• Commonplaces
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sergneri

Commonplaces

Aide-Memoire

Ethical and green living

La Monte Young

July 23, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

True BelieversThe Man Who Brian Eno Called ‘the Daddy of Us All’ La Monte Young, the composer who quietly shaped much of contemporary Western music, reaches his last act.

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Modern Music, Obituaries, Thinking about Tagged: Angus MacLise, Brian Eno, Charlie Parker, Day of Niagara, Dream Houses, Igor Stravinsky, Jung Hee Choi, Kirana gharana, La Monte Young, Lee Konitz, Lou Reed, Marian Zazeela, minimalist music, musicologist, Pandit Pran Nath, Robert Stevenson, Tony Conrad, Trio for Strings

New York Review of Books Strikes Again

July 4, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

One scathing essay and one graphic strip in the New York Review Daily which need sharing: The first is an essay from David Rothkopf: ‘The Most Ignorant and Unfit’: What Made America’s Worst Ever Leader? “Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Thinking about, Trump Tagged: American exceptionalism, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Donald Trump, Franklin Pierce, George W Bush, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan, John Tyler, King George III, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Thomas Paine, Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison

Republicans are hypocrites. They happily ‘de-funded’ the police we actually need

June 17, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

The Guardian, again, hits the nail on the head with this spot on essay “Republicans are hypocrites. They happily ‘de-funded’ the police we actually need” by David Sirota: After two weeks of police violence and protests, Republican politicians have been pretending to have a fainting spell over the phrase “defund the police.” “There won’t be … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Feminism, Finanace, Future of Work, Nuclear Industry, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about, Trump Tagged: antitrust, Chemical Safety Board, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Products Safety Commission, Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Internal Revenue Service, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Securities and Exchange Commission

Jane Goodall: humanity is finished if it fails to adapt after Covid-19

June 3, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

In the Guardian today, June 3, 2020, is an essay on the remarks from Jane Goodall about farming practices and food habits. “If we do not do things differently, we are finished,” she said. “We can’t go on very much longer like this.” She called for people to be lifted out of poverty, pointing to … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Future of Work, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about Tagged: Compassion in World Farming, Coronavirus, COVID-19, exotic pets, factory farming, farming, food, Jane Goodall, Janusz Wojciechowski, poverty, Stella Kyriakides, tourism, traditional medicine

The NEWS you may not have read …

May 31, 2020 by sergneri 1 Comment

In the Columbia Journalism Review is an essay The bad news quietly buried during the pandemic by Zoë Beery: With the world’s attention glued to the coronavirus pandemic, news about anything else has been slipping farther and farther down the proverbial front page. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s been going on. Whether by design or … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Feminism, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about, This Day in History, Trump Tagged: Airlines, Andrew Cuomo, Andrew Wheeler, Brett Kavanagh, carbon offsets, Coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, department of Defense, EPA, food stamps, fuel efficiency standards, Immigration, Jared Kushner, Justin Walker, Keystone XL, Mitch McConnell, oil sands, pandemic, PATRIOT Act, President Trump, Stephen Miller, watchdog

Big Oil Finally Runs Out of Gas

May 14, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

Over at the New York Review of Books Daily, Bill McKibbon writes about the how big oil is losing its “big”. Read it here, from May 12, 2020. A study published this week in the journal Nature by economists at the Beijing Institute of Technology calculated that while investments to reduce greenhouse gases in line … [Read more…]

Posted in: Climate Change, Ethical and green living, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Politics, Thinking about Tagged: Berkshire Hathaway, Big Oil, Exxon, fossil fuel industry, greenhouse gases, JPMorgan Chase, Lee Raymond, renewable energy

The investor class is excited

May 9, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

From the comments on this NYT essay on The Disastrous Employment Numbers, May 8, 2020: sedanchair Seattle 9h ago @nero Because thanks to Trump, they can simply steal our money and get away with it on a scale unprecedented even in previous bailouts. As with every scam Trump ever participated in, there’s no need for … [Read more…]

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Thinking about, Trump, Uncategorized Tagged: investor class, scam, Trump, working class

Hot Spots for Students

May 5, 2020 by sergneri 1 Comment

On their web site, Mark Quattrocchi explains the why of their donations of internet hot spots to rural and unconnected students in Sonoma County. This effort is also written up in the Press Democrat on May 2, 2020. We all need a feel good moment every once in a while.

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Thinking about, This Day in History Tagged: coronavirus pandemic, distance learning, low-income communities, mobile hot spots, online access, Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, reliable internet, Sonoma County Office of Education, students

Surf Log

May 5, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

For those who want to get away to the beach and watch the surf, a 28 minute video of the surf at Salmon Creek Beach tossing a log about is just the ticket. It can be accessed here and has no other purpose than to allow us to escape and enjoy the forces of the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Content, Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Future of Work, Pandemic, Sea Stories, Thinking about Tagged: beach, contemplation, log rolling, meditation, mental health, Ocean, Salmon Creek, Salmon Creek Beach, Surf, Surf Log

We Are Living in a Failed State

May 2, 2020 by sergneri Leave a Comment

Sobering summary of our current state from The Atlantic’s George Packer: When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, … [Read more…]

Posted in: Ethical and green living, Faits Divers, Finanace, Future of Work, IT Failures, Pandemic, Politics, Racism, Science, Thinking about, This Day in History, Trump Tagged: boasts, Donald Trump, failed state, Heidi Klum, Lies, Pétain, Sarah Palin, scapegoating, virus, willful blindness
« Previous 1 … 11 12 13 … 19 Next »

Copyright © 2026 Commonplaces.

Omega WordPress Theme by ThemeHall