Aug 22 2026

How We Survived (a story from Fighting Words)

How We Survived (a story from Fighting Words)

 

You’re wondering how it happened.  How did we survive?  How did our population suddenly plummet from six billion to half that.  Enabling our natural resources to recover and, eventually, support us.  All of us.

In 2020, all of the indicators pointed to our imminent extinction.  We had to reduce our greenhouse gases by 50% before 2030 in order to have just a hope in hell of avoiding what would otherwise become inevitable in 2050, eventual human extinction.  And in 2020, we were nowhere near being on target.  The U.S. continued to deny that there was a problem; Canada continued to allow the production of greenhouse gases just for fun (via snowmobile, PWC, and ATV use; in fact, the government had gone so far as to designate 121,000 kilometres of crown and private land specifically for snowmobile use).

And so there continued to be—and every year, more—devastating droughts, forest fires, heat waves, floods, superstorms, and pandemics, as well as all the rage that typically accompanied such events—riots, assaults, mass shootings …

In the middle of all this, single mothers just … gave up.  They’d had enough.  Enough part-time, temporary, casual work for which they earned half of what men would have earned.  (No, what am I saying?  Men would never be offered, would never have to accept, part-time, temporary, or casual work.  Not if they had kids to support.)  Enough of no pension, no benefits.  So no affordable medical care.  Enough of looking after other people’s kids as well as their own, but needing to do so in order to feed their own.  Because no affordable daycare.

They’d had enough of fighting for child support every fucking month. They’d had enough of the men, the absent fathers, still calling the shots.  For example, preventing them from moving back to where they could get the help of their extended family, because said family was in a different state or a different country and they, the men, wouldn’t therefore be able to see their kids as often, as easily.  (Suddenly that mattered.)

They’d had enough of living in a culture that “values work that contributes to the destruction and exploitation of life over and above work which nurtures life,” to quote Abigail Bray.  And Marilyn Waring.  And how many other women who had been ignored.

They’d had enough of being considered, treated like, damaged goods and sluts.

Why were they single, you might ask.  Their husbands, the kids’ fathers, had abandoned them, saying they just weren’t cut out to be fathers.

Or they’d left their husbands, the kids’ fathers, after years of abuse, psychological and physical, that hadn’t started until the first pregnancy.

Why were they mothers, you might ask.  Their husbands had refused to use a condom.  They’d said they’d pull out, but didn’t.  Usually, they just raped them.  It was their right, after all.  (The consequences, apparently not their responsibility.)

So the next time their kids were with their fathers for the weekend, they just … disappeared.

You might think it would tear them apart.  Well, they were already torn apart.

Yes, their daughters would likely be raped.  That would’ve happened anyway.  Eventually.  The famous ‘one in four’ had crept to ‘one in three’ as men got angrier and angrier with the world at large.

Yes, their sons would be raised to be misogynistic psychopaths.  That too would’ve happened anyway.   The porn culture enabled by the internet had turned most men into misogynistic psychopaths.  Which was no surprise, if they’d been watching women being humiliated and hurt, and apparently liking it, since they were eight.  Which was the case now for most males.

And then it wasn’t just the single mothers.  Married women started divorcing their husbands and insisting that said husbands, their kids’ fathers, assume full-time custody.

“I’ll take them every other weekend,” the women would say, magnanimously.

And oh my god, was it wonderful.  They’d work from nine to five, and the rest of the day, the evening, was theirs.  All theirs.  To do as they pleased.  The housework, the laundry, the cooking—it was surprising how little was needed for just themselves.  And the quiet.  It was … bliss.

In a way, it seemed that women had started getting over themselves.  Truth be told, in most cases, the kids would be no worse off with their fathers.  It’s not like they, the mothers, had been doing a stellar job.  Their kids were, across the board, oh so ordinary.  At best.

In a way, it seemed that they’d finally realized they’d been suckered into believing that raising children was something that only they could do, something that they could do best, being women, being mothers …

“You know, it’s strange,” Ann said to Beth during their coffee break, as they read the latest statistics on the phenomenon.  “It’s like all these women, single and married, suddenly don’t love their kids anymore.”

“Yeah, well, love,” Beth replied, cynically.  “Oxytocin by any other—”

And that’s when it hit them.

They did the research (suspending, for the moment, their development of an air-borne contraceptive, with a somewhat onerous and impossible-to-regulate antidote, like holding one’s breath for 60 seconds every hour for 24 hours straight, that would change the default from having to do something not to get pregnant to having to do something to get pregnant), and sure enough.

There had been a decrease in oxytocin.  For many, that bond was all that had been holding mother-and-child together.  Once it started to dissolve, once their oxytoxin started to decrease, well, it was … easier.  To just give up.  Give up their kids, leave them with their fathers.  It actually didn’t tear them apart.  Quite so much.

