It is a strange fallacy we have that we think nation and nationhood is only about 5,000 years old, maybe 10,000 if we take it as starting with farming. The reason I find it strange is that nationhood is an idea and as an idea it doesn’t get stronger just because the population increases. if…
Shänne Sands
I have been asked about Shänne Sands who is an unknow poet and why I quote her work so often. The best answer I am able to give is a critique of her work from poetry professor in America i who read the five selections of her work published in 2011: ‘… I find your…
Early Philosophy
The first philosophers may have been asking or been asked a question. We will never know what it was, what is a cloud? Why does it rain? do we need pain? It probably wasn’t profound because they may not yet have had the language to ask. It may also have been what is self-awareness? which…
The Beauty of the Maestrom
The Webb telescope has been redefining high resolution ands given us broader and deeper insights into the nebula and planet formation in deep space. The beauty of the resultant images cannot be denied and one hopes the scientists have managed to get the colours right, yet in this beauty are terrifying energies and powers that…
Stabbings
With the murder of a thirteen year old I hear the police stating they will find the perpetrator but he also added we need to get to the root of the problem and if these stabbings have something to do with bad parenting. I think it would go without saying that anyone who kills may…
6 a.m.
Here in Cornwall even now as autumn begins it is difficult to get away from crowds. Why would I want to get away from crowds? Because they are not here for the benefit of the county but to forget where they have to live and work. In the years since the 1970s when tourism really…
Lying Isn’t the Problem
Lying is part of the evolution of mind and is everywhere in every human interaction and country. The problem isn’t that lying exists or even how to recognise a lie, it is how we handle lies. If we take it as read that we are lied to all the time the need to be able…
The poor celebrity
I am not surprised by actresses like Jolie and Arab/Muslim members of Congress or any Parliament around the world damning Israel. They are not great intellects, they are not significant thinkers, they are not historians and certainly not ethicists. And to crticize Israel based on the ethics Judaism has taught them has a certain quality…
The Donkey
The Donkey When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve,…
There Be Dragons
The new issue of the New Art Examiner is a your-de-force of articles about dragons and dragon literature and myths around the world. But that was not the most interesting element to the theme because ceramics and paintings exist dealing with every myth. No, the most ingesting thing was the Oxford English Dictionary derivation of…