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A LITTLE “LUDDITING” IS IN ORDER

A LITTLE “LUDDITING” IS IN ORDER

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Noth­ing can be done about youth being “wast­ed on the young”, but squan­der­ing the pow­er of moral out­rage on the ridicu­lous is waste to the nth degree. Beset as we are by screech­ing to ban books for “woke” agen­das, uni­ver­si­ties more focused on ensur­ing stu­dents don’t feel “uncom­fort­able” than in spark­ing crit­i­cal think­ing and a Press will­ing to quote lies in the name of “bal­ance”,  it’s time to reha­bil­i­tate the Lud­dites, if only in spirit.… Read the rest

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF THINK? DIDN’T THINK SO

CAN YOU HEAR YOURSELF THINK? DIDN’T THINK SO

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“Silence is the sleep that nour­ish­es wis­dom.” The chances of enjoy­ing that 16th cen­tu­ry insight from philoso­pher Fran­cis Bacon are slim to nil in today’s world. But a lit­tle more peace and qui­et would go some way to starv­ing the igno­rance with which soci­ety is  pro­gres­sive­ly bloating.
Not only is there too much noise of every kind, many peo­ple seem to find it not just tol­er­a­ble, but nec­es­sary.… Read the rest

THE QUESTION LEAST ASKED AND MOST NEEDED

THE QUESTION LEAST ASKED AND MOST NEEDED

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The Moody Blues’ 1970 hit “Ques­tion” opened, appro­pri­ate­ly, with the lines: “Why do we nev­er get an answer/When we’re knock­ing at the door/With a thou­sand mil­lion questions/About hate and death and war?”…”
In a world where those three ills are at pan­dem­ic lev­el, the answer may well be because the ques­tion “why” isn’t asked often enough.… Read the rest

A LESSON IN HUMANITY, FROM DUCKS

A LESSON IN HUMANITY, FROM DUCKS

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Pad­dling my kayak along the gran­ite shore of the lake where I cur­rent­ly reside, I came upon a small group of young mer­ganser ducks. They may, or may not, have been sib­lings. Mer­gansers have a char­ac­ter­is­tic that is com­mon among humans who have the least to share and sad­ly, often rare among those who have more than enough.… Read the rest

A MEA CULPA PERSPECTIVE ON HINDSIGHT

A MEA CULPA PERSPECTIVE ON HINDSIGHT

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Of the many apho­risms on  hind­sight, the one which ought to be the truest was penned by the ancient Greek writer Homer: “After the event, even a fool is wise.” Too often and albeit for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, pol­i­cy mak­ers and jour­nal­ists have an abil­i­ty to be the excep­tion. One of the most sin­is­ter exam­ples is jihadism and I was, in a small way, part of it.… Read the rest

REAPING WHAT WE’VE SOWN

REAPING WHAT WE’VE SOWN

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For decades famine, drought, strife and cor­rup­tion have been so com­mon in parts of Africa that out­siders could, to an extent, be excused for see­ing them as nor­mal. It is well  past time on many lev­els for the com­fort­able com­pla­cen­cy of will­ful igno­rance to give way to a harsh real­i­ty; the divide between “them” and “us” has been well and tru­ly breached.… Read the rest

CHIPMUNKS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVACY

CHIPMUNKS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVACY

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One of the many joys of sum­mer beside a for­est-encir­cled lake is that unlike every moment of every day in “nor­mal” life, your pri­va­cy is respect­ed. The wel­come excep­tion is a chip­munk, who appears, unbid­den and insis­tent, for a hand­out of nuts. When cheek pouch­es are on the point of burst­ing , he/she (gen­der assign­ment is nigh on impos­si­ble with chip­pies) darts off to store them deep in a hid­den den.… Read the rest

THE PUERILE ARE IN THE PREPONDERANCE

THE PUERILE ARE IN THE PREPONDERANCE

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Noth­ing so neat­ly epit­o­mis­es how skewed pri­or­i­ties have become as the “Bar­ben­heimer” movie delir­i­um.  If the gush of praise, analy­sis and oth­er com­men­tary is any indi­ca­tion, a doll and a shade of pink embody deep lessons and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance. The oth­er half of the con­joined title ought to be an admo­ni­tion of how lit­tle progress West­ern cul­ture has made since invent­ing the means to destroy it and pret­ty much every­thing else.… Read the rest

CEREBRAL VERSUS VISCERAL

CEREBRAL VERSUS VISCERAL

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In a world beset by a seem­ing­ly ever-metas­ta­sis­ing Pandora’s box of  life-alter­ing, if not end­ing threats, for those with the means and respon­si­bil­i­ty of elim­i­nat­ing, or at the very least ame­lio­rat­ing them, the French philoso­pher Voltaire offers a wor­thy piece of advice: “No prob­lem can with­stand the assault of sus­tained thinking.”… Read the rest