We should have seen it coming.  After all, we’d been using pesticides, handling plastics, wearing cosmetics (that turned into a nice irony: you want us to look attractive all the time, well, okay, but … it’s gonna cost ya), and coming into contact with god knows how many other industrial chemicals for almost a century.

We even knew that many of these chemicals were endocrine disruptors: they could increase, or decrease, certain hormones (special signal-sending chemicals); they could interfere with the signals hormones were supposed to send; they could even turn one hormone into another.

In fact, we had proof way back in the 1940s that DDT, for example, caused problems for bees, and in 1962, biologist Rachel Carson sounded a strong alarm about such pesticides (and was dismissed as hysterical for doing so).  It took ten years for the U.S. to ban DDT.  And another forty to make the link to breast cancer.

But, well, research into women’s bodies was not exactly a priority.  The first-ever statement about women and heart disease—the signs of heart attack in women are different than in men—was published in 2016.  And we had Viagra (and Cialis and Levitra and Stendra …) long before safe contraception.  And—

Simply put, women weren’t as important as men.  It was an opinion that was, apparently, impossible to change.  After all, Viagra (and Cialis and Levitra and Stendra …) was covered by health insurance plans ten years before any of the various contraceptives were covered.

As more and more women entered the sciences, there were attempts to change that, but men continued to dominate the funding decisions.  (Ann and Beth had resorted to crowd-funding for their research.)

As for research into mothering, that was especially emasculating.  Only a wuss would choose to do that!  I still remember when I first read Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics, in which they present an astounding connection between access to abortion and the crime rate: twenty years after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. crime rate dropped.  Astounding indeed.  That men were surprised by that.  What did they think would happen when a woman is saddled with a squalling baby she does not want, on an income she does not have, because she has a squalling baby she does not want—  She’d get a ‘Mother of the Year’ award?

So.  Oxytocin is a chemical produced by the hypothalamus.  It motivates and reinforces attachment.  Therefore.

Their conclusion was validated when almost overnight, the proportion of new mothers (single or married) with so-called post-partum depression went from one in seven to four in seven.  That’s over half.

We’d only recently hypothesized that post-partum depression could be caused in part by low oxytocin.  Turns out that it’s not so much that low oxytocin causes post-partum depression as that high oxytocin masks post-partum depression—the reasonable (healthy) response to the forementioned state of being saddled with a squalling baby …  (Especially reasonable when you were absolutely exhausted from having just birthed it, in part because you went into that labour in a weakened state due to the multiple stresses, emotional and physical, of being pregnant for nine months in the first place.)

Those who thought post-partum depression was just a medicalization of not wanting kids were right.  Maybe, just maybe, women’s sole responsibility for that squalling baby explains why they experienced “a loss of energy, changes in sleep patterns, a diminished ability to think or concentrate, and recurring thoughts of suicide.”  I mean, duh.

So when the increase in oxytocin that typically accompanied pregnancy and labour didn’t occur …

Almost overnight, most new mothers acted like those with post-partum depression.  Or like men.  Quite simply, they weren’t all that interested in their newborns.  They saw them as the demanding shit-machines that most new fathers, truthfully, had always seen them as.  (‘Honey, I have to stay late at the office again, sorry.’  Right.  Code for ‘I can’t stand another minute of its crying.  You’re different, you’re a woman, it doesn’t bother you, just like you don’t mind changing its diaper ….’  Right.)

And, simply put, most women did not want to have to look after a demanding shit-machine twenty-four/seven.  Who would?  Looking ahead, they saw nothing but exhaustion, frustration, resentment, anger, rage …  Being completely responsible for a completely helpless human being for years …

So, many women just left their newborns with their husbands.

“If you didn’t want to look after it, you shouldn’t’ve had it!” Dave said when Diane told him she was going back to work the next day.

She waited a few moments, then saw that she had to say it out loud.  “Same to you.”

And then in the morning, when she was on her way out ahead of him—in many households, there was actually a race for the door—he objected.  He’d obviously not taken her seriously the night before.  But then, when had he ever?

“But … this is crazy.”

She stared at him.  “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Dismiss as ‘crazy’ anything you don’t agree with.  As if you’re the standard of sanity.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did.”

“But … I can’t stay home, quit my job.  I make more money than you!”

“Yeah, pity you never joined the fight for equal pay for work of equal value.”

“But—”

“And,” she sighed, “it’s not all about money.”

Many women took their newborns to their rapists.  In many cases, in many countries, that meant the same as leaving them with their husbands.  But in many other cases, it meant taking the infant to a male relative, a ‘friend’, an acquaintance …   As statistics have shown, in most cases, women are raped by someone they know.

“You can’t leave it here!” Tyler said.  “I don’t want it!”

“Then why’d you make it?”

“I didn’t make it!”

She waited just a moment.  “Do you really not know how babies are made?  When sperm—”

“I know that shit!  Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Well, unless you taught your sperm how to swim backwards …”

It was amusing, though appalling, that so many men seemed to assume that women had some sort of innate control over fertilization.  That getting pregnant was their choice, hence their fault.

