Author: Ryan Lindsey

Founder of WAL Reader | Christian Anarchism, Star Wars, and Pizza Enthusiast | Southwest Missourian, Book Lover, Writer
Environment

What is More Scarce than Our Planet?

For those unfamiliar with the economic concept of scarcity, the most simple way I can put it is this: it is the historical idea that there is an unbridgeable gap between limited resources and abundant needs. Now, I’ll leave the discussion of whether or not this idea should be taken seriously or not for another day. For now, I just want to briefly look at how the ideology of scarcity has been leveraged to make us do awful things to each other: to compete rather than cooperate, to hoard land and other resources (even those as basic as toilet paper), to be willing to fight wars over material things, to seek domination and power over others rather than fostering our collective capacity to care for each other. Continue reading What is More Scarce than Our Planet?

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Book Review, Literature

Bookshelf Rearranging

Recently I took advantage of some quarantine free time to rearrange a couple of my bookshelves (full disclosure, I was somewhat motivated to do this by Hillary Clinton’s recollection of Bill’s habitual book reorganizing in What Happened). While I was doing this, I came across several books that I believe are wholly excellent and worth reading, and wanted to give a few of them a brief shout-out. Continue reading Bookshelf Rearranging

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Foreign Policy

Rising Czar: The Inevitability of Emperor Putin

By almost any measure, it’s difficult to think of a more illiberal allegedly-democratic head-of-state than Putin. Vladimir Putin was first appointed as Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1999. When Yeltsin infamously left office, Putin became the acting president of Russia until he was officially elected in 2000. He won reelection in 2004 but was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term in 2008. In an unprecedented move, the new president named his predecessor as Prime Minister, a position that Putin filled for four years. Then, also unprecedentedly, in 2012 Putin began his third presidential term and was reelected in 2018 (his fourth term is scheduled to end in 2024). Continue reading Rising Czar: The Inevitability of Emperor Putin

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Getting Through COVID-19, Together

Getting Through COVID-19, Together | pt. 12

As the time spent social distancing and self-quarantining stretch on and begin to be measure in weeks – even months – rather than days, the temptation to give up on these tactics and return to your “normal” life will grow and grow. I know I’m feeling the itch to leave the house and hang out with friends and and visit family, and my area of the country hasn’t been experiencing this isolation for nearly as long as other areas. Continue reading Getting Through COVID-19, Together | pt. 12

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Getting Through COVID-19, Together

Getting Through COVID-19, Together | pt. 11

There are lots of ways for us to help our friends, neighbors, and communities during the difficult challenges that for many have already begun and will likely persist for the next several weeks, or even months. In our Getting Through COVID-19, Together series, we will look at specific ways to do just that. (If you would like to contribute to this series, please let us … Continue reading Getting Through COVID-19, Together | pt. 11

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Book Review

“What Happened”, 2 1/2 Years Later

For whatever reason, I only recently decided to listen to the audiobook version of Hillary Clinton’s 2.5 year-old post-mortem of her own 2016 presidential campaign, What Happened. I had just finished the much newer book A Very A Stable Genius by a pair of Washington Post reporters and saw that What Happened was available for free as an audio book from my local library. So I figured “Why not?”, and took the plunge. Continue reading “What Happened”, 2 1/2 Years Later

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