Will be glad to be home tomorrow. Didn't get as much done as I'd hoped while hubby was doing his conference things. All the food downtown is hellaciously expensive, and not very friendly for gluten-free folks. Looking for some dinner that won't break the bank, lol. Wanted to go to the theatre but the only seats left are singles and hubby doesn't want to sit apart. Did find several good books at the conference, so bringing home another pile for my reading list, lol.
Going Sane in a Crazy World
Richard Heinberg May 14, 2024
"...The consequences of our adoption of consumerist, growth-seeking industrialism will ultimately be a crash—hopefully only partial and temporary—of society and nature. That’s not a crystal-ball prophecy; it’s a mathematical near-certainty given the fundamental contradiction between the ways in which ecosystems work and the ways modern industrial societies work. In fact, the crash has already started (via climate change, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss)...
As humanity encounters serious impacts from its collective craziness, people whose mental health is already at risk will likely suffer more than others. But even otherwise psychologically stable people will be emotionally challenged as their eco-social context is disrupted or shattered..."
What’s the Point?
By Tom Murphy, originally published by Do the Math May 15, 2024
"...Once dropping the problematic cosmology that defines the point of life in terms of human “accomplishment” in the narrow context of modernity, a universe of other values systems becomes available to offer sustenance. To think otherwise is to arrogantly assume that thousands of generations of humans who came before were miserable because they had not found their “special purpose.” Modernists are nodding, because this sounds right according to their mythology. But that strikes me as delusional bull$#!+! Joy is part of the package of being human, and always has been! Likewise, all the other plants and animals of the world are not frikin’ miserable because they lack modernity! I could turn the tables and say that the modernity disease produces far more misery (for all life) than any other worldview that has ever existed on the planet..."
Markets - Where did all the stocks go?
Public Companies In Decline
The number of public companies has fallen fast by Matt Phillips, David Crowther 4/28/24
"...After analyzing the effects of mergers, private-equity investment, and regulatory costs, the paper suggests that M&A is the main culprit. (Though they do theorize that higher costs associated with regulation could be a less important contributing factor.)
“Mergers seem to be the biggest driver of this trend,” Ali Sanati told Sherwood. Sanati is a finance professor at the American University in Washington, DC, and a coauthor of the 2023 paper.
The authors categorized mergers according to various financial metrics, noting that mergers motivated around financing and innovation “are the ones that effectively reduce the number of U.S. listings.”
@shekinahcancook r
Extremists don't seem to like market economies and religious extremists the world over have accumulated billions in petro dollars. One action is to quit using oil, cut the extremists off from their income. And don't allow new possibilities: We don't need lithium billionaires, for instance.
The ugly truth is that western culture will give up excessively complicated and needlessly resource wasteful tech only when it's pried out of their cold dead bank accounts.
Learn why this concerning trend isn’t just a matter of concern to the Jewish community, but a direct threat to democracy and national security. Gain insights into how the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. government in general, are addressing Jew-hatred around the world and why a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach is more critical now than ever before.
Don’t miss this opportunity to be informed, engaged, and empowered to counter antisemitism.
@shekinahcancook Thanks for sharing this. I find it odd that a briefing about how antisemitism is bad for everybody, not just Jews, specifically targets Jews as its audience. I can think of a lot of non-Jews who need this more.
*Annual New York Conference to mark the departure and exile of Jews from Arab Countries, 20 May 2024, Touro University, Brooklyn. With MK May Golan, Shimon Ohayon, Ben Dror Yemini, Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah, Haim Saadoun, Stanley Uruman, Sarina Roffé, etc
From Harif - Association of UK Jews from MENA - a London event:
*Why is the ethnic cleansing of MENA Jews more relevant than ever? Monday 20 May, 7:30 pm. Appeal for Yad Sarah. Lyn Julius will present her book UPROOTED. Donors get a free signed copy. Maida Vale Venue.
For complimentary tickets please email Michael Marks at michael@yadsarah.org.uk.
Apple workers are striking at a store in Maryland by Millie Giles 5/13/24
"...In the aftermath of its outrage-inducing object-crushing advert, Apple has been dealt another PR blow, as it faces its first retail employee strike in history.
...While Apple is currently in the firing line for its employee practices, with labor unions like the Communications Workers of America accusing the tech giant of union-busting, collective strike action has been gaining traction across the US more widely..."