“Why didn’t you take care of it?” He glared at her.

“I am taking care of it.  I’m giving it to you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Then say it.  Say what you mean.”

“Why didn’t you get an abortion?”

“Why didn’t you get a vasectomy?”

“I thought you were on the pill or something.”

“Why did you think that?”

He shrugged.

“Well, shouldn’t you have made sure?  Before you put your sperm into my vagina?”

In many countries, women organized and took their newborns, en masse, to their legislatures.  They walked in, close to a hundred at a time, and set their infants, strapped into carriers, baskets, and car seats, onto the long meeting tables.

“What’s this?”  The Man-in-Charge would say.

“The babies you forced us to have by prohibiting abortion.”

“Well, we don’t want them.”

Then you shouldn’t have forced us to have them.”

And then they started to walk away.

“Wait!  You can’t just walk away!  What kind of mothers are you?”

“The unwilling kind.  The coerced kind.”

And then with great self-righteousness, the Man-in-Charge would call Security and have the women arrested for abandonment.  Right then and there.  They’d be taken away to holding cells.  Sentenced for, possibly, five years.  With smug satisfaction, the Man-in-Charge would turn back to—

The babies were still there.  Now wailing.  Every one of them.

Oops.

Initially, it was concern for the kids that received all the media attention.  (Of course.  Even fertilized eggs are more important than women.)  Women with post-partum depression don’t bond with their newborns; as a result, said newborns don’t thrive.  They are likely to have a wide range of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and medical problems: lower IQ scores, attention problems, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, conduct disorders, my god the list goes on.  (Tell me again why mothers, if they’re so very important, are ‘paid’ just room and board.)

Most women fully understood the importance of the first six years; they were the formative years.  Literally.  But why were women best suited for those first six years?  Why was one woman best suited for those first six years?

And if those years were so fucking important, they said, they screamed, why did men keep undoing what women did?  With advertising—sugar-sweetened drinks and cereals, fat-laden and nutrient-poor fast food …  With toy stores—stocked with gun-wielding action figures on one side and pretty pink princesses on the other …  With television, intentionally attractive, intentionally addictive—the more kids watch tv, the worse their social skills, their language skills, their school performance, their physical fitness …

Of course, many women argued that the ‘What about the children?’ response was just a guilt trip, and a way to keep so many of us sequestered, segregated, in the home, overworked, too tired to care about, or to do anything about, anything else.  And not an expression of genuine concern for the children, for those formative years.

And so … the men found out what it was like.  To be home alone with one, two, three kids who demanded their attention every minute, every second.  They’d had no idea how exhausting it could be.  Physically, psychologically …

What did they do?  Some desperately hired other women to look after their kids.  But ten hours a day, five days a week, it added up.

Naturally, those who were married expected their now-working (wait, now-working?) wives to pay half the mortgage, half the electricity, half the insurance …

“I can’t afford that.  We’ll have to sell the house, move, find something cheaper.”

“Sell the house?  But—”

“And of course I won’t be paying half the nanny’s salary.”

“But they’re your kids too.”

“I can’t afford it.”  It was true.

Suddenly men were speaking out for equal pay for work of equal value.  Suddenly they were insisting their wives get pay increases and promotions.  Suddenly they were appalled at the jobs their wives didn’t get hired for.

“But you’re qualified!  More than qualified!”

Duh.

“Can’t you pay at least part of the nanny’s salary?”

“Why should I?  It was your decision.”  Because oh, the rage.  Their husbands were paying some stranger more than they’d ever paid them.  To do the same work.

And, again, “If you didn’t want to look after a kid, why did you make one?”

And, of course, it wasn’t just about money.  Unless they hired a 24/7 nanny, the men whose wives had left found they no longer had their evenings and weekends to themselves.  To put it mildly.

When hiring a nanny proved impossible, the men stayed home.  What choice did they have?  Many were fired because they didn’t show up for work.  Or couldn’t stay late.  Or had to leave suddenly in the middle of the day for an emergency.  (Fortuitously, this opened positions for all the women now seeking paid employment.)

Suddenly men were speaking out for, demanding, state-funded daycare.

They insisted that their estranged wives pay child support.  But when the arrears for 24/7 nanny services to date had been calculated, minus their portion for all the joint expenses, in most cases, the men still owed the women.  No child support would be forthcoming.

Regardless, most men found they simply couldn’t handle the non-stop neediness of babies, infants, toddlers, their relentless whining presence … When their infants wouldn’t stop crying, some men threw them against the wall.  Or worse.

So when that proved impossible, the staying at home with them, they just started leaving them alone during the day.  And often during the night.  Some men just left the house at one point and didn’t come back.

The kids died.  Of course they died.

