About 3.3 million students are currently enrolled in roughly 7,400 privately-operated charter schools across 45 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Five states remain opposed to these outsourced schools that appeared in the U.S. 30 years ago. Today,...
“Knowledge of death helps us also to find a good road,” Jack D. Forbes tells us, “because perhaps it can bring us to deep considerations of our place in nature.” I recall this reflection Forbes makes, among other revelations, in his 1978 book Columbus and Other...
With a population of 118 million (expected to top 200 million by the end of 2049) Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. 70% (c.80 million) are under thirty, the median age being just 20. The majority of people live in rural areas where infrastructure...
Yet another topic I’ve been asked to write about is why I quit activism all those years ago. To be radically honest, I’ve already tackled this subject in several ways but… I think I’ve found a new angle. Read on to learn more. Recently, I was walking down Steinway...
Well, they say that time flies when you’re having fun, and as you grow older such an expression seems to have an increased impact and meaning as each new cycle spins. But I’m not sure that any point in human history has seen as much flux as this still-young decade of...
UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres celebrated the extension of a “humanitarian” border crossing at Bab Al Hawa, on July 10th, as a “lifeline for millions of people” – many Syrians would rather describe it as a “lifeline” for Al Qaeda. On the 15th July I visited...
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes. The post News on China | No. 60 first appeared on Dissident Voice.
(Credit unknown) Life in the United States of Algorithms has me thinking about Fight Club again — reading snippets, posting quotes, and watching YouTube clips until I finally gave it a re-watch. Such is the power of Fight Club. I saw it in the theater when it came out...
The gap between rhetoric and reality is a persistent one when looking at the sustainability of commitments of Olympic Games hosts. — Martin Müller, European Urban and Regional Studies, 2015 The organisers of the Olympics have always been into appearances and grand...
Theatrical poster Interrogate the devil; he will tell you that beauty is a pair of horns, four claws and a tail. Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary Bullets of Justice is a gritty 2019 film made by Valeri Milev and Timur Turisbekov, which takes place in the United...
The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), including a ‘pre-summit’, will take place in September 2021 in New York. The Italian government is hosting the pre-summit in Rome from 26–28 July. The UNFSS claims it aims to deliver the latest evidence-based, scientific approaches...
The auguries are not good for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Resignations have filled the ledger, including Japanese composer Keigo Oyamada, organising committee president Yoshiro Mori and the creative director Hiroshi Sasaki. Then there is the lamentable behaviour of the...