October 2023
Winners and Losers
University students, particularly the youngest ones, frequently go through a phase of swelled heads, believing that they know better than the grownups who messed up the world. Right now, there is a poisonous propaganda campaign about the innocent "Palestinians" being colonized and exploited by the evil Israelis.
Sympathy for the Palestinians has just been smashed by Hamas, which has invaded Israel, taken hostages, and even exceeds Putin in committing war crimes. This camp more...
September 2023
Brief History of Slavery
This column should be directed to the Governor of Florida, whose knowledge of slavery reflects his defective education. Slavery was never of benefit to the slaves. This is also written to enlarge the view of slavery as a human institution, not just the Black slavery in the New World.
Hunter/Gatherers, Migration
Our earliest ancestors survived by cooperation. The men (and some women) hunted, but the main diet was provided by women, who gathered edible foods, fish, birds, an more...
Hunter/Gatherers, Migration
Our earliest ancestors survived by cooperation. The men (and some women) hunted, but the main diet was provided by women, who gathered edible foods, fish, birds, an more...
March 2021
The Long History of Lynch-mobs
History shows that our ancestors began to thrive when they learned to work together, to cooperate. Cooperation was the dominant behavior of human beings, but the lesser aspect of our behavior was domination by force. Modern historians have assessed that we have lived far more years of our lives in in peace, war being the lesser condition. But we tend to focus more on our warfare periods because they are less usual and more horrible.
Despite the predominance of peaceful cooperati more...
Despite the predominance of peaceful cooperati more...
June 2020
Annual Darwin Awards
The Darwin Awards are an annual joke promoted by those of us who believe that Darwin?s science is valid. Those who change in ways that help their survival thrive. Those who prefer tradition die off. Stupidity kills.
The Darwin Awards are jokingly granted to those fellow human beings whose stupid choices and actions render them unfit for the gene pool. A person who jumps off a roof, flapping his arms, truly believing he can fly like a bird, should not live to reproduce.
more...
The Darwin Awards are jokingly granted to those fellow human beings whose stupid choices and actions render them unfit for the gene pool. A person who jumps off a roof, flapping his arms, truly believing he can fly like a bird, should not live to reproduce.
more...
August 2019
Women?s Uneven Progress Globally
The treatment of women from the beginning of our species has been shaped by biology: female humans generally smaller than males, physically weaker, and hampered by childbirth and lactation. Even hunter-gatherer tribes, whose survival depended upon mobility, learned to space between births. A woman on the move can carry only one or two children.
After agriculture replaced hunting/gathering, when humans settled in villages, towns, and city-states, spacing childbirth more...
Asylum and Immigration Policy
There is a current disconnect between the poem on the Statue of Liberty (Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free) that represents American values at their most empathetic, and our current President who secured the votes of his "base" on the backs of demonized immigrants. To him there was no difference between those entering our country illegally by land (Mexico or Canada), or those fleeing horrors in their homelands and begging for asylum.
The more...
The more...
The Limits to Growth
The economic system that has done so well by us is Capitalism, a system that encourages competition and innovation, its excesses moderated by government regulations that protect the public from the abuses of the system?s earlier century. This delicate balancing act has depended on growth: population growth, productivity, and seemingly limitless innovation.
But now there is a problem for this system. Nothing in the biological world has unlimited growth. Things are born, li more...
July 2018
Clash of Civilizations
Western Civilization does not have all the answers to those wanting a perfect society. Even the excellent American Creed (everyone is an equal citizen under the law) does not have all the answers, but both are far better than any other older, traditional civilizations.
Modern intellectuals do not like to repeat what seems to be the arrogance of 19th century Europeans and Americans who looked down on all other cultures. We shudder at the notion that only White people of No more...
Why Conspiracy Theories Flourish
People "believe" many things, some that they see themselves, some learned from parents and teachers, and some that they accept "on faith" (literal religious beliefs). Before people learn critical thinking, a process of questioning what they hear as to the source, credibility, and consistency, many people automatically distrust information from their leaders. They suspect that all official information is propaganda designed to fool them.