Some starved to death.  Some died of thirst.  Some had fatal accidents.  They fell when they tried to get out of their cribs, or they drowned when they slipped in the tub, or they died in a house fire when, so hungry, they tried to make supper …

Call it ‘failure to thrive’.  In a big way.

So, yes, the incidence of infanticide increased.  The incidence of child abuse and neglect increased.  More prisons were required.  More foster homes were required.  Proposals were made to bring back orphanages.

The number of street kids increased.  More social services were required.

Juvenile crime increased.  More young offender facilities were required.

Governments were overwhelmed.

Of course, early on, almost immediately, actually, the men realized they hadn’t wanted kids after all.  Not really.  They’d just wanted the badge of respectability, the measure of maturity.  And they realized they’d been duped by the association between the two: being able to get a woman pregnant had nothing to do with respectability.  Or maturity.

And they realized, now, that if they did have kids—that is, if they did create some new human beings—they’d have to look after them for a good fifteen years.  Actually look after them.

And then what happened?

Nations that had hitherto spent half their budgets on weapons found that they had the money for state-funded daycare.

Legislation was passed for equal pay for work of equal value.  And enforced.

Legislation was also passed for equal opportunity for promotions.  And enforced.

Contraception became not only easily available, but free of charge.

Abortion became legal.  And available.  On demand.

And, finally, there was an increase in vasectomies, from a global rate of 2.2% to 81.9%.

And then, zero population growth.

 

Aug 21 2026

Our soooo left-brain society

Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the western world is a lengthy work on neuroscience that will not appeal to many, but if you can sign out a copy from your library, I highly recommend reading the first six-page section of his conclusion (p428-434) wherein he presents a startling answer to the question of “what the world would look like if the left hemisphere became so far dominant that … it managed more or less to suppress the right hemisphere’s world altogether.”  With six pages of of astute observations, he has absolutely ‘nailed’ our current Western capitalistic world.

Aug 09 2026

Ballsy (fiction from Fighting Words)

Ballsy

“I’d like to thank all of you for coming,” the smartly-dressed woman smiled warmly at the several people seated around the board room table, each with a prospectus in front of them.  Only one was a man.

“As all of you know, my name is Mariette Chandler.  Kristina Bolaenko, legal counsel, is at my right, and Chen Li, financial advisor, is at my left.  We’re hoping that after today’s presentation, you’ll agree to invest in this exciting business venture.  Based on similar ventures, the returns promise to be high, very high indeed.  And yet, our venture is, dare I say, innovative.

“We have arranged a visit to one of our clubs, for those of you who want to see first-hand what we’re talking about, but before—”

She paused as her assistant arrived with a rolling cart of refreshments.

“Please, everyone—” She gestured with her hand for those in attendance to partake, then waited as the young woman made a quick tour around the table, then took a seat at the back of the room.

“Thank you, Alyssa.”

Alyssa nodded, then took out her tablet, ready for whatever notes she’d need to make.

“At ‘Ballsy’,” Mariette started her power point presentation—an image appeared on the screen behind her, an attractive building with the name emblazoned across the front—”members will be able purchase the opportunity, typically for half an hour or an hour, to kick a man in the groin, or do whatever else they want, whatever else gives them pleasure, and,” she smiled at the room, “I must say that some of our clients have been rather imaginative—”

“You can’t do that,” the man spoke up, brimming with self-righteousness.  “It’s assault!”

Ah.  Mariette had suspected as much.  The man was a reporter.  No matter.  He’d discover that his editor would refuse to print any explicit descriptions.  So she just nodded to her colleague.  “Kristina, would you … ”

“Certainly,” Kristina said, then turned to the man.  “We appreciate your concern,” she smiled at him, “but I assure you that all of our employees will have signed a contract containing the appropriate clauses.”

“But—”

Mariette cut him off by clicking to the next image.  “These clips are from our flagship club here in Montreal.  Within a year, we hope to have a ‘Ballsy’ in every major city.  Within five years … who knows?”  She smiled.

The screen showed a man with his arms raised and tied to a crossbar over his head, his legs spread and shackled to the floor, his genitals exposed, and already bruised and misshapen.  A narrow foot shot out from off-screen.

The man present gagged and rushed to the wastebasket by the door.

“I supposed it’s an acquired taste,” Mariette said and smiled at the room.

The man in the video grinned, then panted, “Kick me again.”

The next clip showed a man on all fours, a corkscrew hanging from his bloodied rectum.

Halfway back to his chair by then, the man quickly turned around.

During the next clip, he made it all the way back to his chair, staggering slightly and wiping his mouth with a tissue.  He glanced at the screen, then stared at Mariette.  “That one looks drugged,” he accused.

“Oh, we don’t allow drugs on the premises.  That would be illegal,” she laughed lightly.  “And what our employees do on their off-time is surely none of our business.”

A few more clips played.

