Giving thanks at Thanksgiving dinner continues as an ingrained ritual. At some holiday tables, those present state in turn what makes them most thankful. At others, the most senior member gives a Thanksgiving prayer. In most cases, that is about as far as reflection on the meaning of this peculiar American holiday goes. Nobody mentions, … More Giving Thanks for what?
Another in the series of occasional rants by the Mad Jubilado. Over two hundred kilometers per hour? That’s more than 124 mph! Well, we seemed to be going pretty fast. It was no Shinkansen (the Japanese “Bullet Train”) rocketing the 330 miles from Tocho-Mai Station in Tokyo to Kyoto between 150 and 200 mph. In … More On the Rails Again: Euro Trains are No Amtrak
In September 2018, the Trump administration produced a realistic environmental impact report that reflected current scientific estimates of emerging climate chaos. That alone was a bit shocking given Trumpist rhetoric claiming that climate change is a “Chinese hoax.” But the political misuse of that information was shockingly brazen, if not exactly surprising. After all, presidential … More The climate of Political Nihilism
For most “moderns” the role of economic growth in assuring human progress appears necessary, whatever problems it may cause. Yet, the evidence has grown to such undeniable levels that continued economic growth, at least as we practice it now, is simply unsustainable on this small planet. Climate scientists, ecologists, environmentalists, and Earth system scientists have … More Economic Growth or Societal Development: a Matter of Survival
I was an undergraduate student in anthropology when I saw a remarkable documentary film depicting the lives of the !Kung people. Also known as the San, they lived in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa as hunter-gatherers, still undisturbed by outside forces in 1952-3 when some Harvard ethnographers shot the film. The social structure of … More Our Grand Illusions vs. Survival
This was Eve Ensler’s response in Time Magazine to the women who support the elevation of an alcoholic misogynist plutocratic predator to the highest court in the land. The struggle continues, though it seems, has just begun. A Letter to White Women Who Support Brett Kavanaugh By Eve Ensler, TIME 05 October 18 n Oct. 2, … More Eve Ensler Said It Best
Even if a couple of Republican senators were to revolt and vote against confirming the nomination of Brent Kavanagh to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the “culture war” over the subjugation of women would escalate. How could it not? A Predatory Patriarchy still rules the nation. Kavanagh rightly called his confirmation … More Whitewashing the Predatory Patriarchy Cover-up
“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
Rape is a violent crime of domination. Violence, of course, is the ultimate act of domination. We tend to see violence as an act of physical force leading to either physical injury or death, and it often is. But violence can also take on more subtle forms. Not all domination directly entails physical force. Some … More Mind of a Rapist
Many consider China to be the leader in responding to global warming because of its shift in energy production from coal to solar. It sells more solar panels in the U.S. than American companies do. It appears to be seriously responding to the devastating smog levels in Beijing and taking other measures to curtail carbon … More China’s New Colonialism in Malaysia: A Harbinger?
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 