A lawsuit against Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+? What's that all about, I wondered. That sent me in search of lawsuits by other cities against Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and other video service providers. That turned up a story from The Dallas Morning News from November, 2021.
Once upon a time, the story goes, we were hunter-gatherers, living in
a prolonged state of childlike innocence, in tiny bands. These bands
were egalitarian; they could be for the very reason that they were so
small. It was only after the ‘Agricultural Revolution’, and then still
more the rise of cities, that this happy condition came to an end,
ushering in ‘civilization’ and ‘the state’ — which also meant the
appearance of written literature, science and philosophy, but at the
same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing
armies, mass executions and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we
spend much of our lives filling in forms."
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The subtitle of this huge work is "A New History of Humanity" and as the name implies, Graeber and Wengrow range over the whole planet and tens of thousands of years. In the process they challenge the almost universal assumptions of humanity's social evolution. No one will be able to write another "big history" book without addressing the questions raised here.
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| Tomb of Rameses IV (died 1149 BCE) |
| From 2019 11 22 Valley of the Kings |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. There are 63 known tombs. From the outside, the tombs are nondescript, deliberately so. The ancient Egyptians hid the tombs by filling the entrances with the rock excavated in making the tombs. Inside is a different story. This photo shows the long, inclined rock-cut corridor leading to the burial chamber of Rameses IV (died 1149 BCE). The walls and ceilings are decorated with paintings and chiseled hieroglyphs, still vibrant after more than 3,000 years.
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Today, our country honors Martin Luther King, Jr. Normally the focus is on his movement for voting rights. It's tragic that today, more than half of a century after his death, the voting rights secured in MLK's day are under threat in America. In 2021 alone, "19 states have enacted 33 laws that will make it harder for Americans to vote." But voting rights are not what I want to focus on today. Instead, I want to turn to a speech by MLK that ties voting rights to economic justice. In it, MLK makes an observation that explains a feature of that map above showing the minimum wage laws by state. The connection MLK drew between economic justice and segregation is what I learned today.
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| "Isfahan is half the world" |
| From 1977 03 29 Iran |
When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, most Americans barely noticed. We were too busy dealing with Covid-19. Not even the clear and present danger to our democracy could focus out attention. Still, the danger we face in Central Asia and the Middle East is not gone. Who was the big winner from the American experience in Afghanistan? It was Iran. And Iran is likely to extend its winning streak.
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| From 2019 11 22 Valley of the Kings |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It's across the Nile River from Luxor. Whereas Luxor itself was splendid with magnificent temples, the Valley of the Kings was deliberately underwhelming. The pyramids far to the north had all been ransacked by grave robbers in previous centuries, so later pharaohs tried to protect their tombs by digging deep into the mountains, then covering up the entrances to hide them from future grave robbers. (Spoiler: it didn't work, with one notable exception, but more on that later.) Today, tourists can walk into the valley, but other than some uncovered tomb entrances, there's nothing to see to suggest the magnificent displays deep inside.
Bonus photo after the jump.