A timely guide to the Greek philosopher – and rival to the Stoics – who saw freedom from anxiety as the ultimate goal Julian Baggini Epicurus’s distinctive feature is his insistence that pleasure is the source of all happiness and is the only truly good thing. Hence the modern use of “epicurean” to mean gourmand.… Read More Living for Pleasure by Emily Austin: an Epicurean guide to happiness
Today the greater adjutant is endangered, with fewer than 1,200 adult birds in its last strongholds – the Indian states of Assam and Bihar, and Cambodia. Most of the global population is found in Assam, making Barman and the hargila army’s work critical to its survival. Indian conservationist Purnima Devi Barman transformed attitudes to the bird –… Read More Assam’s ‘hargila army’: how 10,000 women saved India’s rarest stork
‘The Dual State is one of the most erudite books on dictatorship ever written’ Opening paragraphs of Jens Meierhenrich’s 2017 introduction to The Dual State (1941) Though largely forgotten today, Ernst Fraenkel’s The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Democracy, first published in 1941, is one of the seminal works in the study of law… Read More An Ethnography of Nazi Law: The Intellectual Foundations of Ernst Fraenkel’s Theory of Dictatorship
Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said hard-pressed families were being treated like “cash machines” and would “rightly feel furious”. Calling for higher windfall taxes on oil and gas companies, he added: “As millions struggle to heat their homes and put food on the table, BP are laughing all the way to the… Read More British Petroleum scales back climate goals as profits more than double to £23bn
Work and leisure, deemed opposite, are both caught up in the contemporary socio-economic pressure to be productive; time off, forced into servicing respite or distraction, is a commodified entity. Could a universal right to ‘otium’, the ancient concept of time, free from worldly concerns, create the opportunity to work on oneself through oneself? Jean-Miguel Pire… Read More Taking the time to exist
Her debut album Parakou was released in 1990, but it took her hit song Agolo for her to burst into global reckoning and galvanise the world’s dance floors in 1994. In the Yoruba language “agolo” refers to the metaphysical significance of time, a cyclical phenomenon conjoining life with death – life being a gift that must be cherished and… Read More Angelique Kidjo: the diva from Benin carries with her a fierce history
Jamila*, a widow living in Herat, lost her husband in a suicide attack about eight years ago. She has an 18-year-old daughter who is blind and a 20-year-old son who lost both legs in a mine blast. Jamila used to be a housemaid and bake bread for people in their homes. With this income she… Read More Afghanistan: single women and widows are struggling to find their next meal under Taliban restrictions
The Indian prime minister’s attempts to suppress a critical BBC documentary show how sensitive he is to his international reputation. (NB: The problem is that the ‘parivar’ boasts about the same thing at home which its proponents wish to deny on the international stage. DS) Mukul Kesavan The clue to the Indian government’s thin-skinned response… Read More Narendra Modi is struggling to be both anti-Muslim strongman and global leader
Rachel Ramirez, CNN Glaciers around the world are melting at an alarming rate, and are leaving massive pools of water in their wake. The meltwater fills the depression left behind by the glacier, forming what’s known as a glacial lake. As temperatures get warmer and more pieces of the glacier melt away, the lake rises — and living downstream… Read More An ‘inland tsunami’: 15 million people are at risk from catastrophic glacial lake outbursts
‘Blank Paper movement’ decrying government policies rekindles dissent after Xi Jinping’s decade of iron-fisted crackdowns. Support the Chinese peoples struggle for democracy! A 25-year-old woman who had been interrogated by police after protesting in south China tells the Guardian that even though she is frightened by police, the protests have radicalised her as she has… Read More ‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear
After the truth-shower 