Sometimes I write about how popular culture either directly - see this one about punk singer-songwriter TV Smith - or indirectly is 'about' how the world works/policymaking. Recently I've been bingeing on the "Rene Ballard books by Michael Connelly (better known for his Harry Bosch and Micky Haller novels - Ballard is in the same... Continue Reading →
Planet of the planet-trashing apes, and I am scared af
I read this tweet. https://twitter.com/MrMatthewTodd/status/1557288961135067137 And I think about how worse-than-useless our education system and media systems are (for lots of reasons, some of them probably pretty intractable, not that we ever really tried to tract them). And how we are not joining the dots between the energy and food crises and just how bad... Continue Reading →
Of “Oil Goggles” and the veil drawn back. Proust etc
I just put up a post on "All Our Yesterdays" about beer goggles and "oil goggles." A few things a) a good friend pointed to the wording that would allow people to reasonably infer sexism/misogyny (I used the term "arm-chewer" - I had worded things to be equal opportunity offensive, but the term itself skews... Continue Reading →
SMOTE – (social movement organisation transcience and emptiness.) Why “we” refuse to see it, say it. #ClimateTwitter
All these people on Climate Twitter, spouting variations of information deficit, or hope deficit or anger deficit. All of them studiously avoiding the key (imo) question - what do social movement organisations need to do DIFFERENTLY, given that for the last 30 plus years, they have not managed to slow the acceleration of the destruction... Continue Reading →
Things we can’t see, don’t have the language for, that MATTER (the mechanics of social movement organisations etc etc)
We can't, usually, 'see' carbon dioxide. But we know it is there. Since the 1950s very very accurate measures of its concentration in the atmosphere have been kept (thanks to Uncle Sam and his military industrial complex). While dickheads - to use the technical academic term - like ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott scoff at "invisible... Continue Reading →
Smart but so very very stupid at the same time: Dunning-Kruger among would-be leaders
I've just read Melissa Benn's excellent novel of "New Labour" - "One of Us" (more soon). That - combined with Rishi Sunak's response in the "leadership" "debate" to what he would do about climate change (recycling, wasting less, innovation) has got me to thinking about the question of, well, how our "leaders" are so catastrophically... Continue Reading →
How/when to criticise environmental activists for being “stupid, unhelpful, lazy.” (spoiler: it’s not when they refuse to join cheerleading for aggro-capitalism)
This is going to be sweary. If you are all Omar Little, and don't like swearing, then look away now. For fucking fuckity fucking fuck's fucking sake. What kind of fucking clueless muppet chides environmentalists when they are lukewarm about some rapacious purveyor of salt, sugar, fat and protein getting in on the fake meat... Continue Reading →
What is to be done? After the Heat goes out of the issue…
On my @our_yesterdays account I did a thread highlighting some of the previous episodes in UK government awareness of the (then long-term) threat of climate change, back in the 1970s. After the litany, came the homily - https://twitter.com/our_yesterdays/status/1548660813950500868 So in this post I will (as briefly as I can, with hyperlinks to other places where... Continue Reading →
Of (#climate) hubs, hope and homilies…
On Wednesday two excellent things took place. One, I bought some juggling kit at the "Oddballs" shope in the lanes in Brighton. https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1547865902464389121 The second is - hopefully - more consequential. I went to Seaford (a town on the coast) to meet up with Becky and Roy, who are neck deep, with others, in organising... Continue Reading →
A supermarket encounter, pondering charities as salesmen for Big Pharma
UPDATE - Aaaand a week later... "Critical elements of leading Alzheimer’s study possibly fraudulent" July 24th, 2022 Alzheimer's Research UK having a stall and a couple of people at the Co-op -a young woman holding up an orange and as her practiced opening gambit asking me what's the connection with Alzheimer's? “Diet, class,” I say... Continue Reading →