Lifestyle topics
The greatest threat to the future of the human race is the number of humans. And yet this subject is rarely raised. Businesses want a growing population to swell the growth of demand, and thus profits. But a growing population requires an expanding social and physical infrastructure, such as roads, schools and hospitals. It is …
The winner of the 70th Venice Film Festival, “Sacro GRA”, is a documentary about people, including sex workers, living along the ring road around Rome (can’t wait). Other films on show featured an alien in human form, a JFK assassination movie, necrophilia, and a whishy-washy film about Donald Rumsfeld (yawn). Note: humour, taste, beauty, not …
Continue reading ‘Venice, films and a crisis of relevance and taste’ »
“When Al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned broadcaster, bought Al Gore’s cable channel for $500m to gain a toe-hold in the US market, executives knew they wouldn’t “get the red-carpet treatment”. But the station’s experience in Britain – where initial scepticism gave way to critical acclaim – might have persuaded them that a similar feat could be …
Continue reading ‘The ignorance and provincialism of the US evangelicals’ »
Resilience is the key to success in everything – to a degree few realise. Too often, people just take it as read that they’re no good at, say, maths, and stop trying. But studies have shown that “the architecture of the brain actually changes if we stick at things”. Practice develops skills. In concert pianists, …
The line between police officers and soldiers has become dangerously blurred in the US with the rise of paramilitary SWAT teams whose gear – M16 rifles, battering rams, flashbang grenades (and mindset) is “more appropriate for a battlefield”. In the 1970s, they made a few hundred raids a year, but by 2005, this had grown …
