The Fall of Aleppo

There was a nonviolence movement in Syria when the protests there began in 2011. About that time young Syrian activists formed the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Cergy-Pontoise, Ile-De-France, France, and the Local Coordination Committees, led by Razan Zaitouneh.

From the Syrian Nonviolence Movement’s Facebook page:

https://www.alharak.org (deceased as of March, 2020)

"We believe in nonviolent struggle and civil resistance as a principle and method in achieving social, cultural, and political change in Syrian society, and in enabling Syria to take its role in building human civilization."

The Local Coordination Committees was a national decentralized network that reported on protests and advocated civil disobedience, such as nightly protests and refusal to pay water, electricity and telephone bills. In December 2013 Razan Zaitouneh and three other activists, Samira Khalil, Nazim Hamada, and Wael Hamada, were taken from their offices at the Violations Documentation Center in Douma. I'd like to think they're still alive. If I could I’d ask why they thought nonviolent activism in Syria had a chance.

Climate Change Narratives

I've been trying to thoroughly research climate change and rising sea levels. My objective has been to be thorough and look at both sides of the issue. Unfortunately there is war of “manufactured narratives” that makes it impossible for the layman to form an objective opinion of climate change (or possibly any issue). We all have our personal beliefs and prejudices, and manufactured narratives, opinions, and filtered and fake news are everywhere to create or bolster an opinion we already have. Either that or we end up totally confused, which is probably what is intended.

One More US Election Post Mortem

In the fall of 2000 before the Presidential election I had an outpatient operation to remove a precancerous skin lesion on my abdomen. I remember lying on my back on a surgical table with the doctor standing over me as he held a long needle and began to numb the area around the skin he was about to remove. A young nurse was beside him to assist with scalpels, stitches, and bandages.

Other than small head, hand or finger gestures I didn’t move. He said something about fat cells ‘weeping’ after cutting them open. Then he began to talk about the election. He talked about how Gore would be bad for the economy, business, and doctors. I nodded in agreement because I wanted him to be on my side. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember the nurse chiming in about Bush being the ‘lesser of two evils.’

Introduction

The English word "scale" has more than one meaning; invaders scale castle walls, music and fish have scales, weight is measured with a scale, and the size, length, quantity, and distance, in terms of number, space and time, of something has a relative, or proportionate, scale.  The latter comparison meaning is frequently used when referring to computer systems having the resources to handle more users and data. It's also what I mean generally when I use the word scale.

My intention is to describe a pervasive "tyranny of scale" but first I acknowledge that it will be difficult to convince many people that there is anything tyrannical about scale. This is partly because "scale" is highly regarded, either as something to achieve (e.g., a million dollars), or something that inspires awe (e.g., the size and expansion of the universe). Another reason, that follows from the first, is that it simply is an aspect of life that defines who and what we are and our place in the world, like birth and death, and having a mother, father, ancestors, and a name.