Reading Time: 5 minutes It may not have escaped your notice that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the riots that took Paris by the scruff of the neck. The widespread violence, of May 1968, resulted in… well not much, apart from transforming Parisian little brats, dependent on their parents’ money into… liberated Parisian little brats, dependent on […]
Society
- Psychology
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Left In The Cold – The Freeze Response And Rape Victims
Reading Time: 6 minutes You are probably aware of the so-called “fight-flight response”, also known as the “acute stress response”. It is a biological reaction to a stimulus perceived as an imminent threat to survival. The response is carried out by the autonomic nervous system – a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual […]
- retrospect
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Blue Moon Ready To Rise
Reading Time: 6 minutes Blue moon You saw me standing alone Without a dream in my heart Without a love of my own At about twenty past six, on Sunday 15th April a feeling of profound bliss penetrated the very heart of my soul. Something so powerful, that it made me clench my fists and cut the air with […]
Emmanuel Macron Cannot Change French “Strike Culture”
Reading Time: 6 minutes There is another culture that the French are proud of, besides the “cultural exception” represented by their language, in the face of Anglo-Saxon dominance. It is the right for you to strike, regardless of whether your actions will close schools, disrupt the business commuter, or leave the unsuspecting tourist stranded at Charles de Gaulle airport. […]
“England…Little England”
Reading Time: 5 minutes It was to be expected that the Daily Mail, a British institution if ever there was one, would come out with another gem. I thought that the paper had reached rock-bottom, when it described three judges who upheld the law as, “enemies of the people”, and members of parliament who dare oppose the government, as […]
- Europe
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Will Facebook Comply With European Data Regulations?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Whilst some of us are busy trying to implement the new European data regulations that will come into effect on 25th May, Facebook is just as busy as we are, in clearly breaching the same regulations. Facebook’s carelessness concerning private data has been well reported elsewhere. However, there is one aspect of this fiasco that I […]
- Intolerance
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#MeToo For Atheists
Reading Time: 6 minutes The death of Stephen Hawking was, above all, a tragic loss for his immediate family and closest friends. The world of physics, and science in general, will also be much the poorer without him. Whereas none of us, common mortals, would be able to write a bestseller on the history of time, or come up […]
Houellebecq’s “Submission” – A Caliphate Fantasia In Rotterdam
Reading Time: 6 minutes Michel Houellebecq’s controversial novel, “Submission”, published in 2015, received a mixed reception from both the press and politicians. Not surprisingly, Marine Le Pen, leader of the right-winged “Front National”, described the work as, “fiction that one day could become reality.” Michel Houellebecq’s political fiction is in nothing a visionary work, it’s just a succession of false provocations. […]
Dikes, Bikes, And Perks – Holland’s Underwater Haven
Reading Time: 7 minutes photograph © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons) The latest OECD report, focussing on the work-leisure balance – so important in stopping each one of us from giving up on life – puts the Dutch at the top of the class. This does compensate the dire results of the Dutch national football team, which […]
The EU’s Problem Is Not Brexit, It’s Eastern Europe
Reading Time: 4 minutes Jean Monnet, one of the fathers of the Union, had a vision of a unified Europe, probably a federal one. For Monnet, Europe was an ongoing process, a “work in progress”, aiming to create the best possible future for our children and grand-children. We must be honest, and admit that certain member states are not economically […]