[Michael Beckley is a Professor of political science at Tufts University. He is gaining international recognition for his insightfulness and meticulous research on global power politics. Here he presents a short synopsis of China’s serious shortcomings]
A little over a decade ago, two researchers at Wharton published a paper showing that, despite women’s increasing work and educational opportunities, their self-reported happiness was in steady decline. Back in 1970, women were on average happier than men; they are now less happy than men.
Broadly, since 1970, everyone has gotten more miserable. But the decline in women’s overall happiness has outpaced men’s, and the happiness curve inverted sometime in the early 1990s. The paper also documents increasing anxiety and neuroticism, as well as decreasing social cohesion among women.
The researchers couldn’t come up with a good explanation for their observations. So here’s mine:
Maybe women don’t want to fill traditionally male roles. Is it conceivable (or is it inconceivable) that women have traditionally lived a certain way and derived happiness from certain things not because they were weak and forced into it by men, but because that is what they actually preferred?
Time is a continuous, objectively measurable forward movement. We measure it with the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the earth about the sun, and the tilt of her axis relative to that sun as we make our way about it, seen through the changing seasons.
While the mechanics of time in a basic way are well understood, our experience of time and our relationship to time is complex, and can hold the key to our experience of life itself.
Phil Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Stanford and author of "The Time Cure describes 6 different time orientations. Our happiness is dependent to a large degree on our relationship to these 6 different time orientations (you can take the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory here).
Latest on Musk versus Twitter censorship:
Musk Speaking To Co-Investors As Twitter Board Adopts "Poison Pill" To Thwart Hostile Takeover
Good comments on Musk and Twitter from I guy I frequently disagree with:
Elon Musk's Bid Reveals Twitter Is The Poison Pill To Be Cured
This is going to make Putin really popular with his FSB (the KGB with smaller hats). And these are the guys he assigns assassinations to. How well are you sleeping these nights, Vlad?
Putin Purges 150 Intelligence Agents For Ukraine Failures
In the vast valley of Pasargadae there stands this simple tomb with nothing around it for miles and miles. It has been like this for many centuries, for it entombs the founder of Persia, Cyrus the Great (600-530BC). Revered as the liberator of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity in 539 BC, hailed by Herodotus for his humanity and wisdom, this small structure symbolizes the humility of an extraordinary man. Yet the tomb is a structure of engineering genius, the oldest built on principles of base-isolation withstanding the countless earthquakes Persia has suffered for the last 2500 years.
I was first here in 1973 when Persia (renamed Iran in 1933) flourished under the Shah. Here I am in 2014, when everyone I met expressed admiration for America and their contempt for the mullah tyranny they endured. I hope to return once more when the Land of Cyrus will be free again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #146 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
There are five Channel Islands in the English Channel. Best known are Guernsey and Jersey. Least visited is Alderney, along with tiny Herm. Most fascinating is Sark, Europe’s only remaining feudal fiefdom. No motor vehicles are allowed, excepting a few farmers’ small tractors. The governor and chief constable is called the Seneschal. He rides to his office on his bicycle.
It’s an ancient office with a tradition of many centuries. When I was there in 2010, it was held by Reginald Guille, a very friendly fellow as all Sarkese are. We rode our bikes around the island, even along La Coupée, the connecting path along the razor sharp high isthmus connecting two parts of the island – it’s pictured above.
There are gorgeous pocket beaches here, and beautiful natural swimming pools. Flower gardens are everywhere, the island could not be safer, cleaner, calmer, and more exquisitely charming. A few days here will do wonders for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #131 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Between Sicily and Tunisia in the Mediterranean lies a secret hideaway of Europe’s rich and famous – the small Italian island of Pantelleria. Peaceful and quiet, the opposite of glitzy places like Ibiza, wealthy elite retreat here in luxurious yet very understated villas to get away from it all. It helps that the shoreline is all volcanic rock cliffs, which dissuades hordes of African “migrants” attempted to claim “asylum” in the EU welfare state by landing here.
The most beautiful spot on Pantelleria is this volcano crater lake known as “The Mirror of Venus” – of such magic color that, the legend goes, the goddess Venus would admire herself in its reflection. Come here for a tranquil escape of your own. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #164 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
This is the Dragon’s Blood Tree, Dracaena cinnabari. It can be found in only one place on earth, a remote island called a Lost World for its uniqueness, the “most alien-looking place on our planet.”
Although it’s known as the most alien, strangest, weirdest, and bizarre place you can go to, it’s also completely safe and incredibly beautiful. Anybody who comes here returns saying, “You have to see it to believe it.” What is this place?
