I went to a birthday party recently. The celebrants greeted each other with hugs on the patio. After an outdoor barbeque dinner, we stood shoulder to shoulder around the island in the kitchen, eating cake from small paper plates. We sang “Happy Birthday.”
Recent events across the globe have confirmed that the two institutions most people think of as the pillars of our evolved consumer society — capitalism and democracy — are undergoing an existential crisis whose evolution no one can predict. The sustainability of both has been called into question, partly because the sustainability of the planet and the human race appear far from certain.
A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that worries about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States are at their lowest level since it began. Only half of Americans are either “very worried” (15%) or “somewhat worried” (35%) about the virus, while the other half are “not very worried” (30%) or “not worried at all” (20%). But the news from around the world makes it clear that this pandemic is far from over, and a story from Vietnam highlights the nature of the danger.
The most memorable three words of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, may well be: “.” Composed in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution and five years after the ratification of the US Constitution, the anthem’s lyrics dramatically recreate the atmosphere of the tumult that overthrew Louis XVI’s monarchy. The song calls the citizens to join the battle in a collective revolt against an unjust regime. All the “children of the fatherland” are invited to bear arms, take part in the struggle and, if all goes well, irrigate the furrows of their fields with impure blood.
Let me start with my friend and the boat. Admittedly, they might not seem to have anything to do with each other. The boat, a guided-missile destroyer named the USS Curtis Wilbur, reportedly passed through the Straits of Taiwan and into the South China Sea, skirting the Paracel Islands that China has claimed as its own. It represented yet another Biden-era challenge to the planet’s rising power from its falling one. My friend was thousands of miles away on the West Coast of the United States, well vaccinated and going nowhere in COVID-stricken but improving America.
On June 3, The Guardian revealed that a company valued at over $1 trillion banked its profits without sacrificing a penny in corporate taxes. If it was not for the fact that the firm, whose headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland, generated a net profit “equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland’s gross domestic product,” this might not have even been considered news.
The silver lining amidst the trauma and tragedy of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was the 7% decrease in carbon emissions worldwide — 2.4 billion fewer tons than in 2019 — that accompanied quarantines, lockdowns and the resulting decrease in travel. With vaccination rates picking up in developed states, the return to international travel threatens a return to pre-pandemic carbon production levels in international development, a field that prides itself on sustainability.
I’m a nationally syndicated columnist, author of several books and a speaker on global business, labor and economic trends. I’m also a beneficiary, not a victim, of dyslexia, a learning disability characterized by reading, writing and decoding difficulties. Why do I say beneficiary? Read on.
Guacamole, or so BBC has claimed, is “undoubtedly one of Mexico’s most popular dishes,” dating back to the times of the Aztecs. Thanks to Pancho Villa and Old El Paso’s spice mix, guacamole has conquered European lunch and dinner tables from Norway to France, from Switzerland to Spain. Served as an appetizer or a side dish, guacamole is a versatile culinary delight.
After his meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, during his visit to Israel following last month’s ceasefire, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken explained his goals: “As I told the president, I’m here to underscore the commitment of the United States to rebuilding the relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, a relationship built on mutual respect and also a shared conviction that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.”