Freedom and slavery
Blend into our lives like life in living tree trunks
Encompassed, restricted, contained
Bound in wood flesh
Enslaved by mammal inadequacy
Yet saturated by spring’s volition
Growing sacred freedom
In progressive rings
The darkest auroras linger in our consciousness. Please take a moment to remember this historical fact. Today is the ninety-eighth birthday of the First World War. Less than 100 years ago today, at 11:10 AM on July 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. The First World War officially began. The aristocracy (King, Emperor…
“No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe (think humanity) is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine…
Human bamboozling, one of our natural limitations, resembles what causes so many people to condemn bamboo. How many gardens has humanity invaded? How many life forms has Homo sapiens driven towards extinction? Who’s next? Where next? Is any garden on earth safe from our human propensity to invade? Most important, is there any possibility that humanity is about to do a better job of self-control?
It’s more important to live for your people than to die for them.
Weapons drones with names like Predator and Reaper are now actively engaged in combat. A recent article in The Economist suggests that the “next generation of drones will have artificial intelligence giving them a high degree of operational autonomy including – if legal and ethical questions can be resolved – the [self-contained?] ability to shoot…
Can you name the great historians of the 21st century? We don’t know their names, but we can make a reasonable guess about the primary focus of their inquiries. If humans have existed for 200,000 years, then humanity has 200,000 years of history. The great historians of the 21st century will focus on all of…