national security | Pizzey's Perch

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TO BAN OR NOT TO BAN: THE LATEST TIK TOK CHALLENGE

10 March 2023 allen.pizzey Comments 4 Comments

For some time now I’ve been mildly concerned that my inferior skill sets with online apps and social media trends hinder my future development. News that Tik Tok may soon be banned offers one less thing for me to fret about. Whether the move will make the world a safer place is rather more doubtful, however.… Read the rest

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Pizzey’s Perch

OPTING OUT IS FINE, UNTIL YOU GO BACK IN 4 October 2024
The only drawback to opting out of the news, as I’ve just done for three weeks, is that dropping back in again has prompted a worrying sense of futility about my life-long obsession with it. Forty-one years ago this month, in a dingy building in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon, a scowling man with a neatly trimmed […]
WHERE CLIMATE IS KING 28 September 2024
As I write this, I’m looking out across a (thankfully) gently rolling gray expanse of the North Atlantic. It’s strange to see an unbroken horizon after a week of cruising among the icebergs and daunting cliffs of islands in the Canadian High Arctic. The ancestors of the Inuit people who live there arrived about 5,000 […]
THE SPLENDOUR OF AN UNFORGIVING LAND 20 September 2024
“Greenland is Nature’s reminder of its utter indifference to humankind”. I have no idea of who said that, but a week of cruising and visiting small villages along a coastline that truly merits the much overworked adjective “awesome” has given me reason to celebrate it. The Viking adventurers who were the first Europeans to brave […]
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE UNDERSTATED 6 September 2024
The subtle ways Nature signals the inexorable reality of change, are useful lessons for anyone trying to sort out, or at least cope with the messy world of humanity before it’s too late. As regular “perch” readers will have at this point already figured out, my go-to example for that is loons.… Read the rest […]
WHAT’S WORTH WHAT 30 August 2024
A few days ago, I pointed my kayak into a gusting north wind kicking up a lot of chop. I can’t put a dollar sign on what the effort was worth to me, which makes me wonder how monetary values are assigned to things with no quantifiable or practical value. A couple of kilometers of […]
SHHH…AND YOU MIGHT LIVE LONGER 23 August 2024
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, While taxes are an indisputable necessity, neither of the two additions to Franklin’s truism are in any way essential.… […]
IF YOU ACT LIKE A DUCK, YOU’RE… 16 August 2024
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. Early one morning this week I came upon a line (known as a “paddle”) of juvenile […]
MORE THAN POLITICS IS WEIRD THESE DAYS 9 August 2024
“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. The New York Times reported that Monday “was the worst day for U.S.… Read the rest The […]
AMERICA HAS IDENTITY ISSUES 2 August 2024
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. For a significant segment of MAGA-world denizens, racist and misogynistic slurs pass for wit and wisdom.… Read […]
IT SEEMS WE’RE NOT LISTENING PROPERLY 19 July 2024
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 […]

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