Category: Book reviews
-
Rule One: Don’t give up
There’s lots to do, and plenty of people are in action, learning more every day about how it’s done. First, how it’s not done: I think most people have worked out that our party-political system is – if not broken, certainly captured, and not doing what it says on the tin. It’s taking us a…
-
The day I got Twit-mobbed
Or, Munitions, mobs and mobile phones So here’s a blog I never got around to sharing much back in November 2023… I am posting it now because of a sudden, someone somewhere is sharing it and it reminded me of the way that day went, and how that story links up what I think are…
-
The most extraordinary thing I learned from Marilyn Garson
There are 30 million Christian Zionists in the United States, and there are only 16 million Jews on the planet. Therefore the colonialist project known as Zionism is not primarily a Jewish force. What’s more, with the rise of post-colonialist, anti-racist attitudes in the younger generation, the overlap between Jews and Zionists is getting steadily…
-
An entirely selfish request
(A request from me that is, not Richard Medhurst, who is merely asking that random police forces could please stop arresting him and nicking his kit.) It’s like this: I’ve been reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. It’s the size of a brick, but not really the kind of brick you’d take…
-
Why planes crash – and why they usually don’t
Former airline pilot and media aviation commentator Terry Tozer discusses the Washington collision Thursday 30th January 2025 Reagan Airport Washington DC – Fatal Mid Air collision At around 8.50 pm, an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ regional jet on approach to Reagan airport was involved in a collision with a US Army Blackhawk helicopter. Both aircraft…
-
DT stands for delirium tremens
“Delirium primarily involves alterations of attention and is characterized by a fluctuating course, difficulty with concentration, and altered mental status. Tremens refers to the tremors seen in patients with delirium tremens.” Shall I say DT instead of Donald Trump from now on? It happens around the third day a person is deprived of (or chooses…
-
The likeable chaps who destroy worlds
This area I’ve been trying to think about – the whole sweep of countries that Israel seems to have a license to bomb – it’s been going under the name of ‘The Middle East’, normally pronounced in news reports with the prefix ‘Troubleinthe’: here in the UK, the BBC brought me up to be very…
-
The Fifth Risk, and then some more risks
The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis This book was published in the UK in 2018. It has date stamps in the front from 2020 and 2021 (some of the Sussex libraries still sometimes do things the old way). I borrowed it earlier this year, to read just in case. Since then, the Biden/Harris circus shot…
-
A wonderful opportunity
There are so many reasons to be interested in Marilyn Garson’s writing. She has worked in Afghanistan and Palestine, and has written a book about her experiences in Gaza during the 2014 bombardment. She describes the mission she gave herself as aiming to ‘rehumanize’ the people of Gaza. I love that focus. It brings strong…
-
Knowing is believing
People need their hope back. Here it is… The reasons why it’s so hard for ‘the left’ to re-group and push back into party politics are many but the main one is that getting back into party politics may not be what we need. The real tragedy is that many who have lost faith in…
Kay Green 