I learnt a new acronym recently. WEIRD. It stand for Western – Educated – Industrialised – Rich – Democratic. It refers to much of the western world today. Maybe we are a bit weird. It got me thinking. If the western world is weird, what is the opposite? The opposite would be low education, rural, […]
It is interesting to hear all the comments from Generation X, Millenials, and Gen Z about how we Baby Boomers had it so good. What is rarely mentioned is what we didn’t have so good. Maybe Gen X, Millenials or Gen Z would like to experience some of what we experienced then tell us if […]
What are inconvenient truths? The things we kind of know but would rather we didn’t. We all know too much chocolate is bad for us, but we sort of bury that fact in the back of our mind when we see a bar of chocolate. Here are a few more that have a bit bigger […]
It seems more and more, the USA is broken. Aside from Trump, this year we have had a poor response to coronavirus, further withdrawal from the international scene by such actions as quitting the WHO, lack of support for Hong Kong, distancing from NATO, etc. and now the BLM protests. What more could go wrong? […]
It worried me at the time. An uneasy feeling, I could not actually pin down. I overheard someone say, “If you’re not a capitalist, you must be a socialist.” Aside from the black or white view, something else nagged at me. Are capitalism and socialism the ends of the same line? Are they “soft” to […]
I heard Scot Morrison say a few weeks back that where we are today with Covid 19 is unimaginable from where we were a week previously. Really Prime Minister? Where is the contingency planning a nation should be doing to protect its population? Could we not afford that? Surely Covid 19 was not totally unforeseen. […]
These days when I start reading the news, I wonder if anything is happening in the world other than coronavirus. Surely there is something else to write about. So I am going to write about something else …. sort of. What I want to look at is the past and the future. How did we […]
Does filling your recycling bin make you an environmentalist or is it just virtue signalling? Do you like people to think you are concerned about saving the environment or is it because you honestly believe you should be doing it? What makes an effective environmentalist? This post will explore a few areas. Recycling Although it […]
Foreword. I started out to write a brief history. I failed. It turned into a lengthy document which is still only a superficial history. I hope you can persevere and come to the end of the post with a better understanding of the web that is the Middle East. I should also acknowledge vox.com. Some […]
What we in the city don’t know about the drought