A Liberty University-produced film called “The Trump Prophecy,” claims that Donald Trump’s election in 2016 can be attributed to divine intervention, and that Trump is the King Cyrus of our times. Cyrus the Great was the king of Persia in the second half of the sixth century BCE. He conquered the Babylon and established a …
Continue reading ‘Why the religious Right will put up with anything Trump does or says’ »
A short while ago the hard-line Brexiteers of the European Research Group were expected to finally reveal their detailed plan. The group of some 80 Tory MPs, led by the ubiquitous Jacob Rees-Mogg, was going to publish “a Brexit plan to rival Theresa May’s”. Some in the Prime Minister’s camp feared that it would be …
Continue reading ‘Britain’s extreme right wing shows it has no idea and no grown-up ideas.’ »
The Trump administration has quietly reshaped enforcement of air pollution standards in recent months through a series of regulatory memos. The memos are fulfilling the top wishes of industry, which has long called for changes to how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees the nation’s factories, plants and other facilities. The EPA is now allowing …
American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they account for between one-third and more than a half by value of all international weapons sales. Until recently, the Trump administration had focused on the promotion of big-ticket items like fighter planes, tanks, and missile defense systems around the …
The President of John Hopkins University, Ronald J. Daniels, recently overheard a conversation among students. One opined that he would have liked to have enrolled in an introductory course in philosophy, but that the demands of his major meant that “enlightenment would have to wait”, you “gotta get a job”, and that therefore he would …
Prospect Magazine, October 2018 edition, runs an article by Jay Elwes entitled “The Brexit Crunch”, and it is very important indeed. A precis of the article follows. Long-ish, but bear with me: In 2008 the total value of all CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations) and Credit Default Swaps, both types of derivatives, was $458 trillion. One …
Continue reading ‘Yet another serious “derivatives” threat’ »
“The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.” “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned at school. “You teach me baseball and I’ll teach you relativity…..No, perhaps we shouldn’t…..You will learn relativity faster than I learn baseball. “Anyone who has never made a …
A new manual designed to help prevent clerical sexual abuse in Chile has triggered further outrage by listing a host of instructions that critics say should be self-evident. Among other things, the manual – which was published on the website of the Archbishop of Santiago, but which has since been withdrawn – advised priests not …
If occasonally I depart from philosphic mode, I hope I will be forgiven for my human failing. It usually isn‘t worth getting roiled up. On this issue, however, I don’t apologise at all. What some entitled, predatory and totally amoral men are doing now in the United States is trying to discredit the MeToo movement …
“The new Republican tax code deliberately rigs the economy in favor of the political donor class – the CEOs, corporations, and millionaires who fund campaign – and virtually guarantees that a tiny number of the richest people in the country will get significantly richer while working families and the middle class get screwed. “Among other …
Continue reading ‘“The new Republican tax code rigs the economy.”. A millionaire investor’ »
Postal workers and their allies are demanding that the country’s mail service stay in the hands of the public. This comes amid increasing threats to privatize the postal service, including a proposal from President Trump this summer to examine selling U.S. Mail off to the highest bidder. Many may think that in the internet age, …
1. Distracting yourself by dedicating time to work, study or hobbies. Drawing or painting is particularly absorbing. It doesn’t matter if the result is lousy. Singing in an amateur choir can be fun, and it doesn’t matter if your voice is a bit weak or you can’t read music. 2. Joining a social club, but …
Continue reading ‘Coping with loneliness : follow- on from a recent post’ »
To the White House: Mr. President, Over the last week or two the nation has been more divided than I have seen it in my lifetime. While I am honored to have been chosen by you for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court, and to have had the heartening support of the Republican members …
Continue reading ‘Revealed: The letter drafted but never delivered’ »
In February 2018 The BBC Loneliness Experiment was launched on BBC Radio 4 in collaboration with the Wellcome Foundation. People from 237 different countries, islands and territories took part in the survey. A summary of the main findings: Loneliness is said to mainly strike older, isolated people – and of course it can, and does. …
Continue reading ‘Loneliness. ( an attempt at a deliberate distraction from the news!)’ »
The Tune The Tune, just like it’s friend, the Rhyme, Has had its era and its time. Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein Now seem as quaint as Auld Lang Syne. And big bands that were once the rage, Are relics of a bygone age. A booming sound in deep bass clef Now satisfies the future deaf. …
On April 24th the New York Times reported that Mick Mulvaney – then interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the following to a group of bankers: “We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a …
The famous quote by George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, is echoed by Yascha Mounk, who writes, “One possible explanation for why young people are disenchanted with democracy is that they have little conception of what it would mean to live in a different political system.” Today most …
Yesterday, my colleague, Owen Bell, wrote a post about millennials and their attitudes. Today I would like to comment on the group coming up behind them, teenagers of both genders. More than 100,000 children aged 14 in the UK are self-harming, with one in four girls of this age having deliberately hurt themselves, according to …
“There’s no such thing as the season of goodwill when it comes to political debate on social media. It’s all about fury and outrage. Even when tweets are funny, you can taste the “anger inside the sugar coating of smug satire”. Rage is contagious – it spreads like an infection across online forums, which have …
“In Brussels, EU ambassadors were sufficiently worried to convene an ‘emergency’ no deal meeting at the European Commission, with a rejection by British MPs of any Brexit deal being openly discussed for the first time. There is also a nagging fear that the European Parliament, always eager to muscle into the political arena in Brussels, …
