Farm, Coachella Valley, California. Photo: Courtesy Marilynn Waters. Invisible agriculture   I find it strange Americans and, especially, scientists and politicians talk to little, if at all, about agriculture. And yet agriculture gives us food and, surreptitiously, threatens the future.   Vast number of Americans live in large cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco and Lost Angeles. These cities have great museums and, possibly, universities, but are agricultural deserts.   City merchants, grocers and government institutions buy most of the food they need for their large population from farmers or agribusiness, which grow food as far away from cities as they can.   The reason for the separation of the city from the country was the original sin of America: the savaging of the Native Americans and the outright theft of their land.    There was a second grabbing of land, what the Britis...

 Trump supporters storming the Capitol, January 6, 2021. Wikipedia. The impunity of Trump   I never felt comfortable with Trump. From the moment I saw him on television competing for president, I felt unease. On March 17, 2016, I  wrote :   “Trump is borrowing from the violent politics of early twentieth-century Europe. Trump is showing tyrannical tendencies. He urges his followers to be violent towards opponents. He is contemptible of minorities. He also demonizes foreigners for America’s ills like unemployment and poverty. He says he will bring jobs back from China and make America great again, but fails to explain how.”   His boastful speeches peppered with streams of lies convinced me the man was shallow. He certainly did not take democracy seriously. He acted as if he thought the country was his, merely for looting. His election and the anti-democratic and ecocidal policies of his administration confirmed my misgivings. Trump is impunity.   I kept aski...

Niketerion (victory medallion) of  King Philip II of Macedonia minted during the reign of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, 3rd century. Public Domain. The Persian wars The first golden age of Greek civilization was the aftermath of the Greek victory over the Persian Empire of kings Darius and Xerxes in early fifth century BCE.     The contest was long, bitter, and decisive. It almost shred the Greek world into opposing pro-Persian and anti-Persian coalitions. Persia was a world superpower that no country, large or small, could ignore.   Greek democratic poleis (city-states) in Ionia in Asia Minor convinced Athens to help them resist Persian domination. Athens did and Persia responded with a ton of bricks. It launched huge armies all over Greece. This grave danger brought enough of the Greek states, especially the mainland powers of Athens and Sparta, together to fight or die for their freedom. They defeated the much larger armies and navies of imperial Persia. ...

The Parthenon. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos.   During early December 2020, the Greek parliament approved a law for the  export  of antiquities, including entire museum collections, to foreign museums, institutions and, probably, foreign individuals.    Exporting-Selling Greek civilization treasures   The law would allow these precious Greek treasures to be away from Greece for a long time: the first proposal from the Greek Ministry of Culture was for a century, but reaction set in and modified the export for twenty-five years with possibility for another twenty-five years, all told half a century.   I don’t know the reasons for this insane decision. The  Greek Ministry of Culture  says the export of Greek treasures “promotes Greece’s cultural heritage worldwide.”    But no self-respecting government would do such a thing: export material evidence of great achievements in Greek history, and export those treasures for half a century, ...