What Buckminster Fuller Would Tell Us
He wanted to “make the world work, for 100 percent of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” Seems so quaint now.
Science & Nature
Symptoms of Windy Hypochondriacal Melancholy
"You listen constantly, in a kind of trance, for communications from your body; it is as if you have become a medium, and your organs a company of fretful ghosts."
Scatological Politics
The gut is a place of confusion. And yet, it remains our best guide....
Gut Reactions
To research Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism, MS, anxiety, and depression, you have to start in the digestive tract, not in the brain.
We Owe Our Lives to Some Bugs that Ate the Sun
For ten points, name the central event in the history of life.
Ten Rules for the New Administration…from the Emus
In the first official inter-species war on record...the emus won. Our new president might want to heed their advice.
The Mouse That…Squeaked
I call out the list of what not to feed a mouse. No rhubarb. No raisins or onions, no fizzy bubbles, no caffeine. Definitely no booze. Which is a shame, because I bet she would be even cuter tipsy.
Language Can Stop Us from Loving the World
“It is impossible to prefigure the salvation of the world in the same language by which the world has been dismembered and defaced.”
The Taunting Horror of Drones
TikTok and Instagram channels of drone killings on the battlefield in Ukraine started with them dropping grenades or mortar rounds into trenches and other enemy positions, but the latest ones offer fanboys their own aesthetic. They all look the same: The earth is a gray-green monotony. The camera is floating above, looking down with an eye for movement. The video has been edited, so as not to be boring.
What Happens When an AI Jesus Steps in for the Clergy
A young pastor said, “I was positively surprised how well it worked.” All he missed, he added, was emotion and spirituality.