Listening to the news from Paris these past few days I, like so many Britons, think of climate change as a terrible possibility which may or may not materialise: an appalling possibility we learn to live with, like the threat … Read More »
Human greed is a fact of life: has been since post surplus (hence class) society weakened the bonds of interdependence to introduce new tensions between social and individuated self. So why say the cartoon is reactionary? Because unless contextualised it’s … Read More »
My friend Sue Beardon alerted me to this FB post of November 17 by Greg Afinogenov, a Muscovite living in Boston MA: I’m so sick of seeing the endless debate about “if you care about Paris you don’t care about … Read More »
Today I came across a few commentariat exchanges below a soberly laid out (if a tad detached) Grauniad piece by Kenan Malik. That zerohoursuni chap seems reasonable, well informed and scrupulously polite. Though heavily outvoted by the philistine element, he’s … Read More »
Don’t we instinctively recognise the truth of Goering’s words? I began my last post but one by describing Corbyn’s response to the Paris question – would he endorse shoot to kill by special forces if even greater carnage might thus … Read More »
Like countless others on Saturday morning I padded bleary-eyed into the kitchen to make coffee and, while I waited, switch on the radio. You know something big has happened by the muted tones of those on the scene, and by … Read More »
We have dual natures, you and I. On the one hand we are supremely social animals. Unlike pike or tigers or black widow spiders, who associate only to mate or commit internecine violence, we need one another. Ill equipped for … Read More »
I had a mildly sticky phone convo yesterday, apropos my last post, Corbyn: the first five days, with someone I’ve known a very long time. An intelligent man, highly so in fact, he had two beefs. One (tacitly informed by … Read More »
It’s a great story. Mild mannered, law-abiding lady in her forties – black lady in her forties – is too tired, after yet another hard shift as seamstress, to do as she’d done a hundred times before and give up … Read More »