“You won’t be able to find enough men—”

“Our data suggests otherwise.  As you know, unemployment among young men is increasing every year.  We provide jobs.  At well above minimum wage.   Most of our men make more money in a day with us than they would in a week at a call center.”

“But,” one of the women spoke up, “I’m not sure I’d want my son to …”

“Oh, no, your son will surely have other options.  We’re not here to recruit!” She laughed again.

When the opening image returned to the screen, Mariette began the next part of her presentation.  “As we develop the brick-and-mortar,” she smiled with excitement, “we will also develop the virtual.  ‘Ballsy’ will be online.  Chen?”

“Thank you, Mariette,” Chen took the hand-off gracefully.  “Adding the virtual will be virtually without cost,” she smiled at her wordplay, “as we will simply record the live sessions and post them online.”

“With the participants’ contractual agreement, of course,” Kristina added, smiling at the man.

“At the same time,” Chen continued, “it will be immensely profitable.  We already have advertisers clamouring to be a part of this.”

“And we have discussed off-products,” Mariette inserted smoothly, as the image on the screen changed, “posters, calendars, magazines—  Imagine seeing ‘Ballsy’ images on buses and bus shelters, in your corner store’s magazine rack, perhaps even in your kids’ teachers’ lounge …”

The man was horrified.  “But—  You can’t do that!”

“But we can.  Do that,” Kristina said.  “Precedent has been set.  Our business, and all of its services and products, would be protected by freedom of speech.”

“How is that,” he nodded to the image currently on the screen, “speech?”

Kristina shrugged, then continued.  “Traditionally, arguments to prohibit have been rejected, replaced with arguments for equal access.  Well, here we are!”  She swept her open hands around the room, then behind her to the screen, where the video clips taken at the club had resumed.

“But some of them are just boys!”

“All over-age, I assure you,” Kristina said smoothly.

Mariette didn’t say that the younger, the better.  The more pliable.  She didn’t say that none of them lasted very long.  Many, sadly, just lost their je ne sais quoi and had to be let go.

What she did say was, “At the moment, this may seem … offensive to some, but in a few years … ”

“Indeed,” Kristina said.  “We anticipate that copycat franchises will develop, but,” she assured the room, “we will fiercely protect our brand and strive to make ‘Ballsy’ everyone’s first choice.”

“Truthfully,” Mariette said, “we welcome competition.  Such growth would actually be to our advantage, as it would mean that such clubs have become commonplace, that the provision and use of such a service, has become normalized.  Imagine a world in which there’s a ‘Ballsy’ wherever you go!”

Aug 05 2026

from Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods – delightful and pointy at the same time

“Nearly everyone I talked to had some gruesome story involving a guileless acquaintance who had gone off hiking the trail with high hopes and new boots and come stumbling back two days later with a bobcat attached to his head …” p3

“… he had been let go from jobs at Harvard and the National Forest Service and eventually, for want of a better place to stick him, given a desk at the U.S. Labor Department with a vague assignment to come up with ideas to improve efficiency and morale.” p27

This notion of finding a job for a man, as if it’s a duty, or responsibility, and regardless of qualifications—imagine if that tradition had applied to women as far back as 1921.

Truly enraging.

“On average the total walking of an American these days—that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls—adds up to 1.4 miles a week …”  p135

Unfuckingbelievable.  (No wonder the American from whom I rented a house for a couple winters a while ago was amazed that I walked to the campground and back every day, a round trip of 3.8 miles.  Amazed.)  (In addition to paddling my kayak out and around the islands for about three hours.)

“I know a man who dives 600 yards to work.  I know a woman who gets in her car to go a quarter of a mile to a college gymnasium to walk on a treadmill, then complains passionately about the difficulty of finding a parking space.”  p136

Wonder no more who to blame when you lose your home to the fires.  (The fossil-fuel-emission-fuelled fires.)  (For the science-challenged.)  (That is, the Americans.)

“[A moose] is wondrously ungainly: it runs as if its legs have never been introduced to each other.”  p255

Aug 02 2026

from Earth for Sale: The fight to stop the last plunder of the planet, Maude Barlow

“The disruption to the commons that followed Christopher Columbus’ initial journey dled to the death of 56 million Indigenous people by 1600 …” p13

“The total compensation to Indigenous people amounted to pennies per acre for Native territories … The treaty procedure was propelled by threats of war, forced removal, and simply taking the land without compensation.” p14-15

“Throughout the early 20th century, the federal an dprovincial governments in Canada similarly systematically displaced the first peoples of the land and claimed the immense wealth of the water, forests, fish, minerals, and land in their territories. … banned First Nations people from land ownership and allowed companies to exract resources on reserve land for nominal or no compensation at all.” p15

Europeans did the same thing in South America, Africa, Australia, and India.

