Why we must wear neck ties and other links

• Why we must wear neck ties - reflections on fashion, colonialism and pointlessness from Boxologies.
• A picture is worth a thousand words, or $233.95 - an amusing email correspondence. H/T Celia.
• Water and whisky - "And so we must drink water in the way we drink single-malt scotch, and we must drink single-malt scotch in the way we drink water."
• How to prevent any political progress - a cartoon.
• Agriculture as sustained catastrophe - a short history of western civilisation based on the assumption that where we went wrong was putting seeds in the ground.

The ecological credit crunch

We are living beyond our means, running up a debt of up to US$4,500,000,000,000 every year. The parallels between the credit crisis and the ecological crises are not accidental. Both are symptoms of the myth of infinite growth.

The differences, however, are crucial. The financial crisis is primarily (as far as I understand it) a crisis of trust: financial institutions who are no longer sure from whom it is safe to borrow. The responses by governments have been to act as a kind of credit backstop, stopping (or slowing) the corrosive effects of cycles of mistrust.

The ecological crises are a crisis of life: of too many human lives living lifestyles that undermine the stability of all living things. This helps give some idea why governments have not responded with a similar urgency and zeal as they have done in relation to the credit crisis. Not because the problem is smaller or less pressing, but because it is far larger and more difficult. How do millions and millions of people radically change their assumptions and consumptions?
H/T Box the Jack. Make sure you also read this post on his blog boxologies: GDP is a speedometer, the question is "where are we headed?".
Photo by ALS.

In praise of... pardon

Boxologies is consistently one of the most gracious and rational voices discussing Middle East politics that I've come across, written by one who has lived and worked in the region. This piece reflecting on the recent prisoner exchange between Israel and Lebanon is an excellent example.