Category: Society and Social Issues
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Why go the public way? (Part one)
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2015.] If tomorrow the government for some reason disappeared and we were all left without a system of state would it in fact be such a bad thing? There are people across the planet (and especially in the USA) who say that anarchy or…
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The best of times?
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2014.] Has there ever been a better time to be alive in the history of our tortured, super-intelligent species? At the press of a few buttons we have virtually all the accumulated knowledge of the last several hundred (or is it thousand?) years…
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When government is sport
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, November 2014.] I don’t often think about Australia. I was born there, grew up there and, until 15 years ago, I lived there. It’s almost become a (very) foreign country to me but recently it has crept into my thoughts again. This remaining ember…
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Poor doors
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2014.] When I was a kid and just starting to try and understand the adult world I used to hear my parents and other grown-ups make what seemed to be jokes about the "tradesman’s entrance." I eventually learned that these words were a kind…
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Legislating liberties
Photo: Javier at [sic] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2014.] While we were (hopefully) enjoying sun and slumber over the summer it was easy to miss some disturbing international developments (or should I instead call these events disturbing steps back towards some of the worst aspects of…
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I don’t think,…therefore I am
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2014.] "Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars." This is "probably a true statement" according to one in four people across the entire planet, a recent global survey has found. It would be easy to dismiss these kinds of…
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To screen or not to screen?
[A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2014.] As I write this, my son is hating me. Last night I took a computer game off him that his mother and I agreed was violent and told him he would not be getting it back. He is…
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What British educators can learn from Spain (and other countries)
This article was first published here in the Guardian on-line’s education section. If I could point to one idea that I would bring back to the UK from overseas it would be that that awful corporate-speak word ‘innovation’ – though I would call it creative teaching, rather than anything else. In Spain, it’s uplifting…
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Translation of “There is only one race: the human race.”
(A manifesto by anti-racist scientists) These were the words of scientist Rita Levi Montalcini (also attributed to Gandhi and Satyendranath). My English translation from the Spanish: I. Human races do not exist. The existence of human races is an abstraction that has come about from a false interpretation of the small physical differences that…
Brett Hetherington 