Новости за 30.10.2018

The murderous dismemberment of the US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has prompted-- after an initial phase of “let’s not presume the Saudi bone-saw killers guilty until proven innocent”— subsequent about-face responses from Donald Trump and Theresa May. These responses, like those of the Saudis, are of course attuned in their entirety to the media. More

Humans are complicated creatures. We are both cooperative and sectarian. We tend to be cooperative within in-groups (e.g., a trade union) whilst competing against out-groups (e.g., a business confederation). But complex societies such as ours also force us to cooperate with out-groups – in neighbourhoods, at work, and so on. In social systems, natural selection More

It’s always been fascinating (and revealing) how people regard the core beliefs of our two major political parties. Not how they themselves vote, which is boring, but how they go about articulating the differences between the two parties when asked to do so. Granted, there will always be those who insist there’s no real difference More

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report on the status of arthropods in rainforests (Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia, Climate-Driven Declines in Arthropod Abundance Restructure a Rainforest Food Web, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115). The report’s shocking analysis discovered a collapsing food web in tropical rainforests. Oh please! More

The massacre of 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the arrest of a far-right serial bomber in Florida, and probably the killings of two African Americans in Kentucky, should be signs that fascism is no longer an abstract threat, but is right on our doorstep. In the same way, the recent intensified hurricanes in Florida, More

Just in time for Hallowe’en, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced on October 15 that he would attempt to resurrect the corpse of the War Powers Resolution. Sanders, along with Senator Mike Lee (R-Ut.) and Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), had introduced Senate Joint Resolution 54 on February 28 in an attempt to end US involvement in More

The prospect of drastic climate change is back in the news. But, for all too many people it is just that, a news item. It is like other eye-grabbing stories: a bit scary, but also happening somewhere else and at some other time. Of course, if you happen to be at that other place or More

If you believe in the separation of church and state, then you probably think that evangelicals exert far too much influence on American life, our politics and culture. When I remarked to a friend that evangelicals are the America’s answer to the Taliban, he thought the comparison was too harsh. After all, he said, “Evangelicals More

In May of 2018, Counterpunch.org was kind enough to publish my essay, “A Call to Secular Humanist Resistance.”  That piece was very popular on social media. It even received a “like” and re-tweet from a very well known celebrity who has received the ire of Donald Trump. But as I reviewed my essay, one startling More

The reasons for abandoning construction of the new US Marine Corps Air Facility, being built for the Marines by the Japanese Defense Ministry at Henoko in northern Okinawa, are many.  It tramples on the Okinawan people’s anti-war sensibilities; it places an unequal burden on Okinawa compared to mainland Japan and is therefore discriminatory; it will More

The origins of the Invictus Games (“For our Wounded Warriors,” goes the slogan) lies in war.  Wars that crippled and caused depression and despair. The games became a project of grand distraction and worth, a form of emotional bread for servicemen and women.  Do not let wounds, mental or physical, deter you.  Move to the More

Two years before Donald Trump rode the Tea Party wave into the White House, Larry Hogan captured the Maryland governor’s mansion with the help of this same energy. As the Tea Party was gaining strength – born of a distrust of government and media, and white backlash against the first black president – so was More