The newspaper announced it today: trees affect their environment. I am amazed that this is news – are there people who still don’t know this simple fact. We don’t need the media to announce it to us – just walk into a forest in winter and feel how it is …
I recently had an opportunity to do some walking around what Quakers call the ‘1652 Country’. To those, like me, who are not very familiar with English geography, let me explain that this is north of Lancaster, on the western side of the narrow bit of England between the bulges …
I have been traveling again, and noticing the individualism inherent in the US. It hits very hard after reading The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett, which shows over and over how societies (in different parts of the world) with greater inequality have greater public problems: from crime to obesity, poorer …
Quakers are sometimes quite proud of our commitment to simplicity. And yet Quakers are often wealthy – not only in global terms but also locally. It is said that this happened in part by dint of being hard workers and known for integrity and honesty. Wealth makes it hard to …
Sometimes the Internet makes one’s work in delving through books much lighter than it would otherwise be. I was recently directed to this gem of a point of view from Martin Luther King, from a speech in 1967 in an address to the American Psychological Association: ”… I am sure …
The Dutch press is giving a lot of attention to the new amendment to the amnesty law in Suriname. The amendment now protects the suspects in the ‘December murders’, a 1982 rounding up and extra-judicial execution of critics of the government. The current president of Suriname is in fact one …
What is culture? We learn about cultures from the past. For many of us, our main thoughts about culture might come from museums. We know from archaeology that the cultural artifacts include burial methods and ceramic pots. (As a child, I felt vaguely threatened by museum trips focussing on mummies, …
I have been describing this trip through four countries in Central America as having a theme of what people in the Global North can do to alleviate or reduce poverty. The trip is just finishing, and so I present here some of my thoughts – and some key thoughts from …
I am back in Nicaragua, and I must say I am happy to be again in a place where warm welcomes are given freely. My short time in San Salvador was tainted by fear: getting fixed stares when sitting on a bench in a central square. The men staring at …
I went to a Mayan ceremony today. At the beginning, one of the leaders asked people to not take pictures, so that all present were focused on the ceremony. He also pointed out that, in the past, participants would have had a long walk to the site to mentally prepare …