With your very important elections just around the corner, this is not a time for one of my dry, six-page ruminations on political theory. It is also clearly not a time for unsolicited, specific advice on your election choices from an American; you know best your own political choices. I thought I’d venture something short [...]
I have recently finished reading the excellent biography Benjamin Franklin, by Edmund S. Morgan. Franklin is my personal favorite among the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, an inspirational example, and, by all accounts, a delightful and brilliant human being. I can’t presume to speak for what Franklin, dead more than 200 years, [...]
American travelers abroad experience something I call a “McDonald’s moment.” We will be walking along, noticing all the ways our surroundings are quite different from home, and we will turn a corner, and there is a McDonald’s restaurant, and there is a statue, or a picture, of Ronald McDonald (the official McDonald’s clown), and we [...]
In graduate school, I shared an apartment with a very interesting fellow who argued in favor of the American Libertarian party. The Libertarians, in America, are a minor party that gets something like 1% of the vote in most elections, so they wield very little influence, but they make some interesting arguments in favor of [...]
It is an old truism that the pen is mightier than the sword, but what, exactly, lies behind the “power of the pen”? Ideas are the key, and they are as powerful as any force on Earth.
Consider how humans change the world. Using our own bodies and muscles, our power is no greater than any [...]
by Dan Tow (with a nod to Mr. Orwell)
To my readers: I wrote the following before the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Apart from my deep sadness for all the people killed, I was terribly sorry that the assassination denied the people of Pakistan their full range of choices in the scheduled election. Assassination is [...]
by Dan Tow
If you missed Part I of this, here’s a link. I covered the principles:
• Solve the problem within the current constraints of the actual world.
• Never give up on solving the problem, but remain very open-minded about what is the problem.
• You cannot choose reality – what is, is.Part II
A solution to the [...]
by Dan Tow
Every individual has his or her own perspective on the world, and we can often find major insights when we catch a glimpse of the world from another person’s perspective, and we consider what that adds to our own view. I have written my previous articles partly to share an American perspective on [...]
by Dan Tow
I have noted a recurring theme to comments to my articles and others on this site. Comments often say something like “Oh, yes, that’s a fine idea, but in the end, we are powerless, because America is controlling the government of Pakistan, anyway – they are merely puppets.” In this article, I will [...]
by Dan Tow
As I have viewed recent events in Pakistan from the safety of my home in the US, I have been at a loss for what to say. My past articles have been kindly received by my generous Pakistani friends, but would I simply be wasting your time, to produce yet another article on [...]
