This book has the same history. All three of these books – an accidental trilogy, I guess, though I find the word trilogy unappealing – are one continuous book and they all flow from a single question and a single hunger: How can a person live a moral life in a culture of […]

Book Review – “Collapse” by Jared Diamond
The overriding idea that this book impressed on me is that we (“we” being all of humanity) need to reduce our numbers. We are pushing the earth beyond its carrying capacity, mining the equity of the earth to the detriment of future generations. The first part of […]

I thought more about what I wrote yesterday, and I realized that for many such a blanket assertion would require more convincing. It isn’t that I think aid can or necessarily should stop per se, but it should at least be cleansed of its colonial doublespeak.

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.
I tell you, we are […]

I was reading Bicyclemark’s entry about Zimbabwe and was thinking I feel the same way about old Rhodesia. When land redistribution first hit my radar my reaction was that it made sense. It still does but the way it was handled by Mugabe has been horrible. I have been thinking about Mugabe […]

I know I mentioned that this book rings true to life in Africa today and these passages don’t necessarily reflect that. Oh well, it was more from his descriptions of his childhood. Plus, I thought these were appropriate for what’s going on in the world these days.
When Peter Godwin was 18 he went […]

On Heroism
“Go away, Horacio, that’s the best thing.”
“It probably is. But look, anyway, if I leave now I will be committing an act that would be awfully close to heroism, I mean, leaving you alone with a sick child.”
“Yes,” […]