March 3, 2019

The "freedom" of cars an illusion.

You're only free to go where you're allowed to go within the time constraints that bind you.

How often are you more than a few hundred yards from your car?

What do you see of the world beyond that?

Home, work, shopping, over and over and over again. It's hell.

When I was young and irresponsible I used to be an avid trespasser, walking, running, climbing places no one burdened by a car could go.

My own children and a good number of my nephews and nieces live in big cities. It's a joy to see them get around without their cars.

Cars allowed people who could afford cars to separate themselves from people who could not.

When the "wrong sort" of people were able to afford cars they were terrorized and harassed when they traveled.

How many relationships have become non-consensual because one of the parties couldn't get a ride home?

How many people have been killed and maimed by cars.

I hate cars.

It pisses me off every day that I have to own one to function as an "adult" in this society.

The car culture needs to end. It's killing us and the natural environment of our planet.

February 17, 2019

Chernobyl: The end of a three-decade experiment

This accident demonstrated how humans going about their ordinary business are worse for the natural environment than fallout from a nuclear power plant accident.

And now humans are returning...



I'm quite serious.

If anyone here wants to save the world, there are a few ways to go about it, mostly involving human rights especially for women, realistic sex education, universal access to birth control, and a broad scientific education emphasizing literacy, numeracy, and respect for the natural environment.

The ordinary activities of ordinary humans are more damaging to the natural environment than, say, tritium from the accident at Fukushima.

As Pogo says, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

February 10, 2019

If Trump had lived his life laughing he'd be much more appealing.

I know plenty of people Trump's age whose inner strengths and successful pursuits of happiness, no matter how rare, are etched upon their faces.

That dude Trump is a bitter, spiteful, old man who wouldn't survive a round of golf with anyone in my family, golf which is, I confess, sometimes more like Calvinball.




Trump gets off on cheating. Calvinball doesn't work like that.

Neither does life.

In the best of all possible worlds everyone wins.