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Hello there. Happy Halloween. I see you’ve noticed I’m wearing a sweater. Yes, I realize it’s ninety degrees, but I do not care. It is late October—the height of sweater season. And even though climate change has rendered this traditionally crisp time of year sickeningly humid, I will wear this sweater.

Yes, I am extremely uncomfortable. No, I will not be taking the sweater off.

Late October is the time to wake up, throw a sweater on in the morning, sit on the front porch, and enjoy the fall air with a nice, steaming cup of coffee. So that’s what I will do, even if the fall air is not so much crisp as it is gooey. I will sit in the heat, drink my piping-hot beverage, and pretend it is warming me to my core and not pushing my body dangerously close to a heat stroke.

I refuse to carve pumpkins in a tank top. I will not pick apples in shorts. I will do fall activities in knit sweaters and wool socks, and I will live with the resulting body fungi. This is my pledge.

The Trent and Mersey Canal in Rugeley affords a pleasant walk in an area of outstanding beauty. Maria drives past it every day on her way to the Amazon warehouse just a stone’s throw away. She’s never stopped by for a leisurely stroll in the years she’s been working here. Why would she, after a […]

War crimes have no justification, whoever commits them. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th October 2023 For almost 4,000 years, some governments have insisted that if wars must be fought, there should be rules. The first known code, by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, laid down the principle on which all subsequent laws of […]

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A tender look at five mothers facing formidable hardships, who set out to break the cycles of addiction, poverty and neglect

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

In an era of 20th-century suburban sprawl, the great designer Russell Page infused soulful philosophy into his gardens

- by Caleb Smith

Read at Aeon

I underestimated Musk’s lust for tormenting himself, and us.

The post One Year After Elon Musk Bought Twitter, His Hilarious Nightmare Continues appeared first on The Intercept.

In this episode of The Source, we talk to world-renowned economist and intellectual Yanis Varoufakis about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the international developments taking place in the European Union and the United Nations around it. We also explore the question of whether Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestine and its settlement policy have contributed to the […]

The post On Israel-Palestine, Ukraine and the Hypocrisy of the West – acTVism Munich appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Συζήτηση στο militaire.gr, με τον Πάρι Καρβουνόπουλο, για το ψηφιακό ευρώ και την επενδυτική βαθμίδα. Επίσης για όσα τραγικά συμβαίνουν στη λωρίδα της Γάζας και τη στάση της ελληνικής κυβέρνησης, τον ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και την ανάγκη ύπαρξης μιας αγωνιστικής Αριστεράς δηλώνοντας πως το ΜέΡΑ25 “Είμαστε εδώ! Μαζί, για την Αριστερά”.

The post Ψηφιακό €, επενδυτική βαθμίδα & οικονομία, Παλαιστινιακό, ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και, βέβαια, η Επιστροφή του ΜέΡΑ25 – με τον Πάρι Καρβουνόπουλο στο Militaire appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Episode 17 of my – Podcast – Letter from The Cape – is now available. Coming today from Kyoto, Japan In this episode, I discuss the warped sense of priorities when a nation can see their way to fund and supply massive quantities of military equipment that is being used to murder thousands of people…

Israel’s military received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases as they were overwhelmed by Hamas militants on October 7. How many Israeli citizens said to have been “burned alive” were actually killed by friendly fire? Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen. Tuval Escapa, a member of the […]

The post October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles appeared first on The Grayzone.

The editor who published the letter in Artforum was fired after the wealthy art patron Martin Eisenberg’s behind-the-scenes push.

The post Bed Bath & Beyond Scion Pressured Artists to Retract Gaza Ceasefire Call in Artforum Letter appeared first on The Intercept.

Yes, you have been waiting all week to see how the Smith Family was faring as they struggle to work out where the government currency comes from. Well, Episode 2 in our new weekly Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with…

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

The selection committee for the Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2023 prize, as voted on by AIPEN members.

The prize will be awarded to the best article published in 2022 (online early or in print) in international political economy (IPE) by an Australia-based scholar.

The prize defines IPE in a pluralist sense to include the political economy of security, geography, literature, sociology, anthropology, post-coloniality, gender, finance, trade, regional studies, development and economic theory, in ways that can span concerns for in/security, poverty, inequality, sustainability, exploitation, deprivation and discrimination.

The overall prize winner will be decided from the shortlist by the selection committee, which this year consists of Maria Tanyag (ANU), Elizabeth Thurbon (UNSW), Kanishka Jayasuriya (Murdoch) and Tom Chodor (Monash). The winner will be announced by December 2023.

The 2023 shortlist for The Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize is as follows:

That’s because he’s never actually participated in one This piece by David Pepper is illuminating: A few years ago, now-Speaker Mike Johnson said we do not live in a democracy. "You know, we don't live in a democracy" but a "biblical" republic. That's what Mike Johnson said in a 2016 interview as he explained his views on the U.S. government. That's what the new Republican House speaker, who tried to overturn the will of the voters in 2020, believes. pic.twitter.com/AEwQXwutpl — Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman) October 26, 2023 As I wrote several months ago, it’s a common right-wing refrain. Share Johnson turns out to offer the perfect example of how in today’s gerrymandered world, people can ride to the highest levels of power without facing a real election their entire careers. Which means they can be complete extremists and never face accountability for it. It also means that not only do they not know democracy, they actually come to fear it. Not just because they have never experienced it, but because it poses the biggest risk to their grasp on power.

Riding high from his tenure as the moderate governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney was anxious...

Orchids were Darwin’s “abominable mystery.” They continue to elude science—and efforts to save them.

The post Why Is Everything an Orchid? appeared first on Nautilus.

With Trump putting all his weight behind them Margaret Sullivan with a sobering take on the Speaker debacle: The process was appalling, and the outcome even more so, as Republicans in the House of Representatives finally found someone they could more or less agree on. That agreement, though, may be more accurately described as simple exhaustion after three weeks of embarrassing misfires. And who is it they have managed to elect speaker of the US House, the person in line to lead the nation just after the president and vice-president? It’s Mike Johnson of Louisiana who, as one example of his profound unsuitability, brags that he doesn’t believe that human beings cause the climate crisis, though his home state has been ravaged by it. He is against abortion, voted against aid to Ukraine and stridently opposes LGBTQ+ rights. Perhaps most notably, Johnson had a leading role in trying to overturn he 2020 election. That means that the official second in line to the presidency “violated his oath to the constitution and tried to disenfranchise four states”, as the writer Marcy Wheeler neatly put it.

This guest blog from our colleagues at Archistar takes a look at the way complex processes and regulations slow down property construction, contributing to Australia’s housing crisis. It goes on to look at how...

Say it ain’t so! Trump in 2018: “You look at GDP at 3.2 percent, we’re doing so well… Nobody would have believed it” GDP just hit 4.9 percent under @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/5w0TZm9tjU — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 26, 2023 Not counting the gyrations of the pandemic period, it is stronger economic growth than any quarter of the pre-Covid Trump presidency and stronger than any quarter since 2014. https://t.co/xkPejz7Stw https://t.co/0xm4sJ5sPS — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) October 26, 2023 I guess I’m past hoping that people will ever “feel” that the economy has improved as long as the price of eggs is higher than it was in 2010. But honestly, I think that Trump’s ongoing presence in our political culture makes his followers gleefully pretend that the world has gone to hell since he left office and the rest of us are just depressed and enervated by the relentless chaos he causes. Still, the news is true. The economy is rolling and the relentless doom saying over the past couple of years, predicting an imminent recession, remains wrong.