Angela Merkel Tag

14 Mar

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized

Before we look at the gender dimensions behind the ghastly situation in Ukraine, there are some other news stories that demand notice, even if only in passing. Rising gas prices and the burden to the environment, for one. Florida's “Don't Say Gay” bill, for another, now passed into law. It bans teaching that same-sex lovers are human beings to children who are not “age appropriate”—not that such teaching is done in Florida schools anyway. COVID deaths worldwide reached 6 million. The Amazon rainforest hurtled toward irreversible change. And a happy after-the-fact International Women's Day to you. Am I not your cheerful blogger? But oh, how I do like to at least try to look on the bright side of things. And three news items come to the fore immediately, although the third has taken more than a century to crawl there. First item: a jury found Guy Reffitt guilty of obstruction...

20 Apr

Posted at 06:00h in Uncategorized

Awestruck, people in the northern Indian state of Punjab stare at the sight of the grand Himalayan mountain range, now, after half a century, again visible for more than 100 miles. Why? The reduction in air pollution caused by the national lockdown to contain the coronavirus. Across the planet, in major cities and minor ones, the grind, screech, and roar of modernity are now barely detectable on seismograms. Why? Little or no traffic. Less large-scale machinery. A 30 percent drop in the cacophonous London morning rush, a 38 percent drop in midday Paris, a 50 percent drop in parts of Los Angeles, a staggering 60 percent drop noted at the Geophysical Institute in Quito, Ecuador–where suddenly they hear rumblings from the active volcano that sits beneath the city. As a result of this human quiescence, Earth’s continual quivering, shifting, and settling is being recorded with astonishing clarity. It sighs. It crackles...