“Corporate revenues of Apple, BP, and Shell exceed the revenues of Russia, Belgium, and Sweden. Exxon’s exceed India’s. [Etc.]” p20

“The World Trade Organization was created in 1995 … founded on the doctrine that the market, not governments, should set the rules of trade.” p21

“Fossil fuel companies are using ISDS [investor-state dispute settlements] to force governments to compensate them for lost profits when the governments introduce measures to transition to a low-carbon economy.” p22

So now you know how we got here: it’s because of all those people, overwhelmingly men, who majored in Business and know nothing about how the world actually works (how we get water, and food, and a survivable temperature…) and are too immature (arrogant and selfish) to listen to the people who do know.

“… investment treaties give foreign energy corporations the right to sue for compensation in the billions if governments start to fulfill their climate commitments under the Paris Agreement …”

But who agreed to sign those treaties?

“Investing just 0.1% of global GDP every year in restoring agriculture, forests, pollution management and protected areas would … avoid ecological collapse.” p27

Yeah. Had that happened in 2021. Now?

“An international group of scientists announced in 2017 that to keep pace with the global demand for food, crop production needs to grow by 50% by 2050, which will require an increase in water for irrigation by 146%. Where is this water to come from?” It’s already maxed out. p96-7

“UK water bills have soared over 360% since privatization … The largest, Thames Water, … was rescued with an almost US$4 billion government bailout in February 2025.” p100

Okay, so that doesn’t work. (Either.)

“SpaceX purchases large amounts of water from the public utility board in Brownsville, Texas, to suppress fire, dust, and debris when it launches from its nearby test site. The company claims it uses 180,000 gallons … with each launch … The utility board, which has raised water rates to the public to deal with the prolonged drought in the area, refuses to disclose the purchase agreement with the company.” p109

“… two-thirds of new AI data centers are in parts of the US already in the grip of high water stress. ‘Each time you ask an AI chatbot to summarize a lengthy legal document or conjure up a carbon squirrel wearing glasses, it sends a request to a data center and strains an increasingly scarce resource: water.'” p110

“Google’s data centre in The Dalles, Oregon, … consumes almost one-third of the town’s water supply. … Google is planning two more data centres in this small town of 16,000.: p110

“Asked about the harmful environmental effects of AI in Washington, DC, … former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said we might as well continue to invest in AI because ‘we are never going to meet our climate goals anyway.'” p110

“Nearly three-quarters of Earth’s land is now degraded …” p140

“The top 1% in rich countries gained US$30 million an hour.” p142

“Six of the nine planetary boundaries that Earth scientists have defined as needing to be respected to ensure a stable global environment have already been breached …” p146

Seven, now.

“Countries can raise US$2.1 trillion a year by following the example of S[pain’s successful wealth tax on the 0.5% richest households … at a rate of 1.7% to 3.5% …” p151

“Half the wealth around the world each year goes to people who earn for a living; the rest is collected in investments, interest, dividends and capital gains [making money off money]. Not only is this wealth not taxed fairly, it is less economically productive as much of it is diverted toward speculative derivatives [gambling] instead of providing goods and services in the real economy.” p152

Aug 02 2026

some excerpts from Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine

“In every country where Chicago School policies [neo-liberalism] have been applied over the past three decades, what has emerged is a powerful ruling alliance between a few very large corporations and a class of mostly wealthy politicians—with hazy and ever-shifting lines between the two groups.” p17

“A more accurate term for a system that erases the boundaries between Big Government and Big Business is not liberal, conservator, or capitalist but corporatist. The main characteristics are huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and the disposable poor, and an aggressive nationalism that justifies bottomless spending on security.” p18

“… where Rumsfeld saw a boom market in plagues, [Cheney] was banking on a future of war.” p349

That’s why countries go to war: the weapons manufacturers profit from it.

“During the Second World War, president Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke out strongly against war profiteers, saying, ‘I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.’ One wonders what he would have made of Cheney, whose millions in war profits accumulated while he was sitting vice-president.” p377

“… relevant experience often appeared to have nothing to do with how contracts were allocated [in post-Katrina New Orleans]. AshBritt, the company paid half a billion dollars to remove debris, reportedly didn’t own a single dump truck and farmed out the entire job to contractors.” p495

“Something else was familiar: the contractors’ aversion to hiring local people who might have seen the reconstruction of New Orleans not only as a job but as part of healing and re-empowering their communities. Washington could easily have made it a condition of every Katrina contract that companies hire local people at decent wages to help them put their lives back together.” p495

“The result, predictably, was that after all the layers of subcontractors had taken their cut, there was next to nothing left for the people doing the work. For instance … FEMA paid Shaw $175 a square foot to install blue tarps on damaged roofs, even though the tarps themselves were provided by the government. Once all the subcontractors took their share, the workers who actually hammered in the tarps were paid as little as $2 a square foot.” p496

“Perhaps part of the reason why so many of our elites, both political and corporate, are so sanguine about climate change is that they are confident they will be able to buy their way out of the worst of it.” p504

