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Listen
There are limits as to how long you can batter a dog, a horse, a man or a woman before he/she or it will rise and attack you with all the ferocity he/she or it had to suppress for months or years. There are limits as to how long you can abuse a people, a…
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Prayer for Africa
What are the headlines in your country? I bet one of today’s biggest headlines in your country is the same as in my country: about the implosion of a small vessel somewhere off the coast of Canada. It had a handful of passengers, it is true, and to their families, we of course offer our…
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Good news!
Those of us who can still bear to read, watch or listen to the news do so at our own risk. The emotional cost of learning, day after day, that just about everything is going from bad to even worse is high. This morning, I learnt that ten per cent of all Norwegians use sleeping…
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Democratic deficit
The problem – one of the problems – is that nobody quite knows how to solve this mess. On the one hand the European sanctions against Russia are bringing Europe to its knees. On the other hand, the entire world is completely unprepared for the meteorological disasters that are thrashing country after country in spite…
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Let us behave as mature human beings
The title of this post is long, but I shall make up for that with a body text that is commensurately brief. I put to you that almost all human beings want: enough to eat three times a day a bed to sleep in (without bedbugs) do not want: to fear for their children to…
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This business of guns …
During the seventies, feminists maintained that if women had power, there would be no wars. Women, feminists claimed, know that food on the table is more important than guns. After all, we can’t eat corpses. Back then, of course, many women spent most of their lives cooking, cleaning and looking after children. But now, with…
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The matter of money
Where were we?Oh , yes: pandemics; rising inequality; and of course the pending implosion of basically all systems, due to climate change. Is there any point in writing? Is there any point of signing petitions which governments don’t even bother to read, of joining protest marches that attract little notice unless they are brutally castigated…
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“Inaccurate and even fraudulent reporting”
If Trump said that, it must be wrong, right? Wrong. (Alas, when will we learn that even our enemies may occasionally have a point?) Even the New York Times, even the Washington Post and even the Guardian and Le Monde need sponsors, sponsors with large purses, very large purses, people like Jeff Bezos. I bet…
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Disappearing the middle ground
In a phone conversation with a talkative friend the other day, my counterpart’s initial volubility subsided, so that in the end, I was the only one still talking. Afterwards, wondering why his cheeriness had morphed into discouragement, I reached the conclusion that it was my fault. Over the decades, I have been considered a lefty,…
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Majority stakeholders
You know the feeling, I’m sure, of walking as fast as you can without making any headway at all; you will have done it in dreams – nightmares, perhaps. That is what it must feel like to be a climate activist. The facts and figures are all there, out in the open for all to…