We must give credit to the first anc more...
Russia?s Disinformation Campaign
Last week, we reviewed Russia?s long-term foreign policy, a policy that is a reflection of its historic vulnerability and weakness. This time, we will examine Russia?s long-term use of disinformation and discord. They have turned to this policy because it is inexpensive and can divide democratic societies without firing a shot. It is effective because so many people in our liberal democracies (rule of law) are not willing to think things through; it is easier to latch onto a source of in more...
April 2017
World Happiness Report
Every year, the UN issues a report on a survey of how countries rank in terms of development and, of all things, happiness. I really do not understand how one can measure happiness, but I do know how one can measure unhappiness. For happiness, I would prefer contentment, which is more measurable.
Nonetheless, the UN does issue this report, defending it as a good measure of a nation's progress, and that using social well-being as a goal drives better public policy. In this more...
November 2016
E Pluribus Unum?
This Latin slogan describes the intentions of our founding father: that out of many colonies would come one nation. We Americans are very proud of this idea, and many think that we invented it. However, considering that the slogan is Latin, the ancient Romans certainly thought of it, as did others before them.
The small, scattered tribes of Homo Sapiens peopling Africa never looked beyond their tribes, related by blood. But as our ancestors left Africa and peopled the worl more...
July 2016
Beliefs that Kill
What people believe matters. There are some beliefs around the world that result in murder. So many of us are like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who said, when Alice noted "One can?t believe impossible things:" "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I?ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Too many of us believe impossible things.
? Albinos. The people in Malawi, in Africa, believe that Albinos should be abd more...
? Albinos. The people in Malawi, in Africa, believe that Albinos should be abd more...
Saudi Arabia: Our Troubled and Troublesome Ally (Part 2 of 2)
A country as insignificant as Saudi Arabia before oil would have mattered little to the world. In the 1950s, as oil wealth began to pour in, the Saudi princes wanted the same sorts of conspicuous consumption enjoyed by other world millionaires. When they first brought in automobiles (for themselves), the Wahhabi clergy were outraged, considering camels good enough for pious Muslims. Cameras and, later, television, were also on their list of harmful items for Saudi culture.
more...
Genocide extends back 7,000 years.
Archaeologists have just found a 7,000-year-old Stone Age mass gravesite outside of Frankfurt, Germany! This horrifying find erases what we had always thought about human behavior at the beginnings of agriculture and village life. Genocide has a long human history, but we didn?t know that it was that early in the agricultural revolution when population density could not have been large enough to provide for organized warfare.
This is just one of a number of similar mass graves. T more...
This is just one of a number of similar mass graves. T more...
Was the Past Really Better?
When we revere the past to the point of worship, we are saying that those who came centuries before us were smarter than we are. As a historian with little romantic illusion about the past, I think that this worship is misplaced. I checked this out with a two-part question on the final exam in the World History class that I taught: A) If you could go back in a time machine to any period in history, which would you select, and why? B) If you could not choose your gender or class, would t more...
The Long Decline of Christians in the Muslim World.
Secular Americans and Europeans are often reluctant to rush to the defense of Christians around the world. Our educations have taught us that the Christian West cruelly colonized the good but downtrodden people of the lesser- developed world. Many of today?s radicalized academics focus on Western racial bigotry; after all, only White people can be evil. They weep for the "underdog," hence the scorn for Israelis, who have the temerity to no longer be underdogs. The "poor Palestinians," no matter more...
November 2015
How Can Immigrants Be Absorbed?
Immigration is not new for Europe. The first migrants who arrived from the Middle East (Homo Sapiens) wiped out the Neanderthals, another human species that had lived there for 200,000 years.
Germanic tribes and Huns from Central Asia infiltrated and ultimately destroyed the Western Roman Empire (300-400 AD). The Romans had managed to keep them out for a thousand years, but ultimately collapsed under the crush of their numbers and their military force.
The more...
Say Goodbye to Clock Boy!
