Another round of field work is coming up soon. In fact, I should have left already. As always, there are some glitches with the logistics (which is not handled by me; we hired a data firm). As always, the start date has been delayed for a day or two. Which leaves me some unexpected down time to wonder. Sometimes, I wonder, in the big scheme of things, is what I’m doing actually going to help make the world a bit […]
I couldn’t think of anywhere else to post this. I was doing research on war and peace quotes the other day. These two were one of my favourites: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. and There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. – […]
My stomach is making strange noises….so I decided to stay in tonight. Plus I woke up at 5 am this morning, unable to fall back asleep… I was just re-reading an essay… Elie Wiesel made a similar point to the Global Forum in Moscow last winter when he said that the designers and perpetrators of the Holocaust were the heirs of Kant and Goethe. In most respects the Germans were the best educated people on Earth, but their education did […]
“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and […]
