Wednesday 29 July 2015

In Japan, Everyone is Guilty, Nobody is Innocent (99.9%?)


On Youtube (under 8 minutes long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzrL1i0ZEbI

China's Economic Crisis (2015), NOT About Sovereign Debt, Actually


On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmda1wGspyg

China has some remarkable economic problems, but rapidly rising public spending isn't their root cause. This video shows how a single statistic in isolation can be very misleading, and how some opinion-makers may be trying to mislead us with factoids of this kind.

Oddly, some of my work was translated into Chinese without my permission


Although I've had some of my work translated into Chinese intentionally, this is the first time I've noticed that someone translated my work into Chinese without asking for my permission (and without even telling me that they were doing it).

Monday 27 July 2015

Veganism: Neither Anti-Capitalist Nor "A Privilege"



30 minutes on Youtube (competing with Seinfeld in both duration and perspicacity): http://youtu.be/QiuBSwTFD1U

Veganism as Digital Activism: Moving Beyond Bikinis & Bicycles.



On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCzPmf96pAk

"We've got a lot of talented people talking about veganism on Youtube right now. We can talk about something a lot more meaningful than bikinis and bicycles."

Vegans, Leaders and Followers


On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYnNdrDBaS4

Leadership is created by followership: vegans tends to select certain types of charismatic leaders, in the absence of any institutional structure for their ecological and ethical interests (that could have, hypothetically, been shaped by the Green Party, Greenpeace or other institutions, that have thus far failed to take on any such leadership role). This video raises broad questions of who our leaders are (how and why we select them), examining the type of leadership that results from internet-centered activism in the 21st century.

Thailand: the Future of Veganism is Not Bikini Models and Bicycles


Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faonFwL0lOE

What is the future of Veganism? What is the new vegan social movement emerging from Northern Thailand? What does the recent scandal have to tell us (or what does it lead us to ask ourselves) about these larger issues?

Why is there a town called Mohawk in Arizona?

The short answer is, "Origin not known" (the last three words in the image below); we're left to imagine that some very ignorant colonists mistook the native people there for Mohawks.

This quotation is captured from a book by Will Croft Barnes (1858-1937), Arizona Place-Names.

There is also an Ontario in California, for very different reasons.

My Divorce, Episode 2 (Monologue)

As stated in the first few minutes, this is self-censored with an awareness that my ex-wife's future employers could theoretically see it, and I wouldn't want my remarks to have any adverse effects on her life/career.  Indeed, the video is made without any ill-will toward anyone (I don't even name anyone), but, rather, with the hope that my daughter might see it one day (as I'm apparently not going to see her at all, myself).