Tag: Current Affairs
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2026 IS THE NEW 1984
Back in 1984 I read ‘1984’ to see if George Orwell’s prophecy had been fulfilled. I thought it was a great yarn but it was a dystopian scenario that would never actually come true. At least not in my lifetime and certainly not in the United States of America. How wrong I was. ‘1984’ is a warning about how power survives by controlling truth, language and what people are taught to see. In 2026, we need to heed that warning. “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes…
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PARALLEL UNIVERSES
There’s this movie I once saw … or maybe it was a book … about the main character living in parallel or alternate universes. In one universe the character gets up on the left side of the bed and in the other on the right. And that little act changes everything from that moment on. I didn’t even need to get out of bed today to experience different universes. My usual news feeds documented a global stock market crash which hadn’t been seen since COVID. But this time it wasn’t a…
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ABOARD THE DELPHIN IN THE AMAZON
While a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a course on tropical agriculture and studied under the great Amazonia scholar Dr William Deneven. I was mesmerised by his tales of the Amazon. And so was my classmate, Oliver Coomes, who decided to write his PhD dissertation on the riverine peasants – the ribereños – of a tributary of the Peruvian Amazon known as the Rio Tahuayo. When class wrapped up for the summer Oliver got ready to leave for a year of research in the Amazon. I told…
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