Year: 2019

Over 90% of plastic materials in consumer items and packaging end up in landfill dumps. Time for industry to take responsibility for their waste. —>> read more –>>

It is a continuing source of amazement and consternation that most conservatives and evangelical Christians support Trump. So many of his character features would seem to be inimical to both of these groups. We won’t list them here since that is hardly necessary.  Trump demonstrates them on a daily if —>> read more –>>

Nobel Prize winners Duflo and Bannerjee take on idealized views of markets. They target the role of financial incentives, markets as self-correcting, efficient and ethically sound. —>> read more –>>

The Visual Capitalist added another graphic example of the increasing concentration, monopolization, of markets, in this case for groceries. Even here in Hudson NY we can see the impact of Walmart locally. Two years ago we had three large supermarkets within 4 miles. Price Chopper gave up the ghost leaving —>> read more –>>

A challenging take on the state of racism in the US. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson reviews books on Clarence Thomas and his views on countering intractable white racism. —>> read more –>>

The New Yorker published “Value Meal: Impossible Foods wants to save the world by inventing a better burger” by Tad Friend in the 9/30/2019 issue. During the introductory paragraphs the following statistic was cited:

Every four pounds of beef you eat contributes to as much global warming as flying from New York to London—and the average American eats that much each month. —>> read more –>>

9/12/2019 A lecture at the Hudson Area Library tonight, Slavery and Dutch-Palatine Farmers: How did middle class farmers in Colonial New York interact with slavery?’ by Travis M. Bowman. The lecture began with the note that slavery in NY state lasted for over 200 years – from 1625 when the —>> read more –>>

Friday 9/6/2019 Over the last several months I have been working on a restatement of the fundamental characteristics of the capitalist system. In doing this I have been thinking afresh about the current crisis of global warming and the surrounding environmental disasters of species extinction and the general defacement of —>> read more –>>

We’ve written quite a bit about the US Empire. A key component of this US foreign policy is regime change. Here is a list of the posts here on this topic. Recently Democracy Now! ran a 22 minute discussion of the history of US regime change actions over the last —>> read more –>>

…nations are based as much on what people collectively agree to forget as what they wish to remember. In a visit in February 2019 to a photography exhibit, Imagined Communities by Mila Teshaieva, at the MIT Museum I came across this paraphrase from the late 19th century French historian Ernest Renan: —>> read more –>>