“‘Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies … to protect their homes and facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life. Parallel transportation networks … will cater to this group, leapfrogging its members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next.’ (John Robb) That elite world is already largely in place … ” p505

“… many people around the world have come to the same conclusion: the rich and powerful must be deliberately causing the catastrophes so that they can exploit them.” p512

“The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous: An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological, or financial.” p513

“Large oil companies have bankrolled the climate change-denial movement for years; ExxonMobil has spent an estimated $16 million on the crusade over the past decade.” p514

“… in the U.S., CEOs made 43 times what the average worker earned in 1980 … By 2005, CEOs earned 411 times as much. … Trickle-down economics didn’t happen.” p535

Jul 18 2026

“We don’t occupy their imaginations …”

“We don’t occupy their imaginations the way they occupy ours.” Black scientist about his white colleagues (from the movie “Black Cake”)

Yeah. Now imagine that ten-fold for a female scientist.

Jul 14 2026

from The First Political Order: How sex shapes governance and national security worldwide, Valerie M. Hudson et al.

Part I is a must-read.

Excerpts follow.

“Men seeking their own security attempt to construct strong male-bonded alliances, typically based on patrilineal (agnatic) relationships … [Women] biologically reproduce the group, providing brothers and sons for this male alliance. The fraternity’s dependence on women … leads to the necessity for men to control them.” p2 [This socially constructed system of male security alliances is called by the authors the Patrilineal/Fraternal Syndrome.]

And there you have it: the explanation for male dominance over women.

And it begs the question, what do they need security from but each other?

“[And as the book demonstrates,] the search for security through a male-based fraternity that strongly subordinates women, pushed to its logical end, has serious and negative ramifications for the security, stability, resilience, prosperity, health, and happiness of the collective as well as negative security effects regionally and even internationally.” p3

“Gowaty continues, ‘The antithetical icon of autonomy for many women is rape …. The insight that violence against women is sexy (turns men on) provides a powerful proximate analysis that explains what many of us know in our guts—sexuality is the fulcrum of subordination/domination.” p13-4

“When individual men subordinate women in their household, they receive tangible and quite personal goods and services, including sexual services; services to maintain the household, such as water, fuel, and food gathering; elder care for the man’s parents; and bearing and rearing children.” p22

“The continual threat of violence, perpetrated almost exclusively by men, has indelibly shaped humankind.” p22

Read that one again.

And again.

“Such economic dependency and emotional vulnerability are purposely created to ensure women’s compliance.” p33

“[W]omen are the means whereby men reproduce themselves.” p41

“Think what it is to a boy, to grow up to manhood in the belief that without any merit or exertion of his own, … by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race… People are little aware … how early the notion of his inherent superiority to a girl arises in his mind; how early the youth thinks himself superior to his mother, owing her perhaps forbearace, but no real respect …” John Stuart Mill p46-7

“[T]hose ‘in charge’—overwhelmingly men—are profoundly, and thus humiliatingly, dependent on those whoa re ‘not in charge’, that is, women. Ann Jones p47

“He wants her, but he loathes that he wants her and he hates her even more for not wanting him.” p47

“[W]ithin virtually all societies, it seems, women’s everyday physical insecurity is viewed as completely unremarkable” p95

I’m reminded of all the men so surprised we’d choose the bear (and surprised that we walk to our cars with our keys between our fingers). I mean, duh. Guys, get a clue.

“Even the ‘bro talk’ about ‘tits and asses’ that accompanies Wall Street financial circles shows how ‘the bonding … goes hand in hand with the objectification of the other sex.” p98

“A man’s honor lies between the legs of a woman.” p100

Yeah, whose bright idea was that?

“[T]he woman’s body is perceived not to belong to her, but to the group…” p102

And yet they abuse it, allow it less food, force it through multiple pregnancies, etc. Men are so fucking stupid. They probably don’t even know it’s their sperm that determines whether the women gives birth to a boy or a girl.

“[T]he ability to exclude fellow humans from our emotional in-group may well be the trait underlying much of what we call evil … Men first learn to practice such emotional exclusion on women.” p115

“[T]he degree of women’s access to political power in a society is predictive of the likelihood of that state engaging in interstate disputes and war.” p115

“[T]he typically high fertility rates of Syndrome societies, resulting from the repression of female family planning interests …” p116

In other words, overpopulation is caused by men. By rape.

Read that again.

“What evolution has produced in men, generally speaking, is a tendency ‘to seek power with an almost unbounded enthusiasm’ and to engage in ‘unprovoked aggression.’ Potts and Hayden observe that ‘male Homo sapiens … have an inherited predisposition to team up with kin—or perceived kin—and try to kill their neighbors.'” p117

“And yet, as [Sarah] Chayes points out, corruption may not so much undermine the government as to be the purpose of government. … ‘What if the Afghan government wasn’t really trying to govern? What if it was focused on another objective altogether? … If that government was actually a crime syndicate in disguise, the dearth of good people was no surprise. … That was the Afghan government, It was not incapable. It was performing its core function with admirable efficiency … Governing—the exercise that attracted so much international attention—was really just a front activity.'” p132-3

Sound familiar?

