Ruth Calvo

Requiring us all to keep our houses in order would make the internet safer, but from anyone who has ever had an infection, that quarantine threatens a less safe internet to the consumer. We’re mostly too smart to click on a suspicious message or open an attachment that seems dubious. Scammers are getting new tricks all the time, though, and it could happen.

As a species, the right wing has separated itself off from humanity, and declared itself above law, above rational support for the principles that made this nation safe from authoritarian rule, and most especially above decent treatment of all people. Under that species’ dominion, the law of the jungle is supreme, and charity itself becomes a crime.

One of the great places to visit in Istanbul, Turkey, is the Hagia Sophia, a wonderful domed cathedral that has served more than one religion. It is Byzantine, and one of the beauties of antiquity.

This outgrowth from our feeling of empowerment is one that came up yesterday as we discussed the treasures of the ancient world that appear in our museums, ‘collected’ or looted from the world at large as we in the west ramble about taking whatever pops up. Like the Taliban exploding statues of the Buddha that graced Afghanistan for aeons, we take ownership of treasures that aren’t ours, and our world diminishes around us.

If you haven’t ever visited the British Museum, you still are probably familiar with scenes like this one, from the frieze of the palace attributed to Ashurbanipal that was raided and its treasures brought back to London. Like much of ancient art found throughout the western world, treasures that were found abroad often were considered the due of the nobles who traveled there.

This is the witching time of year, and in the true spirit of the season, increasingly we see the radical right taking us back to those classic times in history when superstition ruled. Instead of the historical night when, dressed as natives, the patriots threw tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay royal taxes on it, the right seems to have reverted further back. The Salem witch trials have been invoked rather than a patriot’s "Tea Party".

The State that achieved new levels of ignorance in recent School Board revisions of curriculum to make sure that fact did not intrude into our kids’ education has bounded upwards on the monitor of how far it would go to protect residents from this modern age. Contesting universal science as grounds for public protections is a new low in use of the taxpayers’ dollarcents.

The U.S. is a signatory to the U.N. Human Rights Resolution, which establishes precedent for treating all of us with dignity. The extension of rights to good lives to all of us would give more stability to the society as a whole.

Panelists made a plea to all of us who care to keep up the pressure, and lend support to our world by – most especially – continuing to vote for leaders who keep striving to bring rights into actual existence over years of resistance.

What you can do if you don’t dare pack your own lunch is varied. You can buy the snacks on board. For $6 you can get beer and wine. And for an arm and a leg, a snack.

Landowners between the wind generators that are being put in and the cities that need the power have been raising problems related to the scenery and their stake in that scenery.