From the moment the news swept the nation that a 14-year-old Texas Muslim boy, Ahmed Mohamed, had been arrested in school for bringing a suspicious device, I smelled a rat. On the face of this issue, it seemed that a very nice nerdy kid had assembled a Radio Shack digital clock that he brought to school to "impress his teachers." He did not impress his engineering teacher, nor several others to whom he showed his handiwork, but he did at last find a teacher to frighten, one who reacted w more...
September 2015
Tradition!
Tevye, the father living in revolutionary times of rapid change, struggled with what to do about traditions in the much loved musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This Russian-Jewish story, later a Broadway play and then a movie, played to audiences of many other cultures around the world who understood the issues very well. The 20th century was beset with traditions biting the dust. Children were in rebellion everywhere and parents did not know what to do about it.
My own view o more...
Tradition!
Tevye, the father living in revolutionary times of rapid change, struggled with what to do about traditions in the much loved musical, Fiddler on the Roof. This Russian-Jewish story, later a Broadway play and then a movie, played to audiences of many other cultures around the world who understood the issues very well. The 20th century was beset with traditions biting the dust. Children were in rebellion everywhere and parents did not know what to do about it.
My own view o more...
Human Rights Widen In the West, Vanish Elsewhere.
On June 26, the United States extended its freedoms to one more group of fellow citizens, homosexuals, who now have the equality in marriage. Over many centuries before this, homosexual males were jailed, beaten, tortured, and scorned. Female homosexuals were forced into marriage, institutionalized, or shunned.
In Muslim societies, even today, homosexuality is technically forbidden but socially rampant, particularly practiced against boys by those responsible for them (including more...
In Muslim societies, even today, homosexuality is technically forbidden but socially rampant, particularly practiced against boys by those responsible for them (including more...
Defunding Israel but Blind to Islamophobia Ripoffs?
Only in the free Western world can such asymmetrical nonsense take place. Israel, the one western country unfortunately located in the middle of the Muslim world is the focus of accusations of Islamophobia and targeted with boycotts of its industries and products. How ironic. Israel is the one country where Arab citizens can vote, have the highest standard of living, and have any kind of future. Yet young stupid liberals in Europe and the US vent their spleen on Israel and turn a blind e more...
November 2014
The Women?s Revolution Threatens The Old Guard
Laina Farhat-Holzman
Pajaronian
November 29, 2014
Of all the modernizing "revolutions" (Industrial, Religious, Political, Scientific, and even Nuclear), the most destabilizing has been the emancipation of women. Opponents of the female revolution are engaging in a last ditch effort to put that particular genie back in the bottle, but they are losing.
Women have only been emancipated in liberal democracies. In the Western world (and only there), more...
Who?s Counting?
One issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 2014, was representative of what is going on globally. ?Hamas kills 18 suspected spies in Gaza;? ?Shiite gunmen kill 70 in attack on Sunni mosque;? ?Nation mourns Flight 17 victims (295 of them); ?Civil War deaths top 191,000 after 3 years of conflict in Syria;? ?Ebola outbreak grows nationally with two new cases? (2,615 cases and 1,427 deaths reported). There is a horrific death toll in South Sudan, where ethnic tribal hatreds are killing a h more...
September 2014
Ebola Is Just The Tip of an Iceberg.
The news is full of the latest version of an old demon facing humanity: plagues and epidemics. Ebola is a dreadful disease that has crossed over from the ape family and has gone from an infrequent village killer to reaching some overpopulated urban areas and is currently incurable.
As always, the three-minute news bite misses the bigger picture, one with historic roots. The big picture has some unpleasant truths:
? Origin. Almost all endemic diseases affecting huma more...
As always, the three-minute news bite misses the bigger picture, one with historic roots. The big picture has some unpleasant truths:
? Origin. Almost all endemic diseases affecting huma more...
US Foreign Policy: What Are Our Goals and Priorities? (Part 1 of 2)
The vital national interests of the United States have always included:
? Protect the sovereignty, territory, and population of the US and prevent and deter threats to our homeland, including, today, nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) attacks and terrorism.
