Scorched

Darwin and the chicken’s egg (M&G)

Friday, February 27th, 2009 | creation, evolution, rational thought | No Comments

What came first, the chicken or the egg? I’m thrilled to report that after extensive navel contemplation, this quintessential human conundrum has been laid to rest. The answer, which is revealed here, has been right in front of us for decades.

What got me pondering such erudite matters, amid bouts of staring at the wall (as writers are wont to do, louts and layabouts, the lot of us), was the birthday of one Charles Darwin, who breathed his first on February 12 two centuries ago. › Continue reading

A bittersweet remedy (M&G)

Friday, February 13th, 2009 | uncategorized | No Comments

A necessary evil of moving house is that it forces one to spring clean, whatever the season. I was doing exactly that to the medicine cupboard last weekend when I found, among the bottles of expired cough medicine, travel sickness tablets and melted cough lozenges, a few half-empty vials of homeopathic sugar pills. I can’t remember what they’d been prescribed for — anxiety, maybe, or headaches — but prescribed they were.

I got them many moons ago (2002, actually), during a time when I needed to believe homeopathy worked. And it certainly seemed to. But since then I’ve done a bit of poking about, and now I just feel ripped off. › Continue reading

Theft on the global common (Extra Virgin)

Sunday, February 1st, 2009 | uncategorized | No Comments

Leonie Joubert considers a world where an international court could try people for crimes against the climate. Something akin to what goes on at The Hague, only greener. And with real muscle.

Someone breaks into your house and nicks a few heirlooms. That’s theft. The same robber kills someone in the process, and its murder, fair and square. So what happens if the robber is half a world away, and the smoking gun is a less conventional murder weapon?

Say, the “gun” is a rising sea level, the “trigger” is an extreme weather event (in this case, a particularly nasty storm surge), and the victim is someone asleep in bed near the sea shore. Technically, a life is being taken illegally and that is murder. But who is pulling the trigger? › Continue reading