By Dada Vedaprajinananda An August 21, 2023, article in The New Yorker magazine by Ronan Farrow paints a disturbing picture of Elon Musk’s powerful role in some of the most vital areas of public concern. However, as troubling as Musk’s activities are, they are only one example of a larger problem. The article entited “Elon …
By Antii Kivivalli. Eucalyptus trees are native mostly to Australia, but as they seem to grow well and fast and provide therefore an effective source of raw material for the pulp and paper industry, they are widely cultivated in the tropical and temperate world. That means all over the warmer parts of Americas and Europe, …
By Howard Nemon. In 2001, the term BRIC was conceived by a Goldman Sachs economist as a way to keep track of the largest developing countries in the world – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – whose potential could eclipse the Western economic order by 2050. Goldman Sachs, if you are not sure about it, …
By Andy Douglas. Hiphop is fifty! Fifty years ago a musical style was born when African-American youth gathered to create and explore a new way of expressing themselves, and the style has since expanded its influence with tremendous energy to every corner of the world.Though some hiphop lyrics have glorified or celebrated values of materialism …
By Antti Kivivalli. Back in 1945 George Orwell published his novel, Animal Farm, where animals have taken power and and “all animals are equal” – except some animals were “more equal than others”. That was a dystopian allegory of especially the Soviet dictatorship in post-revolution Russia, but it has been quoted a lot ever since. …
By Howard Nemon On August 11, Russia launched its Luna-25 mission that will attempt a soft-landing on the south pole of the moon. In 2019, China, India and Israel all crashed their exploratory vehicles in that same area due to the rough terrain there. The interest in the Moon’s south pole is due to the …
The Space Race is on again – but who will it benefit? Read More »
As the film “Barbie” breaks box office records, now is a good moment to reflect upon the role of corporations in the toy and entertainment industries. Whether you believe the Barbie doll creates unrealistic expectations for girls, or see it as offering a kind of “I can do anything” message of proto-feminism, there are other …
By Shriraksha Mohan As I sat down in a movie theater to watch Christopher Nolan’s movie, Oppenheimer, I had expected to be entertained by Nolan’s cinematic brilliance, as usual. Little did I expect I would leave the theater pondering over humanity’s history of repeatedly giving too much decision-making power to a few individuals, who may …
Oppenheimer: Story of a troubled conscience and mishandled power Read More »
If ever there were an instance of the need for local control over resources, this is one. In Arizona in the drought-stricken western United States, land has been sold to Saudi Arabian and other countries to grow, of all things, alfalfa, which is then shipped back to Saudi Arabia to feed animals. Alfalfa is a …
https://yle.fi/a/74-20043331?utm_medium=social&utm_source=copy-link-share Does Finland want to be known like Wuhan? Are the Finnish officials and fur farmers gambling with bird flu? Finland is still a country of forests and already in prehistoric times Finland used to export animal fur. But for the last hundred years it has meant wild animals living in small cages, bread into …
The other day I was visiting a friend in another city and we had an interesting conversation. We wanted to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and as we piled into his car, he said, “Let’s go to Walmart.” I took a deep breath and told him what I thought …