? Prevent the emergence of a hostile regional coalition or hegemon, such as the Nazi-Japanese Axis in World War II and the fear of a Soviet-Chinese axis in the Cold War.
? Ensure fr more...
What is Boko Haram and Why Should We Care?
An army of dirt-ignorant terrorists has been running rampant in Africa for the past few years. They call themselves ?Boko Haram,? which has been liberally translated as ?Foreign Education is Sinful.? But this is as misleading as when the Taliban first appeared on the scene in Afghanistan. Their name was translated as ?students,? a strange term for phenomenally ignorant rote memorizers of the Koran in a language few of them understood.
Boko Haram is just what its words say more...
Al Qaeda In Africa Increases Its Violence
Yemen is in the epicenter of Al Qaeda horrors. On December 5, the brazen group took on Yemen’s very Ministry of Defense, right in the heart of the capital, probably the most heavily guarded facility in the country. In what is becoming a familiar two-part attack, they first used a car full of explosives (and a suicidal driver) to blow open the entrance to the compound and then others burst inside to slaughter civilians in the hospital inside. They killed 52 and wounded 167 others.
more...
Nelson Mandela Soared Above The Real World.
In late December, the remarkable Nelson Mandela died at 95, leaving behind many admirers, but few followers in governance. His funeral brought together world leaders---astonishing, considering that half a century ago, he was imprisoned as a terrorist by the apartheid South African government. But most remarkable was his release from prison, his forgiveness for those who had harmed him, and his leadership as the first Black president of South Africa. He established a model of racial tole more...
November 2013
The Politically Correct Only Recognize “Selective Slavery.”
Many years ago, I submitted a paper for a conference on Slavery (World History Association), which was rejected. The problem was that I offered a history of slavery going back to its ancient roots, but the association was only interested in the evils of Black Slavery in the West. This was my first exposure to “selective Slavery.” Then later, serving as the director of the United Nations Association in San Francisco, I questioned the organization’s authorities about enlarging the UN more...
Laina with Late October Movies
Captain Phillips
Richard Phillips was captain of a cargo ship, the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, that was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. This was the first time in 200 years that an American flagship was hijacked.
This true story was based on a book: A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea, and was turned into a thrilling movie with the always believable Tom Hanks playing the role of the captain. Also remarkable was t more...
August 2013
How Do We Know that Domestic Violence is an “Epidemic?”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has just released a report on an”epidemic” of domestic violence around the world. They say that at least one-third of women are assaulted by a partner at some point in their lives. When I see numbers like this, I wonder how they know this.
According to this report, 40 percent of women killed worldwide were slain by an intimate partner and being assaulted by a partner was the most common kind of violence experienced by women.
more...
The Global Gender Gap
Every year, the World Economic Forum presents a report detailing and ranking global progress toward equality under the law for women. They rank countries from the best to the worst, showing progress (or lack of it) over the prior five years. Needless to say, there is still an enormous gender gap around the world, but there is some movement.
The 2012 report had three authors: Ricardo Hausman, Harvard Center for International Development; Laura Tyson, an economist with Berk more...
Why is Slavery Still With Us?
Why Is Slavery Still With Us?
Laina Farhat-Holzman
Sentinel
March 2, 2013
I have just revisited the 1997 movie, Amistad, based on an actual case. In 1839, a Spanish Cuban slave ship washed up on shore with only Africans on board, the crew, with the exception of two White men, having been killed. The queen of Spain demanded the return of the vessel with its “cargo.” The two White survivors claimed the cargo as well, based on fraudulent documents. But even more...
Laina Farhat-Holzman
Sentinel
March 2, 2013
I have just revisited the 1997 movie, Amistad, based on an actual case. In 1839, a Spanish Cuban slave ship washed up on shore with only Africans on board, the crew, with the exception of two White men, having been killed. The queen of Spain demanded the return of the vessel with its “cargo.” The two White survivors claimed the cargo as well, based on fraudulent documents. But even more...
