It’s Nice to Be Rich

[NY Times editorial, published June 28, 2008]

Millionaires are already wildly overrepresented in Congress. The Supreme Court gave a big boost to rich candidates this week by striking down the “millionaire’s amendment,” which was designed to help level the playing field for candidates running against wealthy opponents... [read full text]

Reporting the future

[Originally posted here in 2001]

The year is 1990.
Margaret Thatcher & Michael Gorbachev are in full power.
Comrade Yeltsin is regularly portrayed as a pathetic drunkard by the Western media (not knowing yet how useful he would be soon, forcing them to reverse his image building).
President George Bush (Sr.) is preparing for the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, his former ally against Iran (who just 3 years earlier had been pardoned when his Exocet missile hit US Navy frigate 'Stark' killing 37 American sailors).
The Berlin Wall has fallen just a few months ago, and the European Community has 12 member countries, still not merged into the European Union that will appear 3 years later.
The Soviet Union is on the map as it has been for 45 years, and so is Yugoslavia and the rest of Europe, East and West.

In that context, the November 26, 1990 issue of Newsweek magazine presents a special report on the future of Europe as seen by its reporters (Pascal Privat and Michael Meyer, Scott Sullivan, Fred Coleman, Daniel Pedersen & Andrew Nagorski).
The report includes the following two maps of Eastern Europe & Yugoslavia:

Click for larger size; notice 'new countries' and 'border disputes' as foreseen in 1990

The remarkable similarity to the present map of Europe and especially Yugoslavia, a decade later, can be explained by one of the following:

• The reporters had an impressive skill to foretell the future, perhaps using Tarot cards or other magic tricks.
• The reporters have been very lucky in their wild guess or wishful thinking.
• The reporters had very good connections to those that shape the New World Order today; thus they managed to obtain an outline of the goals set by those powerful circles, a plan that has been promoted with impressive persistence & efficiency during the subsequent decade.

The bloody 'chess game' in Yugoslavia during the '90s, the clever series of all too obvious 'forced moves' which lead to the demolition of an 80 years old federation that had been 'too independent', the extradition, trial, and sudden death of the defeated 'Black King', plus the recent Montenegro and Kosovo independence, are strong indications that the third interpretation cannot be too far from the truth...

Or do you believe in magic?

Myanmar and "bioclimatic" shelters

I’m sure you heard the news about Myanmar [Burma for those yearning for the nostalgic past].
Here are a few reminding photos from Yahoo…

A few months ago, ARES-UIA competition jury selected the scheme shown below as the best answer to natural disasters, using “Renewable energy sources and bioclimatic architecture for shells, to shelter people affected by natural disasters”.

According to its designers, the scheme can be adapted to different regions of the world by changing the fabric colour; for Myanmar type of environment, green canvas is suggested.

The current humanitarian crisis of more than a million homeless people in Myanmar is a good test for the suitability of the selected design.

In this case, about 150-200,000 units from a prefabricated stock somewhere in the world should be flown to Yangon, and then transported by a fleet of trucks to the affected areas (care should be taken to send green units only, not yellow or blue ones which are for different climatic regions).
Legions of IKEA-trained specialists should accompany the shipments in order to unpack and assemble the units on site after the flooded land is dry again.
Once the costly PV panels and their batteries are in place, the lucky ex-homeless will be able to watch their favourite TV show in order to burry their grief.
Shortages of drinkable water or the danger of epidemics will be addressed by the ultra hi-tech sanitation compartments contained in each individual unit.
As for financial relief, the penniless refugees could fetch a good price for those expensive PV panels and batteries (before being blown away by the next storm).

Now, isn't that holistic sustainable design indeed?