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As the pop pundits keep reminding us, we are becoming a global culture. We share the same TV shows and movies, drink the same Coca-Cola, and shoot the same Kodak film. But this "global culture" is highly superficial—^it is only the gloss of popular culture, apparent only in what people over the world would like to…
Going negative is risky. Countless polls have shown that voters find negativity distasteful in the extreme, and if a candidate is percieved as going negative, it usually costs him, but of course GW Bush is a creature of his campaign advisors and these advisors are the best that $70 million dollars and the full faith…
That we need a planetary ethic is so obvious that I need but list a few key words: climate, ethnic cleansing, fossil fuels, habitat preservation, human rights, hunger, infectious disease, nuclear weapons, oceans, ozone layer, pollution, population. Our global conversations on these topics are, by definition…
Every point mass attracts every single other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them
The relative interattractiveness invisibly operative between any two remote-from-one-another cosmic bodies, as compared to any other pair of cosmic bodies, equally distanced from one another, is proportional to the multiplicative product of the respective couple's masses, and the interattractiveness of any pair of…
Daniel Kunitz is a friend of mine from college. He's spent his life as an innovative junior and senior high school social sciences teacher. Want the students to understand the Constitution of the United States? You could have them read it, Article by Article, and then discuss it in class but, sadly, this will put most…
President Ronald Reagan, who spent World War Two in Hollywood, vividly described his own role in liberating Nazi concentration camp victims. Living in the film world, he apparently confused a movie he had seen with a reality he had not. On many occasions in his Presidential campaigns, Mr Reagan told an epic story of…
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.
When Rachel Carson made us aware of the dangers arising from the mass application of toxic chemicals, she presented her arguments in the manner of an advocate, not a scientist. In other words, she selected the evidence to prove her case. The chemical industry, seeing its livelihood threatened by her action, responded…
As a member or supporter of the Coffee Party, I pledge to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest, and respectful toward people with whom I disagree. I value people from different cultures, I value people with different ideas, and I value and cherish the democratic process.
Practically all political power vests in the samurai. Not only are they the only administrators, lawyers, practising doctors, and public officials of almost all kinds, but they are the only voters. Yet, by a curious exception, the supreme legislative assembly must have one-tenth, and may have one-half of its members…