The entire framing of left and right wing, which derives from the French Revolution with the royalist leaning delegates sitting on the right and the anti-royalists sitting on the left. But the idea of population control, of laws drafted to suit one’s own constituency, or media control cross over. The right allows more freedoms today…
Month: December 2024
Old Roads
I found myself having to deliver a small present for someone from someone else and taking a road I used to travel semi-regularly but had not been on for some twenty years. Knowing the road well and meeting again those houses on corners and sharp turns it was not the road itself I found myself…
Is Death So Much To Fear
I was reading about Comfort women in the wars in the Pacific and was surprised to learn there were many in the Korean war. I should not have been surprised because sex can make people unsavoury and brutal faster than bigotry. Or maybe in this instance, sex becomes a form of bigotry. In any case…
Constitutions
Constitutions are strange beasts – they have the language of law but the framework they encode is ethical. And the ethics they attempt to construct are supposed to have a very long life and martial millions of people who will not have the same ethics as each other. By their very nature they need to…
Cultural Ethics
Recently we encountered a well know retired editor seeking $1000 from an artist to mention them in an article to be published in the New Art Examiner. Needless to say we will not be using him or his work. A New Zealand artist I was talking to in London was not even surprised she said…
Above the law
There is probably some truth to the idea that some of the charges against Trump were politically motivated – though how any politician can be free of that defence is hard to see – but it should be up to the lawyers and judges to determine the facts. It is interesting to note that the…
What Is Reality
The idea that we do not see the world as it is because the brain puts the images together is not new. The idea that because of this we are not seeing reality , is. Firstly we know how lenses work and we are aware that an image is upside down in the brain as…
Podcasting
I have been asked to be part of a podcast with one other person talking about the Middle East and the various dangerous situations that exist across its borders. While I enjoyed the 40 minute trial run we did I feel the weight of making pronouncements about other peoples’ lives and experiences. I am effected…
Syria
I am delighted Assad has fled and sad he is not in jail or on trial. I hope that comes before he dies. A man responsible for more deaths of Muslims than Israel will never have a fatwah on his head from the Iranian religious bigots because he murdered in their name. I don’t trust…
Imagination
We are always being told how much greater than we the weather systems of the world are, how small and insignificant we are compared to the size and wonder of the Universe itself. In our nations we strive for a name and adore fame because we are ‘common’ or ‘regular joes’ with nothing more to…