Man is certainly not born, but made man. (Erasmus)
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. (Mark Twain)
Fixation exists across all levels of the biological hierarchy, from cells to behavior, and therefore constitutes a fundamental variable in all life. Fixations are an obsessive preoccupation with a single idea, impulse, or aim which interferes with normal behavior. In Freud, the id attaches to an object, leading to fetishism.
It is fundamental to human society; before capitalism as religious rituals, in our secular age, culminating in commodity fetishism, a fixation essential to capitalism, an economy defined by consumption. Where advertising is a form of behavioral conditioning, everybody will be perfectly pacified as long as their needs and wants are conflated in their own minds. No strife, no angst.
The most fundamental fixation of all is the male-female mutual sexual fixation,
Jerusalem's hard-fought liberation, now in process, is a recapitulation of the Christian Crusades of the 11th—13th cc, this time, not by the knight on a white horse of legend, but through the long march of guerilla warfare by the much maligned Shia. This follows on the liberation of Iran from its Judeo-Christian yoke in 1979 and Iraq 25 years later, ironically by the US, forming the second Shia majority state. But it is the Shia minority of Lebanon that holds the keys to Jerusalem. Their 40% of the Lebanese population punches well above their weight in a fractious country split among Christians, and Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The history of our Story
Firing the first shots: Honduras and odious debt
Out of control, permanent crisis, role of government
клин клином or Make love not war
Exercise: rethink the Story, demonetize
What you can do
Cold ugly cynicism or warm beautiful passion
Man is certainly not born, but made man. (Erasmus)
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. (Mark Twain)
Fixation exists across all levels of the biological hierarchy, from cells to behavior, and therefore constitutes a fundamental variable in all life. Fixations are an obsessive preoccupation with a single idea, impulse, or aim which interferes with normal behavior. In Freud, the id attaches to an object, leading to fetishism.
It is fundamental to human society; before capitalism as religious rituals, in our secular age, culminating in commodity fetishism, a fixation essential to capitalism, an economy defined by consumption. Where advertising is a form of behavioral conditioning, everybody will be perfectly pacified as long as their needs and wants are conflated in their own minds. No strife, no angst.
The most fundamental fixation of all is the male-female mutual sexual fixation,
This weighty tome by Andrew Solomon, "one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2012" according to the New York Times, is a fascinating read—chock full of gripping testimonials from a wide range of parents and their children, afflicted and/or blessed by their disabilities, describing how they struggled to adjust to the demands of society. At the same time, the author, a senior write for the NYT, has an agenda which on the surface looks quite innocent: to shape the reader’s view of disability towards greater tolerance of the ‘other’. A prominent liberal and gay public figure, his work is a kind of pinnacle of secular postmodernism, where everyone has a niche or slot, where all are equal and all lifestyles are equally valid, including families headed by 'two mommies', 'two daddies', or in the case of the author 'three mommies and two daddies'.
Review: Dan Steinbock, The Fall of Israel: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military, 2025.
Interview with Opperman Report July 2024 -- Ames and Cold War then and now
Review: Scott Anderson, Four CIA spies at the dawn of the Cold War -- a tragedy in three acts (2021)
Review: Diana Johnstone, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher (2020)
Review: Richard Falk, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim, Clarity Press (2021)
Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts. No!
Well then, don your bicycle helmet. No! Drivers actually pay less attention to you if they see a helmet, figuring they're not likely to kill a smarty-pants, and are less careful around you (2x as likely to pass close). A toque or baseball cap in case of rain is more practical.
Walberg's bike adventures in and around Toronto (ok, walking around Gaspe and some religion too)
Peterborough-Oshawa-Toronto by bike 14 July 2024
Biking the Grand: Reinventing tourism 06 July 2023
Shakespeare by bike 25 June 2022
As Israeli thugs rampage in Amsterdam, Israeli thugs rampage in north Gaza.
Humpty Dumpty is ravenous but the world is watching.
Do I hear Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine? Israel?
It took a genocide for Torontonians to commit themselves to the goal of defeating Israel. It turns out Iranian President Akhmedinejad was right after all. 'Israel' must be wiped off the map. It is an ugly cancer that could kill its Earthly host. But it will disappear only by the will of the people, Palestinian, Canadian, Jewish-Christian-Muslim united.
World News with Eric Walberg