares to this? The iPad, computers, cell phones, the internet? Are…
Advertising, bondage and consumerism
I turn off the mute on the radio, to check if the nauseating ads are finished and we can get back to the music, and I hear, “New York steak…”…
The rise of Bitcoin: and the challenge to the global domination of big money
The following article was written on October 25. I wanted to read it over once more before publishing it, then got busy with other things and forgot about it. In…
New studies show babies have basically decent impulses and are strongly driven by moral imperatives
More research shows once again that compassion, empathy and mutual aid, and an instinct toward cooperation, are innate in human beings, confirming what the great Russian biologist and anarchist philosopher…
NAFTA, “Free Trade” and the TPP: Fast-Track To Full Corporate Rule
“Twenty years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law. At the time, advocates painted a rosy picture of booming U.S. exports creating hundreds of thousands…
Will Ferrell does a mock music video of gangster rap – and it’s a scathingly hilarious critique of the genre
A musical commentary, followed by social and political analysis, followed by hilarious spoof rap videos, and more This is scathingly funny. Will Ferrell does a mock music video of macho…