I grope my way up the stairs in near-complete darkness, unaccustomed to the uneven concrete floors and unexpected corners of the building I first entered only a few hours earlier, following a seven-hour bus ride from Jaipur, India. My only guide through the dark, labyrinthine hallways is the flowing, spotlessly white robe of the young Jain nun walking ahead of me. Finally … [Read more...]
Letter from India: It takes a village
If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. - Max Mueller Returning to the world's second-biggest nation after … [Read more...]
Abandoning the middle class, governments lose legitimacy
People who care about climate change and peak oil have long despaired of convincing their national governments to take decisive action or even, in some cases, to acknowledge that there's a problem. Now, the world's democracies seem to be losing the confidence of their citizens to deal with the economic crisis too. Following on the Arab Spring, the ouster of Gadaffi and … [Read more...]