It’s the World Heritage Site of the island of Socotra, the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,” 240 miles off the coast of Yemen and now secured by the UAE. It’s hidden, remote, and far away.
We were there in 2014, and it’s been almost impossible to get to ever since. But we’ll be back next year. Let me know if you’d like to be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #34 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
The Curonian Spit is a 60 mile-long and skinny stretch of sand separating the 625 square-mile Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. It is jointly shared by Lithuania and Kaliningrad. The trees of one section of the pine forests covering the spit are weirdly twisted and distorted by some unknown force of nature. Their bizarre undulations have earned it the sobriquet, “The Dancing Forest.” It’s one of the as-yet unexplained mysteries of life on our planet, and a wondrous one to see. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #200 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
On the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, February 24, the 19 Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the tiny Black Sea islet of Snake Island were ordered to surrender by a Russian warship – their response made world headlines. On March 14, Ukraine commemorated their heroism by issuing a postage stamp of a Snake Island soldier presenting the bird to the warship:
But the real payback came a few minutes past midnight night before last (4/14). Does that ship in the stamp look familiar? It should, for you likely have seen photos of it all over the internet now. Yes, it’s (or was) Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva now lying on the ocean floor with its captain and hundreds of its crew.
Here’s the story of how this happened…
Now, no peeking, but there’s a mind-blow Easter surprise in this HFR that’s a genuine personal life-saver. So read on.
Back in the 1990s, I wrote Back to the Duchy of Muscovy, describing how the centuries of Russia’s relentless expansion from the small area around Moscow to a geographical behemoth – see A Short History of Russia – may well work in reverse.
A relentless shrinking would occur, I surmised, with one region after another breaking apart from the Kremlin’s grasp if Russia did not embrace freedom and democracy but continued its authoritarian ways after the extinction of the Soviet Union.
Alas, my Back to… article is gone with the wind of a quarter-century ago. Then along comes Sergej Sumlenny, a Russian scholar of Russia’s history with its conquered people and neighbors. Here is a spectacularly informative YouTube interview of him explaining how Russia could soon be on its way back to the Duchy of Muscovy. Enjoy!
“FREEDOM MUST BE ARMED BETTER THAN TYRANNY” --Volodymyr Zelensky
The relatively brief but bloody war in Ukraine is entering its fourth and possibly decisive phase.For those of us born after World War II, this is the most consequential war of our lifetime. Upon its outcome rests the future of European stability and prosperity.
The Russian military—revealed as inept at tactics, unimaginative in operational design, obtuse in strategy, and incompetent at basic logistics and maintenance—can do only two things well: vomit out massive amounts of firepower and brutalize civilians.
Putin and his senior advisers, as stewards of a military that cannot adequately care for its wounded and that abandons its dead, don’t care about the human price they are paying. And so Putin will order offensives that, if confronted by a well-resourced Ukrainian foe, can effectively destroy his own army.
The challenge for the West is to ensure that this is its fate.
Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." A more accurate description of the current Russian Federation is a forgery wrapped in a deception inside a lie.
Numerous analysts have focused on Moscow’s campaign of disinformation to undermine the West, but they have barely noticed that the most important subject of disinformation is Russia itself. Moscow has a long record of deceiving Westerners and depicting its empire as invincible.
In a previous imperial incarnation, Soviet communism and socialist internationalism were supposed to ensure salvation for all humanity. Until, that is, they were exposed as a fraud. Today’s Russia has created an image of great power status, economic strength, and military power that is rapidly unraveling in Ukraine. This is revealing that the Russian state structure itself stands on rotting foundations.
Last Thursday (4/07), the NATO foreign ministers met in an emergency session about Russia’s increasingly horrific and atrocity-filled invasion of Ukraine. However, unlike most NATO meetings, this one was substantive. The main issue on the table was weaponry. Quantity, quality, and purpose were all concerns. To date, the weaponry supplied to Ukraine has been defensive.
No more. Game-changing weapons began to flow to Ukraine immediately after the meeting.
Further, the attendees were not only NATO nations; there were also observers present: the European Union, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Ukraine. If Putin was afraid of being surrounded before, he should take a quick look at his map now.
A very insightful statement came from Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba: “I think the deal that Ukraine is offering is fair. You give us weapons, we sacrifice our lives, and the war is contained in Ukraine.”
All of the actions taken by NATO countries indicate they have agreed to Mr. Kuleba’s deal.
