“According to polls, most Americans think the nation is more divided than it’s been since the Civil War. And these divides are getting worse…” Really? Exactly what divides America? Well, there are polls and there are polls. In November 2016, a Gallup poll suggested shortly after Trump’s election that 77% of the people perceived the … More America’s False Divide
One of the many drawbacks of living in the intermediated world of industrial consumerism is that we have pretty much abandoned aesthetics. Form and function are mostly industrial products too. Marketing psychology drives them, like almost everything else. Diverse commercial and political interests present a pre-formed world to us on the flat digital screens of … More Aesthetics Abandoned
“Johnny, why can’t you just sit still?” Well, Johnny is not the only hyperactive one. You might even conclude, just from watching any group anywhere in the world today that humanity as a whole is hyperactive. Where did all the patience go? These thoughts were triggered by my reading an article by Brian Tycangco, “Black … More Doing Nothing to Get a Grip on Reality
I never liked the term, “lifestyle.” It reflects an extreme version of the American obsession with personal individualistic consumerism, which ultimately is at odds with the hard facts of life on planet Earth. The unattainable “lifestyles of the rich and famous” promoted and enthusiastically accepted in the industrial era are built on illusion and propel … More On the Urgency of Abandoning Lifestyle
Another Entry in the Mad Jubilado series It is the always-present never-ending question of life. Sure, we have good intentions and sometimes they work out – as planned or not. Yet each moment is contingent. The future never arrives; it’s always out there because we are always here, in the present. We have our To-Do … More What To Do Now
I have been recycling for a long time. Of course, the process has gotten more sophisticated in the last couple of decades. Some will remember the 5¢ redemption on glass bottles, mid-twentieth century. When I was a little boy in the late nineteen-forties, “recycling” had not yet entered the public lexicon. I remember the milkman … More Recycling Redux: Can we Recycle Profligate Consumerism?
Free Trade, Fair Trade, Tariffs, Trade Wars, and all such matters reflect a complex of political-economic issues that will soon become mostly irrelevant. Yet pundits persistently pontificate on their putative principles and pitfalls – within the bubble of business-as-usual. The problem is that all the parties disputing matters of international trade envision the future as … More Some Right Things Done in All the Wrong Ways for All the Wrong Reasons
The words we use to describe the world tend to “frame” our understandings by bracketing the range of images and meanings that make sense to us. Our reasoning builds on deep emotions. Moral reasoning also rests on an emotional sense of right and wrong and the beliefs and personal relationships we hold dear. The terms … More So Much More than Warming: Misunderstanding Climate Change
What’s a lipidologist? Well, immediately we can see that the term’s Latin roots indicate that a lipidologist is someone who studies lipids. Ah, lipids: the dreaded cholesterol, et al. That seemed simple enough. A friend told me that a lipidologist practiced in Santa Fe, the only one in the whole state of New Mexico. Okay, … More The Eccentric Lipidologist Revealed
It had been a shock to be told a few years ago that I had so much plaque in my coronary arteries that I was in imminent danger of a heart attack or stroke. The cardiologist told me that I must immediately follow the protocols of the “standard of care” in cardiology and begin a … More The “Standard of Care” and Facts of Life
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 