It’s a familiar story. On his final journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus stops in Bethany to eat at the home of Simon, a leper. A woman enters with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment; she breaks the jar and pours the ointment on his head. Her gesture invokes the fury of some of those present. The ointment was worth a year’s wage, they grumble. It could have been sold, and the money given to the poor.“The poor will always be with you” was Jesus’ righteous and innocent enough reply. Jesus … [Read more...]
Adivasi Economics and Re-awakening the Indigenous Mind
When the East India Company set up in India, the commodities they originally traded included hundreds of unique artifacts made in India, including textiles whose quality has never been surpassed. As the EIC set up a subsidiary called the Government of India for collecting revenue to send back to London, the aim gradually shifted to getting raw materials from India, including cotton, silk, indigo, jute, opium and tea, and of course financial revenue, while undermining indigenous industry so that … [Read more...]
Ice Cream, Shamans, and Climate Change
In the summer of 1969, I was 18 years old with a job driving an ice cream truck in a small New England town. One July afternoon the weather was hot and humid – ideal for ice cream – but business was dismal, the streets almost deserted. Eventually someone ran out and flagged me down, but he wasn’t interested in ice cream: “Come in the house!” he yelled, “it’s happening now!” I knew immediately what he meant: the first lunar landing was under way, and Neal Armstrong was about to step onto the … [Read more...]