It’s endured for more than 200 years, but Benjamin Franklin’s adage “Nothing is certain except death and taxes” must now be amended. Today, the certainty includes brain-mugging loud music, and adverts for anti-aging supplements,… Read the rest
Nature has an unrivalled ability to still the depressing chorus of affronts to our intelligence by politics, and to the English language by those who bring the transgressions to our attention. It also gifts us metaphors for humanity’s foibles.… Read the rest
“Weird” being the political buzzword of the moment, here’s my weird connection of the week: adults with the mindset of small children in the money business, and those with only money on their minds in the news business.… Read the rest
As is so often the case in the strum und drang of politics, the cry that the U.S. presidential election is about the “future of democracy” perversely both emphasises and hides another serious matter; a national identity crisis.… Read the rest
Trying to cut through and parse the rhetorical bedlam of current U.S. politics can be taxing to the point of painful. A useful tool is the advice a dear departed friend, who read voraciously and talked volubly, proffered whenever I lost track of what she was on about: “Listen to what I mean, not to what I say.”… Read the rest
Not that they’ll ever hear it, but I think President Joe Biden, and evangelicals who unquestioningly back Donald Trump, deserve a version of a lesson I offered to the local drivers employed by CBS News in the early days of the Afghan war.… Read the rest
The evidence of growing inadequacy and an ongoing slippage of human intelligence, on both macro and micro levels, is enough to make even a sceptic like me re-consider the risk-versus-rewards of AI.… Read the rest
A single word holds the key to the myriad crises plaguing the world – dehumanisation. It is omnipresent in wars, policies on migrants and shortfalls in humanitarian aid. It has also become the bedrock of those who perpetuate the ills.… Read the rest
Strange as it may sound, I have come to think of a spacecraft as a person. In a quest to satisfy that most basic human characteristic, curiosity, Voyager 1 is defying expectations and seemingly impossible odds with dogged determination.… Read the rest
With the exception of their host, the leaders of the G7 gathered in Italy are demonstrably confused about how to deal with surging right wing populism. The advice they need was provided by one of history’s most storied right-wingers, Charles de Gaulle: “Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.… Read the rest