Domestic violence is a sort of social global warming; it is widespread and seemingly unstoppable. The U.S. nationwide media attention on the disappearance and killing of a young woman, Gabby Petito, in Wyoming, in which her partner was named a…
I vividly remember twenty years ago when I watched the 9/11 terrorist attacks live on TV. My then teenager daughter and I were leafing through a newly released colorful book when she suddenly stirred from the pages and gazed at…
The remnants of Hurricane Ida caused record-breaking floods and spawned tornadoes across the Northeast. Tens of deaths have been attributed to this storm through its torrential rainfall across eight states. A flash flood emergency was declared for the first time…
Sixteen years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of Louisiana, as well as parts of Mississippi and Alabama. When it made landfall, Katrina was a strong category 3 storm, strong enough to claim nearly 2,000 lives and break…
When we were kids, grownups would often tell us off by saying, “You should be ashamed of yourself!” or “Shame on you!” It didn’t help. Today’s young people feel so entitled that no one even tries to use this “educational…
A heart-rending picture of a baby being handed over from its parents to US troops (but has since been reunited with its father), Airbnb offering to house 20,000 Afghan refugees at no charge, Europe fearing another wave of migration from…
If a word could embody humanity’s current feeling, that would be “uncertainty.” The whole world is losing direction, people live without foreseeing any clear future. They do not know what will happen next—tomorrow, in the coming months, in a year.…
Human beings stand at the top of the pyramid on Earth. Nevertheless, we are quickly drifting toward utter helplessness in the face of extreme climatic events, an irrepressible virus, fading political dexterity, and escalating social divisions. Not only civilization, but…
What if we came to a foreign planet where we didn’t speak the language of the local creatures or understand their gestures or culture? Never mind the embarrassing gaffes we would do; the real problem would be making mistakes that…
A recently released report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) states that “Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years. … Human-induced climate change,” the report asserts,…
Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder, has recently blasted the online encyclopedia he helped create for its lack of neutrality. This isn’t the first time he has done this. On May 14, 2020, Sanger wrote in his personal blog, “Wikipedia no longer…
In the late 1940s and early 50s, the great kabbalist and thinker Baal HaSulam wrote a series of essays and notes that were later compiled into what became known as The Writings of the Last Generation. In those writings, Baal…