Misanthropic greens call for “no kids”
In the environmental website Grist (“we’re making lemonade out of looming climate apocalypse”), Lisa Hymas espouses her GINK Manifesto – Green Inclinations, No Kids:
I am thoroughly delighted by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all. Making the green ...
Spring in the Finger Lakes

I’m feeling refreshed from a week’s vacation in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.
The photo above is of Seneca Lake, the deepest of the eleven Finger Lakes. The region has more than 80
On vacation this week…
… will return on Monday, April 5th
Send Jamie Oliver back to Britain!
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has his first reality TV show on a major network, ABC. It’s called Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and its first full episode ...
This week’s articles of note
“Counterfactual: a curious history of the CIA’s secret interrogation program,” The New Yorker, by Jane Mayer
“Bush, Obama and the intellectuals,” National Affairs, by Tevi Troy
“Heading off the next financial crisis,” The New York Times Magazine, by David Leonhardt
“Criticising gays: a secular form of blasphemy?” spiked, by ...
Google: don’t be holier-than-thou

Google has been applauded for its anti-censorship stand against China. But it’s not the role of companies to take moral or political stands, and we shouldn’t praise them when they do
In January Google ...
After health law, Washington is still disconnected from the people
There is something incongruous about the celebrations among President Obama, his cabinet members, and other Democratic leaders the past few days, to mark the passing of the healthcare bill.
Yesterday’s ceremony at the White House in which President Obama signed the bill into law was described as “raucous”, with the ...
Rapid decline of the US empire?
In this ...
New law doesn’t make health coverage a right
Today at the White House, President Obama signed into law the healthcare reform bill. Towards the end of his speech to mark the occasion, Obama said: “We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when ...
Battle over humanism at the science museum

The New York Times published an excellent article by Edward Rothstein last week on the science museum. He visited science museums in the US and internationally, and discovered a variety of conflicting approaches, which he speculates may be “a sign of the science museum’s struggle to define itself.”
One of ...