What's Inside This Mental Breakdown of Writing? Here, you'll find my wandering thoughts on economics, geopolitics, culture, technology, and daily ideas. Plus, I'll be dropping little peeks behind the curtain on my novel and nonfiction projects.
"But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so…
"Indigenous people believe that Man belongs to the World; civilized people believe that the World belongs to Man." ~ Daniel Quinn
"We cannot allow some people to be left at the back of the human rights bus... We must ensure the rights of individual groups or people -be they indigenous peoples, or peoples of Asian or African or American descent, or Jews or Muslims- are not sacrificed on an altar of progress for some while there are setbacks to others." ~ Matthew Coon Come
The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission fosters understanding by addressing historical injustices, promoting…
"We've bought into the idea that education is about training and "success," defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death." ~ Chris Hedges
"We have been very effectively pacified by the pernicious ideology of a…
Allow me to draw your attention to the value and beauty of marriage. The complementarity of man and woman, the vertex of the divine creation, is being questioned by gender ideology, in the name of a freer and more just society. The difference between man and woman is not meant to stand in opposition, or to subordinate, but is for the sake of communion and generation, always 'in the image and likeness of God.' Pope Francis
There is too much ideological conformity in gender studies. The true-believers fashion the theories, write the textbooks and teach the students. When journalists,…
"Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology." ~ David Suzuki
"The money economy thus leaves a large ecological footprint, defined as the amount of land and resources required to meet a typical consumer's needs. For example, with only about 4% of the world's population, the United States, the largest money economy, consumes in excess of one-quarter of the world's energy and materials and generates in excess of 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions." ~…
"Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience." ~ Denis Waitley
"There is no such thing as failure. Mistakes happen in your life to bring into focus more clearly who you really are." ~ Oprah Winfrey
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes." ~ Winston Churchill
The mistakes of the individual, corporate entities, and even governments. They arise from within our…
Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history. ~ Khaled Hosseini
Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?" But that's a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station. ~ Eliza Griswold
Throughout the last century there were multiple attempts at giving Afghan women more autonomy, to change marriage laws, to abolish the practice of bride price and child marriage, and to enforce women to be involved…
The war in Afghanistan, the first war of the twenty-first century, shows the United States doing what it wants to do, not caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions. ~ Tariq Ali
When I went to Afghanistan in 2003, I walked into a war zone. Entire neighborhoods had been demolished. There were an overwhelming number of widows and orphans and people who had been physically and emotionally damaged; every 10-year-old kid on the street knew how to dismantle a Kalashnikov in under a minute. I would flip through math textbooks intended for third grade,…
"What does Obama mean keep working on closing Gitmo? It's a broken promise. Obama said we were gonna close Gitmo the first day he was in office and it never happened." ~ Rush Limbaugh
"We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down - we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, 'Gitmo, the Muslim resort.' Any resort that treated people like this would have ads all over the 'New York Times' trying to get people to come down and visit for some R&R, for some rest and relaxation." ~ Rush Limbaugh
For over two decades, Ridah Al-Yazidi was ensnared in…
"Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty." ~ Thomas Friedman
"Remember when Obama was campaigning? Didn't he say he was going to close Guantanamo Bay? Didn't he say that? Apparently, he just meant for renovations." ~ Jay Leno
"Shouldn't the American leadership be addressing what is happening in America, with its domestic policies on racism, discrimination, illegal monitoring, solitary confinement, torture, Guantanamo Bay and any other social and political issues related to the American society not directly connected to Islam? American Muslims must speak out and be involved as well in…
The [CIA] Agency has owned outright more than 240 Media operations around the world, including newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, radio and television stations, and wire services, and has partially controlled many more. ~ Michael Parenti
[Barack Obama] pledged to end torture, but he has continued the CIA renditions where you kidnap people and send them to another country to be interrogated. ~ Nat Hentoff
During the terrorist regime in Haiti in the 1990s, the CIA, under the administration of Bill Clinton, was reporting to Congress that oil shipments had been blocked from entering…
I have heard this a thousand times. Of course every state has the right to organize its security the way it deems appropriate. But the states that were already in NATO, the member states, could also have followed their own interests - and abstained from an expansion to the east. ~ Vladimir Putin
[Mikhail] Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn't move to East Germany. And [George] Bush and [James] Baker promised verbally, that's critical, verbally that NATO would not expand "one inch…
"Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void." ~ Jerry Brown
"The very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism. They inevitably increase fear and hate in the world." ~ Norman Thomas
"What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons.…
"People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people with governments that have abandoned them." ~ G. D. Armstrong
"Seven out of 10 Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless." ~ Pras Michel
"Our Government is proud to support the Provincial Metis Housing Corporation and its local partners, like Yorkton Parkland Housing, and all of the important work they do in our province to help those in need. With a roof over their heads, all Canadians can prosper as we work together towards eliminating homelessness." ~ Garry Breitkreuz
The US has spent over $1.2 trillion in…
"Life makes no sense if you have to tolerate endless lies. I will never accept this system, which is built on lies, i will not stop my fight against this junta." ~ Alexei Navalny
"We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet." ~ Alexei Navalny
"Russia spends enormous, senseless amounts of money on the army and the police. We have one of the top rankings in the world when it comes to the number of police officers - but when it comes to the number of…