The Economist (February 3)
Between 2012 and 2022, half of the Americans who adopted EVs and PHEVs were “living in the 10% of counties with the highest proportion of Democratic voters.” Polarization may best the biggest obstacle limiting “the American market for electric vehicles.” Polarization “is cursing not only America’s politics but, increasingly, its culture and marketplace.”
Tags: 2012, 2022, and PHEVs, Culture, Cursing, Democratic, EVs, Limiting, Market, Obstacle, Polarization, Politics, U.S., Vehicles, Voters
Washington Post (August 18)
“Just as Afghanistan refuted the Soviet delusion that communism was the future, it has rebutted the American fantasy that there is a functional liberal democracy inside every theocracy or dictatorship, just waiting for us to let it out. Ethnicity, culture and religion are fundamental elements of human nature that have to be acknowledged, not engineering problems that can be solved.”
Tags: Acknowledged, Afghanistan, Communism, Culture, Delusion, Dictatorship, Ethnicity, Fantasy, Future, Human nature, Liberal democracy, Rebutted, Refuted, Religion, Soviet, Theocracy, U.S.
Chicago Tribune (February 25)
Devastating fires at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the National Museum of Brazil offer “yet another reminder of the fragility of humankind’s greatest creations and the stark reality that centuries of culture and history can be wiped out in minutes.” The tragic events signal “a need to redouble our efforts toward greater digital preservation of our most important cultural resources.”
Tags: Brazil, Culture, Devastating, Digital preservation, Fires, Fragility, History, Humankind, National Museum, Notre Dame, Paris, Tragic
LA Times (January 6)
“President Trump threatened to destroy 52 Iranian sites — ‘some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture’ — on Twitter on Saturday.” This “amounts to an announcement of an intention to commit war crimes.” Doing so would be in direct contravention of the Hague Convention and the Geneva Convention, which prioritize the preservation of religious, humanitarian and cultural heritage sites.
Tags: Contravention, Culture, Geneva Convention, Hague Convention, Heritage, Humanitarian, Intention, Iran, Threat, Trump, War crimes
Irish Times (September 23)
“Brexit may be a price worth paying for the cohesion of British society. The economic arguments of the past three years have done nothing to sway people whose vote was about culture, identity and fairness.” The only way to overturn the first referendum is a second referendum, “but if the narrow lead were reversed, we would simply have prolonged the uncertainty to arrive somewhere equally unstable.”
Tags: Brexit, Cohesion, Culture, Economic arguments, Fairness, Identity, Prolonged, Referendum, Society, Vote
Bloomberg (May 23)
“Japan is beginning a major and unprecedented exercise.” Though “new immigration will help keep Japan’s economy and pension system afloat, it will inevitably introduce social strains.” Time alone will tell “whether the country’s culture and institutions will be able to learn from Europe’s experience and manage a smooth transition, or whether immigration will spark a nativist backlash that closes the country off once again.”
Tags: Backlash, Culture, Economy, Europe, Immigration, Japan, Nativist, Pension system, Social strains
Wall Street Journal (April 16)
“The full extent of the destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, surely the most beloved of all Gothic buildings, will not be known for some time, but for world culture it is a catastrophe.”
Tags: Beloved, Culture, Destruction, Gothic, Notre Dame, Paris
LA Times (May 26)
“Up until just a few weeks ago, China was the single largest market for the world’s recyclables. About two-thirds of the yogurt cups, soda bottles and magazines tucked into curbside recycling bins and crushed into bales were loaded onto cargo ships bound for China…where they were remanufactured into shiny new products and shipped back to the U.S.” China precipitated a crisis, when it halted all imports of recyclables in May. “The U.S. and other nations are still scrambling to figure out what to do with the rapidly growing trash bottleneck,” but China has actually done everyone a favor by creating a sense of urgency. “Policymakers and consumers should step up and take the hard but necessary steps to deal with our out-of-control trash-generating culture.”
Tags: Bottles, China, Consumers, Crisis, Culture, Curbside recycling, Imports, Magazines, Policymakers, Recyclables, Remanufactured, Trash bottleneck, U.S., Urgency, Yogurt cups
New York Times (August 22)
“A string of recent scandals has shown that the United Nations has been unwilling to police itself, learn from its errors, correct course and make amends. When a new secretary general takes over next year, she or he should make it a priority to revamp the organization’s oversight entities and create a culture of accountability.”
Tags: Accountability, Culture, Errors, Oversight, Scandals, Secretary general, UN
Financial Times (February 3)
“The killings of Mr Goto and Mr Yukawa show that no nation — however pacifist its culture — is immune from the mindless violence of Islamist militants. Japan’s response at this moment must be one rooted in international engagement, not renewed isolation.”
Tags: Culture, Engagement, Goto, Islamist militants, Isolation, Japan, Killings, Pacifist, Violence, Yukawa
