Posts tagged “War”
While you’re waiting for the bus
You can work for UPS if you’ve got a bad back, but not if you’re pregnant. Voter suppression scares the bejeezus out of me. Only rich white folks deserve to vote? I think overcast days are actually rather nice. My biggest obstacle to getting a job outside of academia is that most jobs are utter […]
While you’re waiting for the bus
Why haven’t you read more George Eliot? Science fiction and real wars (via Per Square Mile): Fiction does not replace policy analysis. But science fiction is the literature of “what if?” Not just “what if X happens?” but also “what if we continue what we’re doing?” In that way, science fiction can inform policy making […]
Last call
Body Bags by Brian Turner A murder of crows looks on in silence from the eucalyptus trees above as we stand over the bodies — who look as if they might roll over, wake from a dream and question us about the blood drying on their scalps, the bullets lodged in the back of their […]
Pay to kill or pay to live: Republicans vs. Democrats
The Republicans were voted in on a promise to make $100 billion in spending cuts. They’ve walked back from that number, but are still doing their best to cut any program that might help the average US citizen. (If you have money to burn, however, your fire isn’t going out anytime soon.) The proposed spending […]
Cultural destruction
The Spaniards did all in their power to crush the religious spirit of the Inca. In a manual published early in the seventeenth century as a guide for missionaries, Pablo José de Arriaga offered simple advice for priests confronting idolatry. “Everything that is inflammable is burned at once,” the priest wrote, “and the rest broken […]
What I’ve Noticed
Frank Fenner thinks we’ll go the way of the Easter Islanders in the next 100 years. I disagree that humans will go extinct, but I agree that we’ve waited far too long to address energy and population issues to avoid dramatic and involuntary reduction in our population. And it’s already happening: resource competition, exacerbated by […]
What I’ve Noticed
Japanese farmers grow the most beautiful apples. The process is incredibly labor intensive, however, and may die out in the next generation or so. Peg Mullen, the Cindy Sheehan of the Vietnam war, died last week. Why aren’t more women philosophers? It’s the same reason most women steer clear of computer science: the large proportion […]