Here’s the scandal: My baby is three weeks old and the photo of my baby is still not all over the Internet, despite the fact that the most common reaction is -“Congratulations! Photos?” Of course as a healthy-grumpy-cynical philosopher I recognize how mindless this reflex is, and how we as members of a predominantly visual …
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that we cannot grow the material economy indefinitely on a finite planet.* Such growth however, is exactly what is needed to keep the economic system from falling apart, as many studies have shown.**
What about the “service economy”? Could it be the solution to grow an economy indefinitely? Of …
I remember watching the Tour de France on television on Sunday mornings as a teenager. I remember wonderful names such as Indurain, Ullrich or Janukovitsch. I remember motorcycles patiently following a courageous and ambitious cyclist as he forged ahead alone on a steep col. The camera sometimes showed the beautiful mountains and the road that …
What follows is the post scriptum for a facebook group I founded, entitled Future sustainable living village, a group I couldn’t continue to be a member of for reasons explained below
This group was started by me a few months ago to seriously consider a future sustainable living group using a facebook “group”.
But seems to be …
It is our invitation to the cultured realm of existence: giving her a name. It is the first “act” and symbolic gift we bestow upon her. Naming has played an important role in every religion, and newborns have almost always been named after something or someone. Naming preserved a lineage, honored the founding elders on …
Alex Jones. Now here’s a man who says that the “second amendment is sacrosanct”. As with all individuals alluding to the sacred to support their cause, I feel some suspicion. Watching him agitate void of manners vis-à-vis CNNs Pierce Morgan didn’t put that feeling to sleep. But let’s give the bawdy badger some credit, after …
Obama was perhaps catapulted into power by nifty social media outreach and a moderately credible promise of change we can believe in. When I look at the news, I don’t believe in ” real change” any more. Isn’t the ‘outcome’ of climate conferences, such as those in Rio and Doha, always the same: empty promises …
Image courtesy of realclimate.orgOn this blog I find myself often describing the psychological features of our climatic predicament. I mean, we know the facts, people are working around the clock to get the facts straight, and have succeeded in spite of the heavy lobby in favor of ‘the economy’ and against the facts. You can …
I’m penning these words while the election in the US is underway. Both candidates seem to give absolute priority to ‘repairing the economy’, to creating jobs, install the necessary pipelines, wage the necessary wars and destroy the necessary wildlife sanctuaries to keep gas conveniently low at the pump. This is insane and disgusting. What are …
Bullying! that’s the solution. All we need is thousands of anonymous people following the decision makers of the big corporations (Monsanto, DOW, Bayer, Pfizer, Shell, Chevron, Conoco, Vale, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BP, Coca Cola, Nestle, Apple, Samsung, Goldman Sachs, …) everywhere they go. Make graffiti, pee in their gardens, block their garages and lawns, …
“This is not a vacation, gentlemen” sounded the speaker of the space shuttle. A group of five distinguished white males looked at each other but didn’t seem the least uncomfortable. “You have been democratically elected because you are the most promising individuals to continue humankind. We the people have voted for you. Don’t let us …
Extinguish everyone that is not us, everything that is not human, let every organism go extinct, with the exception of us, homo sapiens, let the mammals die, the reptiles, the bees, the plankton – never mind our primitive ancestors once were dependent on them for their survival. We won’t be. We will have machines …
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N6Hlmp1OnwY/UFKH_luwj7I/AAAAAAAAI3U/THa2GlDEjro/s1600/obama.jpg"></a></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr></tbody></table><i>The president prepared a speech, but never gave it. His advisers told him that giving this speech would be )
The president prepared a speech, but never gave it. His advisers told him that giving this speech would be “unwise with respect his security situation”. In plain English: they were afraid it might get him killed.
Instead, he entrusted me the manuscript to “do the right thing”. I don’t know exactly what he meant by that, …
September 9. Seoul, South KoreaWe’ve given some presentations about Charity Travel in an Arts Center in Seoul, for middle school children who spoke no English. In such cases it comes in handy that Yeon speaks Korean. The presentation was a nice distraction from our preparation for December…
Since we are expecting a daughter in …
Some call it the greed at the heart of the capitalist system, others call it the impossibility of infinite profit on a finite planet, still others call it the dead-urge of our entire industrial civilization. What we can – and should – all agree on, is that we are heading towards the biggest disaster in the …
Sometimes we better use the rear view mirror for our observations, instead of the headlights. Like with deer. – old trucker saying
There is too much literature about the “I”, the ego, the self, or the mind, and too much of this literature is so terribly organised, structured in chapters, paragraphs, sections, with proud …
I saw a brilliant movie the other day. It featured a highly sophisticated critique of both the prevailing intellectualism and the corporately hijacked political elite. Its protagonists presented in part woolly, but mostly toothy arguments supporting the view that our system is undeniably adrift and we are headed for imminent disaster.
The name of the movie …
The straw man used to “debunk” people who countThe business-as-usual people like to portray anyone who raises concerns about the exponential growth of the world population, given our finite habitat, as a misanthropic pessimist who doesn’t believe in progress. These people – whatever their motives are, I find it hard to believe they aren’t bought …
Buckminster Fuller. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Contrary to my habits (but what are habits worth), I republish a piece of raw text originally meant as a small comment on a social network. It was about a quote of Buckminster Fuller, saying that we keep inventing new jobs to control each other, while the real work can …
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