To worry is to be. To be is to worry.
The decades-old, on-again, off-again battles in the tiny, brutally impoverished, sub-Saharan country of Toomaltia flared up again two months ago. They have continued almost unabated ever since. To date, 178 men, women, children and other people—which represents over five percent of the population at the start of the fighting—have died in the current round of [...]
The signs describing the exhibits at the Musée de l’Armée (Army Museum) in Paris are in both English and French. This is a good thing because it enabled me to learn something about the Battle of Rocroi, which was fought between the French and the Spanish in 1643. According to the display in the museum, [...]
In the exceedingly unlikely event that there is a god, why couldn’t He, She or It have done a better job designing our brains? Why couldn’t the alleged deity have given us brains that were less inclined or, better yet, not at all inclined toward fomenting violence? And we often fight about the stupidest things, [...]
I know it’s an impossible dream, but wouldn’t it make for a wonderful world if everyone started to play nicely and fairly together. When I say “play,” I mean it as a euphemism for all of the ways that we humans interact on both grand and small scales. What the hell kind of nonsense am [...]
There is, to say the least, considerable violence in the world. All the way from genocide through to schoolyard brawls, violence plagues society. Clearly, genocides, wars, mass murders, single murders, rapes, beatings and other forms of torture are more troubling that a few feeble blows in a schoolyard, where the greatest injuries are often to [...]
A January 12, 2009 article titled Group accuses Israel of firing white phosphorus into Gaza that was posted on CNN.com reported on Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) allegation that Israel fired weapons containing white phosphorous into Gaza. The article included the following extracts from HRW’s Web site: “Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an [...]
Imagine if, after all the millennia plagued with genocides, wars, terrorist acts, murders, rapes, tortures, pillages, arsons, muggings, beatings, thefts, intolerances and other crimes against humanity or individuals, the entire human population finally came together and united in, as the song says, a brotherhood of man. Where the hell would we hold such a gathering? [...]
The only people allowed to decide whether a country starts or joins a war should be mothers whose children will be forced to fight in that war. Here you’ve got someone who endured nine months of a kicking alien growing inside her belly. After all of the trials and tribulations of her pregnancy, the mother [...]