Heading into the final week of campaigning for the US elections, I find the level of personal nastiness and lies has plunged far below what I ever expected. We see Trump calling El-Sayed a radical ‘jihadist’, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and an advocate for Sharia law. We have him calling Talarico a sexual […]
As the US midterm elections approach, there are more and more cries to impeach Trump once the Democrats gain control. Impeachment is just one of the silly ideas being bandied about, but let’s start with that one. Impeachment does not mean removal from office. It’s more like an indictment. Impeachment means nothing in practice. The […]
First, I’m always amazed that the ‘pro-life’ group is virtually the same group that supports the death penalty. Huh? When I was in high school, we had debates over the death penalty. The argument for the penalty always boiled down to ‘deterrence’. If potential murderers know that they will be put to death if caught, […]
Ask anyone in the United States, “Is child rape OK?” 100% will say “no.” And yet, 40% of Americans approve of Donald Trump. If you ask them how this is possible, the answer (probably fudged and hemmed and hawed) is that Trump is doing so many wonderful things for the country, like deporting criminal immigrants, […]
We just had the monks’ house-blessing ceremony for our new house. It raised many questions. monks chanting at our house-warming It was positively medieval and other-worldly. Of course, that’s the point: to perpetuate the continuity of traditions that date back at least a thousand years. Also, religious ceremonies in general are designed to transport people […]
Trump’s tariffs, the oil blockade, etc. have destroyed what was left of the interconnected world economy. Until recently, a car assembled in the US, for example, contained hundreds of parts from all over the world. A vast web of arrangements allowed parts to be shipped from one country to another. We really had a global […]
I was taking my morning walk in the gardens behind Wat Kandal in Battambang, when an Indian-looking guy came up to me saying “Shiva, Shiva”, and pointing to a remote corner of the gardens. There I found a new statue of Shiva, complete with his identifying symbols of the trident, the third eye, and especially […]
Many people view Trump as God in the same way that most religious people view their gods. However, my explanation of the common perception of God is not the normal one, so let me start with that. For most people, shit happens. That is the default. Things normally go wrong. But once in a while, […]
Everyone is talking about the future of AI these days. Most of the discussions I read or hear center around the loss of millions of jobs, as AI can do tasks that most human employees now perform. However, there are dozens of other ramifications, each more frightening than the last. Today I saw an interview […]
The world is teetering on the brink of a financial crisis. Mainstream media are not covering this all-important story, probably because the situation is complicated and would not be understood by most viewers. When the US debt reaches 40 trillion, this is a number that almost no one comprehends. It is 40,000,000,000,000. Hard to get […]