Algeria’s Bloody Siege Shows Al Qaeda Gone Global
In the 1990s, well before the 9/11 attack on America, historian Samuel D. Huntington, in a groundbreaking work called The Clash of Civilizations, noted that throughout the world, every country with Islamic neighbors had “bloody borders.” This book came out at a time that optimists were predicting “the end of history” and, perhaps, the end of war. Huntington was attacked as a pessimist and racist to boot.
Once more, this dazzling scholar proved his critics wrong. He more...
December 2012
E Pluribus Unum Is a Rare Commodity Today.
E Pluribus Unum is Latin for Out of Many, One. It is the motto of the United States, formed when thirteen colonies decided to form one nation in 1776. But even in this country, when most of the population was essentially one ethnicity (British) and spoke English, we did not always act like one. We split into two over an unresolved issue of slavery, which resulted in the Civil War, with the worst death toll of any American war even today. But the war ended with the states once more unite more...
September 2012
The Fog of War is Nothing to the Fog of the Muslim World.
The Arab Spring came and quickly left, followed by what we call “young democracies,” the results of “elections.” Why did we think that these elections would produce the modern, western values of tolerant and participatory governance? In every political revolution, intellectuals do the first heavy lifting, only to be replaced (and killed) by something akin to totalitarianism. Every revolution “eats its children,” and this was so in Iran, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, and will be when the o more...
Why Do We Give a Pass to Evil?
I recently wrote an editorial about Genocide, with its long trek through history—but one of my colleagues noted that I had not mentioned the USSR, one of the worst human rights offenders ever. My friend, Swedish human rights attorney Bertil Haggman, compiled the violent death statistics of the USSR from 1917 to 1982: The Communist Genocide (in Swedish), ten years before the demise of the Soviet Union. Haggman estimated about 104 million dead in his 1982 book; now the numbers are known to be cl more...
How Do We Stop a Genocide?
In Syria, armed thugs (with tanks) went house-to-house in a village and murdered all inhabitants, down to babies with pacifiers in their mouths. In history, this sort of pogrom happened (minus the tanks) in many wars of antiquity (revisit The Trojan War), in which the victors killed every male down to babies and hauled all females into slavery.
During the Middle Ages, a Crusade was declared against two dissident religious groups in southern France, the Albigensians and Cat more...
What Is Making Population Numbers Crash?
The UN Population Agency reports that Europe’s fertility rate may have plummeted to the point of no return. Certain countries (Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece) have fertility rates in the single digits that by the end of this century could spell doom. This applies to Japan as well, and threatens the modern and developed parts of China and India. In 1980, China’s median age was 22; today it is 34.5. Not enough young to support the old. The same is happening in India’s more...
October 2011
What are the Best and Worst Countries for Women? (Part 2)
Last week, I addressed a major issue for most of the world’s women: marriage. This time, there are other issues equally important: women getting a fair justice system, access to health services, education, economics, and political participation. Newsweek (September 26, ) did an enormous service by providing in-depth articles (“The Global Women’s Progress Report”) and some very revealing charts show the best places to be a woman and the worst. There was also a searing article on more...
June 2011
For Girls, Idealism Can Be Deadly.
President Kennedy urged American youth to consider a stint in the Peace Corps where they could help the world's poor and spread American values. Thousands have heeded this call, and for many, their time abroad was a valuable learning experience. But for many others, mostly young women, there was a big problem that was swept under the carpet until now: rape.
The idea that women and men are equally human and entitled to equal opportunities and dignity is very new. The Unit more...
Sometimes Marriage and Childbirth Customs Have Serious Consequences.
Anthropologists have been telling us for the past century that traditions and cultures have survival value for their people. We have been carefully taught not to criticize another culture because there is no single way to be human. Today, however, we see cultural practices around the world utterly disconnected from “survival value.” People persist in certain behaviors because they believe they are sacrosanct parts of either their religion or traditions.
• Africa. One is ha more...
• Africa. One is ha more...