If you're a long-term reader (waves at all three of them) you'll know about "the smugosphere". It is Smugosphere [sməɡ ō sfir]: 1. “the protective fog of (unjustified) self-congratulation and complacency that surrounds any ‘community’ of people claiming to be making the world a better place, but which lacks commonly accepted and utilised measures of success... Continue Reading →
Polar bears, the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), Private Eye and Banx. And #climate meltdown, obvs
First, the cartoon. The cartoonist is Banx, who for my money is one of the best in the UK. His work appears in (at least) the Financial Times and Private Eye (these two are indispensable for understanding what is going on in the UK, as is the Morning Star. None of the three should be... Continue Reading →
Clothes unmaketh the man: Of Starmer, acceptable criticism and hopelessness
Warning: inane banal statements about British politics ahead. Reader discretion (and evasion) recommended. Keir Starmer is facing the first attack on his world-famous integrity and consistency as Prime Minister. It turns out he has been accepting freebies for him and his wife. Because the money isn't enough, or because he's been doing it for ages... Continue Reading →
Private Eye as essential resource: of opposition snark, KPMG and “the creatures outside….”
If you want to have a tolerably accurate picture of what is going on in the UK, well, it's a big job but I would start with a) Private Eye (fortnightly investigative journalism/satire/snark) b) the Financial Times (business newspaper, but not knuckle-dragging ideologues - try Times or Telegraph or the Hate Mail for that) and... Continue Reading →
Big wheel keep on turning – of parents, Larkin and clear water
Two particular Cultural Artefacts bumped together in my head just now, and I realised they are the same thing. Item the first - "This be the verse" by Philip Larkin. It's the one that begins "They fuck you up, your mum and dad". Get beyond that, and there's dark despairing wisdom (my favourite kind, obvs).... Continue Reading →
Podcast worth your time – “To Stay in the Fight we must navigate Trauma and Find the Healing We need”
This is good. To Stay in the Fight we must navigate Trauma and Find the Healing We need https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5N5nDHr81U Doesn't talk enough about movement organisation pathologies, or the emotacycle or what might - concretely - be done. But surfaces questions and problems in a way that is useful.
Happy D/days, “currently abled” and Time’s Winged Chariot… (notes)
Marking theses. Some good, some probably AI gibberish. So it goes. Anyhoos, before antibiotics and public health measures, an infected wound or an epidemic of [insert disease here] could remind you very very starkly of the Impermanence Of All Things. These days, we think we are gonna make it to 85 (spoiler, if you're less... Continue Reading →
Cartoons, catastrophe and the “long” view (even a generation seems as much as we can cope with)
Jotting a note to self for future possible work. I love old cartoons that talk about the ecological crisis - back to Pogo in 1971 "we have met the enemy and he is us" but also others from the same period. They remind me that the stakes have been known since the time I was... Continue Reading →
Cornucupians are structurally lucky in arguments
I should be working (1). Anyway, I am sure some of the readers (singular? plural?) of this blog will have had the experience of trying to explain that there are in fact limits - ecological, social, cognitive, physical, to someone who just denies it all and says, oh, you know the drill "limitless capacity for... Continue Reading →
Laughing at the end of the world… Earthdoom!!
You really do have to have a laugh. And this looks like it might provide some... Arrived today, via the wonders of abebooks
marchudson.net 