“Ironically, then, even though the Syndrome is designed to maximize resource access by men relative to women, overall prosperity, generally speaking, is typically lower in Syndome countries. … It is almost as if gendered relative gains are much more important (if the gains are for men) … ” p172

“‘A “full potential” scenario in which women participate in the economy identically to men would add up to $28 trillion, or 26 percent, to annual global GDP by 2025 compared with a business-as-usual scenario. This impact is roughly equivalent too the size of the combined Chinese and U.S. economies today.’ [McKinsey & Co.]” p172

“Apparently, discriminatory laws an dpractices concerning women’s property rights, land rights, inheritance rights, and access to capital must all be maintained even if greater prosperity for all is sacrificed as a result.” p173

We will subordinate you if it kills us.

And they say men are the logical ones.

The authors go on to show—nay, to prove—that subordinating women leads to
– less political stability
– a lower quality of governance
– less freedom of religion
– greater corruption
– more interest in acquiring, accessing, and importing weapons
– less wealth
– more economic inequality
– less food security
– and more …

“The subordination of women does not lead to a happy society for anyone, even men.” p294

They conclude that “The Syndrome matters, and it matters greatly.” p303

And “As [Rose] McDermott puts it, ‘If these findings were about something not related to women, chances are that they would be treated as revolutionary in international relations theory; indeed, the effects [of the Syndrome] are much stronger than those supporting the notion of the democratic peace that has spawned an entire cottage industry of inquiry.'” p308

(And whether the society was ‘Western’ or not was significant in only one model.)

“[N]othing will change until men change.” p373

And there isn’t enough time for that to happen.

Especially because “catastrophe”—like, oh, I don’t know, extreme heat, extreme storms, fires, flooding, destroyed housing, water shortages, and food shortages—”is likely to lead to greater subordination of women.” (p377)

Jul 12 2026

from When the Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi

“…as someone whose sexuality so far had expressed itself as ‘possibly asexual or maybe just unimpressed with the local talent’ …” p187

“Jody Bannon was worth, what, a couple hundred billion dollars? Think about how much money that is. He could have spent a million dollars a day, on anything, and it would still take him ten lifetimes to spend it all.” p188

Elon, Jeff, Mark, Larry, Larry, and Sergey: together you might be able to save the planet and therefore the human species. But you’re broken. Every one of you. You don’t give a shit. And you’re delusional, thinking you’ll somehow be exempt. Watch “Don’t Look Up”.

“If you dropped a shirt with the expectation that someone else would pick up after you, Iwould divorce you instantly,” said Angie. …
“It’s their job.”
“It’s their job only if you make it their job,” Angie replied.” p201

“Some people want to have bucket list experiences. Other people want to die with the biggest net worth. That cheese rock has put a big fat finish line on the game. [The end of the world is in sight.] And some people are going to play it until the very last minute.”
The disturbing word there is “play”. And, again, so irrational. You’ll die with the biggest net worth? You’ll be DEAD. And so will anyone who might actually admire you.

Jul 07 2026

from Doughnut Economics: 7 ways to think lke a 21st century economist, Kate Raworth

too long to copy, but a great synopsis of neoliberal economics in the form of a stageplay with characters – p59-61

ditto, the alternative – p62-3

“How productive would your workforce be if it hadn’t been toilet trained?” Alvin Toffler p69

“if women were paid the going hourly rate for eac of their roles—switching between housekeeper and daycare teacher to van driver and cleaner—then stay-at-hhome mums would earn around $120,000 each year.” p69 And that was in 2014.

“Even mothers who do head out to work each day would earn an extra $70,000 on top of their actual wages, given all the unpaid care they also provide at home.” p69

“I’m aware of no other profession that has been so cavalier regarding its responsibilities” George DeMartino, economist and ethicist at the University of Denver, speaking of the profession of economics p137

photograph of a sign at a vacant lot identified by Raworth as “political performance art by Fay Lewis, Rockford, Illinois 1914”
“Everybody Works but the Vacant Lot” – “I paid $3600 for this lot and will hold ’till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of tis community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it. For the remedy read ‘Henry George’. Yours truly, Fay Lewis.” p153

And worse, made possible, in the case of waterfront lots purchased by people ‘investing’ in such property, by destroying the natural beauty and value just enough to encourage re-purchase by, for example, ‘clearing’ the lot (cutting down the beautiful and valuable trees, leveling the land, and replacing the natural vegetation with a lawn) and then putting in a driveway and a dock

(Frankly, I think all waterfront development should be declared in hiatus; certainly here where I live, the lots should have been much bigger (resulting in lower density) or half as many identified as available for development.)