On The End of Libraries
I was reading an article by Slate the other day, which you can find here. It was a thoughtful commentary on the evolution of the library, and a forecast for its future. Describing a future without paper books, Michael Agresta points out that if libraries are to survive the digital age, the're going to have to completely remodel their entire purpose.Read more »
On Nuclear Weapons
The Marshall Islands, a very small island nation in the Northern Pacific, is suing the nuclear powers of the world. In 1970, a treaty know as the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, became law. It has since obligated the nine nuclear weapons states to peacefully negotiate international disarmament. Here we are, forty-four years later, and the nuclear powers of the world continue to expand and modernize their arsenals. No negotiations with a real goal of nuclear disarmament have taken place. But now, a small nation, with a population of only around 68, 000 people are aiming to face up the world's superpowers in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
On Net Neutrality
Earlier, I talked about the Amazingness That is the Internet. Sadly, in recent months that Amazingness has been threatened. For so long, there have been regulations to safeguard against abuse of the Web. Now they've come under fire. In the United States, a Supreme Court decision struck down the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) rules on Net Neutrality. Essentially, they made sure that internet service providers, or ISPs, wouldn't have the power to make some websites faster than others. They protected the Internet from major corporations paying enormous amounts of money to ISPs to increase the speed of their online traffic, at the expense of websites that didn't have millions upon millions of dollars to spend.
Hundreds of thousands of people die every year due to some illness or injury that could have been treated. Countless preventable deaths have happened in the past ten years, simply because some people aren't able to access any kind of healthcare. Our society boasts of our selflessness, and of our charitableness. I ask you then, why are we so easily able to turn a blind eye to so many horrors. I'm perfectly aware that it costs a lot of money to send healthcare to poor people in Africa. I'm perfectly aware that the people up on Parliament Hill feel as though they're not responsible for another nation's people, and they would be right. So why then, do I feel like those deaths are crimes?
On Fandoms
I have a confession to make. Before we progress our relationship any further, I should tell you... I'm a Whovian. Not only that, I'm also a Nerdfighter! I know what you're thinking, "Oh, that poor lost soul." You may even be right about that, but let me ask you one thing: if you could own your very own TARDIS, wouldn't you?