For brothers Pierre and Granville Pullis, photographing the sprawling system was intrepid, precise work—not unlike the construction itself - by Jessica Leigh Hester March 6, 2020
"...The...images are technically proficient, but also artistic & tenderly humane. Many of the photographs were bound into books...as reference documents, or as evidence... (it was, after all, an era when construction was staggeringly dangerous and injuries were commonplace).
They were also impeccably timed snapshots of urban life & work. [They] captured signs & businesses & moments of striking symmetry, such as people frozen in mid-stride as they wandered between buildings. “What makes these full of personality [in a way] that other photographs of this type usually [aren’t] is that you can tell [they] ...waited for just the right moment to click the shutter,” says Shapiro..."
By Mary Wildfire, originally published by Resilience.org May 14, 2024
"...A sociopath is by definition selfish, concerned only about getting what he or she wants and unconcerned about anyone else’s needs. And what is it that they want? Usually wealth. Some—the narcissists—also want the spotlight, want fame and adulation. Some crave power for its own sake, aside from the need to use power to get more wealth. Some don’t care about either of those. But mostly, it seems, what the billionaires want is more money. They have more money than they could spend in twenty lifetimes but they still are willing to sacrifice our children’s future to get even more money. This is remarkably narrow thinking, a fascination with numbers—you might even call it machinelike..."
Looking Back on NASA’s Vivid 1970s Visions of Space Living
Feast your peepers on these artistic interpretations of a colonized cosmos.
by Evan Nicole Brown November 13, 2018
"...The team of scientists devised multiple approaches to space habitation, so Guidice dreamt up several illustrations as a way to visualize them. “Gerard O’Neill wanted [the habitats] to look like an English countryside,” Guidice remembers. “Not very dense.” Full-color renderings, drawn and hand-painted with acrylics, were presented to the scientists on large-scale illustration boards, but were initially thought of as purely auxiliary material rather than art.
“What’s interesting is that the paintings at the time were just illustrations in support, and later on they’ve taken on a life of their own—they’re what most people recognize,” Guidice says. “It tells a story for them..."
Sustainable Infrastructure
May 16th to June 20th 2024
About this course:
Managing land ecologically is a resource-intense activity which requires finding a balance between consumption, ecological impact, and financial solvency. This course will provide practical answers on balancing these often complex and sometimes competing needs. Sustainable Infrastructure centers student understanding on the fundamentals of farm and ranch scale energy systems, material choices, and waste management. We will explore how to design, maintain and manage energy systems, integrate cyclic waste management strategies, and evaluate and find low-impact materials for landed projects.
Parallels Between Archaic Entrepots and Modern Offshore Banking Centers
By Michael Hudson, originally published by Resilience.org May 10, 2024
"...To create such enclaves has been an objective of mercantile capital through the ages. It patronizes the world’s politically weakest areas as long as they do not do what real governments do: regulate their economies. The search for “neutral territory” expressed itself already in the chalcolithic epoch, many millennia before private enterprise developed as we know it. The result of this impetus is that neolithic towns...and the biblical cities of refuge share the following important common denominator with today’s offshore banking centers: Instead of being centers of local governing, legal, and military power, they were politically neutral sites established outside the jurisdictions of local governments..."
Dr. Seuss and the weight-loss drug craze - By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights
May 12, 2024
"...The obesity epidemic is being driven by industrial chemicals known as endocrine disruptors in the environment that make their way into humans via the air, the water & the food supply... Many industrial chemicals mimic endocrine chemicals in the body thereby interfering with the body’s signaling system.
...We have a system that creates widespread obesity through chemical poisoning and then sells people weight-loss drugs to take off the excess weight. When the drugs are discontinued, the weight comes back.
...Ironically, these drugs work by interfering with the body’s appetite control system by making people feel less hungry and more full. This is the same system that endocrine disruptors interfere with in the opposite manner..."
From NCJW:
As we approach Mothers’ Day, NCJW renews its commitment to creating a society where honoring mothers means celebrating the ways in which we provide care to ALL mothers each and every day of the year. Through education and advocacy, we can start by addressing the disproportionate destruction and suffering experienced by Black mothers seeking reproductive and maternal care.
This Mother’s Day we’re thinking about all the Black moms we know: we see you, we love you and we aim to champion you, always.