council of clan mothers in an imagined post-civilization culture; diorama from Afterculture (redrawn by AI to make the image crisper and more legible — right click to open full size in a new window) Lyle Fass has recently written a series of articles lamenting the staggering incompetence and destructiveness of patriarchal societies (which almost all…
image by Layers on Pixabay Ever had one of those awkward moments when you’re talking with (or messaging with) someone who is struggling with an acute or chronic crisis (a terminal illness, recent loss of a loved one, a severe bout of depression etc), and you don’t know what to say? I’m guessing it happens…
image by AI; my own prompt Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how reluctant we humans are to accept truths that clash with our worldview — our beliefs about the world. This is, of course, understandable. Our worldview is a complicated, interwoven set of judgements, feelings, and other results of sense-making that we have…
The image on the History and Context card in the Group Works deck. Image by Nomad Tales on flickr, CC-BY-SA 2.0 (this artist is no longer on flickr). Before our average attention spans were reduced to something less than a minute, we were required, if we expected to be taken seriously in any discussion about…
image by AI; my own prompt — ‘me’ imagining worst-case scenarios Every day, something happens that gets me anxious or upset. Technology failures, news about outrageous events, abuses and other horrors, meanness and unfairness by people I know or observe. Small worrisome physical or mental health issues. Dismay and shame at my own behaviours. Dread…
This is a work of fiction. image by AI; my own prompt I had been blathering on about our lack of free will, in my usual annoying way, when my friend said to me: “You keep insisting that we have no free will, and no ‘self’ even to have it. But at the same time…
This is #54 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk and hike in my local community. my own photo, from a number of years ago As I trace the path around the lake, I stop to watch a mother pushing a baby…
Yes, this is a rant. image by AI; my own prompt Travel by Canadians to the US is down almost 50% from last year’s already drastically reduced levels. Part of this is a quiet Canadian protest against US imperialist foreign policy — Trump’s arrogant assumption that Canadians wouldn’t find the idea of being a US…
Screencap of Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s interview of Tim Minchin The idea that asking good questions is the best way to contribute to learning and intellectual discussions is probably as old as civilization. I’ve written about the value of questions often on this blog, notably in a post summarizing the six qualities of a good question, the…
image by AI; my own prompt I am reading Italo Calvino’s last and unfinished work Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Or, I should probably say, I am half-heartedly trying to read it, since it is all over the place, and packed with references to literature some of which was written millennia ago, some of it in…
image by AI; my own prompt Each month I’m finding it harder and harder to distinguish news and articles about “politics and economics as usual” from news and articles about collapse. I guess that means collapse — economic, political, ecological and all the rest of our complex civilization systems — is now well and truly…
