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POPSSt Kilda Visit website for lots more - including how to visit, and working holidays with the National trust for Scotland.
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POPSThe American Solitary <<<Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is the most representative non-religious Westerner to comprehend solitude and the hermit life. His philosophy of transcendentalism, which paralleled romanticism but was free of its excesses and defects, combined with his scholarly attitude and astute observations on society, politics, and nature, make Thoreau's writings essential to a contemporary application of solitude and the eremitic life. Add to this his willingness to experience this life, his natural curiosity into nature and human psychology, and his very readable style, as reflected by this series of aphorisms from his various writings, and Thoreau offers a perennial voice.>>>
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POPSThe Science of Mysticism Well worth reading the article. Another example of how the popularised emphasis on 'intelligence' and AI is well off the mark when it comes to assessing the biological nature of the human organism: feelings (cortical representations and re-representations) are the basis of human experience including reason and language. The hundred years of suggestion in this area from James onwards are now being supplemented by modern neurobiological research. Such a key word as representation offers a potentially rich bridge between neuroscience and philosophy, linguistics and the humanities.
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POPSThe Hollow Lives of the Happy <<<Who wouldn't question this apparently hollow form of American happiness? Aren't all of us late at night, when we're honest with ourselves, opposed to shallow happiness? Most likely we are, but isn't it possible that many of us fall into superficiality without knowing it? Aren't some of us so smitten with the American dream that we have become brainwashed into believing that our sole purpose on this earth is to be happy? Doesn't this unwitting affection for happiness over sadness lead us to a one-sided life, to bliss without discomfort, bright noon with no night? My sense is that most of us have been duped by the American craze for happiness. We might think that we're leading a truly honest existence, when we're really just behaving as predictably and artificially as robots, falling easily into well-worn "happy" behaviors, into the conventions of contentment.>>>
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POPSThe Real Victims For some, it's as simple as a game of Risk with the goodies on one side and the baddies on the other. As elsewhere in many regions of the world it is tiny pawn peoples whose voices are forgotten as their lives are crushed between imperial pincers.
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POPSBeautiful Observatory of Kielder Visit sites. It looks like a friendly resource for all sarlovers. They have camps in spring. The Kielder Forest in beautiful Northumbria is a great place to enjoy an outdoor holiday.
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POPSCulture versus Biology: the Darwin Legacy This is a very good article, succinctly describing the ideological structures underlying the uses and interpretations of science; also on the humanities-sciences dichotomies. I have highlighted a short section as there is a contemporary championing of technological innovations especially in neuroscience towards a utopian future eugenically designed to eliminate the 'inferior' : such dangerous rhetoric is severed from all human values, history and ideology.
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POPSUK Recession is Months Away Not surprising news. But a chance to reflect on the past 18 months. First, there was denial of an economic slowdown. Then the idea of recession was laughed at. Now the discussion is of whether the recession will be a big one or a little one. Interesting contemporary case study of how the rhetoric of denial runs parallel to the realities.
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POPSUK Weather for Month Ahead The nights are drawing in, the last Bank Holiday of the year looks to be a washout, inflation is roaring, the credit crunch squeezing, and winter is around the corner. But hey the footie season has started! What joy to be British.
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