So Charles, from the family of Windsor (formerly known as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) will be getting formally “crowned as King of England, Wales, and Scotland on May 26, 2023. A few weeks ago I wrote about the opportunity this would give us to consider the imperial origins of the “Crown Jewels” that will be flaunted on that … Continue reading WaPo picks up on UK ‘Crown Jewels’ story…
I am already looking forward to the coronation of Charles Windsor, to presumably be held during peak tourist season in 2023? This gives us enough time to do more research into the provenance of the obscenely extensive holdings of the House of Windsor (known until a speedy 1917 name-change as the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha)… and … Continue reading Britain’s Crown Jewels: Time to decolonize, repatriate!
I’ve been re-thinking how to proceed with my Project 500 Years. (Actually, as of now, Project 607 years, but who’s counting?) I have a number of ideas of new approaches I might use. But since I’m currently a little fixated on how the era of Western hegemony of the world order is currently ending, I … Continue reading Learning from Gen. Douglas MacArthur
The image above shows some of the victims of the RAF’s “Battle of Hamburg” As we know, when U.S. Pres. Harry Truman and his advisors decided on the first-ever use of an atomic bomb, in early August 1945, they were well aware that the main victims of this explosion would be the large civilian population … Continue reading When the ‘West’ decided it was good to bomb whole cities
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Air Force dropped a single atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb had the explosive power of some 15,000 tons of TNT. It ignited a fire- and wind-storm that destroyed everything in the city except a few unusually sturdy structures and released plumes of radiation that … Continue reading Two-piece swimsuits and the trivialization of nuclear terror
Throughout the present century, the corporate media here in the United States, and much of international discourse, has been in a furor over “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Why, in 2003, the (G.W.) Bush administration even led an international coalition to go into the once-proud country of Iraq and, basically, destroy the whole country’s infrastructure and … Continue reading What’s so special about nuclear weapons? (Or, when did “WMDs” become a thing?)
I want to note two recent articles that deal with key geopolitical aspects of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. The first is “Europe Can Never Be Secure While Russia Has Nuclear Weapons”, which former Norwegian PM Kjell Magne Bondevik published earlier this month in Newsweek, and the second is “Ukraine peace talks in the cards?” … Continue reading Two important articles on Ukraine
Hi everyone. I realize it’s been several months since I posted anything here. Since early November I’ve been battling problems with my right eye that have made it a little hard for me to write. I have, however, been able to do a few things of general social utility. My main two achievements have been … Continue reading I’m baaack!
1. Writing and publishing a printed and bound book is like sending a postcard into the future. (Just possibly, releasing digital materials has the same capability, but I’m not sure?) So here, on my desk, is a postcard from the end of the last century in the form of a copy of Sven Lindqvist’s book … Continue reading A postcard from the 20th century
It is a fact, that I find pretty damned tragic, that I haven’t written anything about the earth-shaking developments in Ukraine, since I wrote this piece on February 24. To be honest, most of that piece still holds up fairly well. So what happened was basically that, energized by the thinking that had gone into … Continue reading Ukraine: 5 articles I’d write if I had the time
