Ever since I stumbled on Sonnet Mondal’s poems, I have been captivated by their stunning simplicity and words evoking a magical experience. That he achieves this consistently is breath-taking. In this occasional series, our aim is to connect you with some of these exceptional beauties I come across. These are rare, as they don’t…

US Atom Bomb Test, Photograph US Army OK, maybe I am a coward, but I want my children, grandchildren, family, friends, community, nation and world to survive Open the door Lay on the floor, you’ve been robbed Wake up Wake your ass up Take off your jewels You fuckin fools, you’ve been robbed —…

The Scots Guardsman Photograph IDMacpherson1964 Scottish independence is an opportunistic distraction, not a solution rooted in ethnic or historical victimhood by Richard Steinhardt Around 430 million years ago, the piece of land that would be Scotland slammed into the land that would be England, stitching the British main island together. The join is called…

Ars Notoria. Is arsnotoria.com an ugly duckling? Photograph Phil Hall Dear Friends, I’m writing to share where Ars Notoria, the online Humane Socialist magazine, stands as we approach the next issue—and the next phase. We’ve been running this magazine for six and a half years. In that time, we’ve built something with genuine prestige…

Slaughter of the suitors of Penelope by Odysseus and Telemachus, assisted by Eumaeus and Philoetius. 2nd Century. Photograph Ixion Painte Wikimedia Commons by Phil Hall I can’t help thinking the Coen brothers would have made a better, more honest job of filming the Odyssey and that Cormac McCarthy, or Brecht, had either of them been alive,…

City of London street. Photograph Andy Hall by Phil Hall The London Stone is a block of Clipsham limestone, roughly 53cm by 43cm by 30cm, now housed behind a grille in Cannon Street. It is unremarkable—a lump of weathered oolite, It is a stone that has a history, but it has no inscription and…

HAL 9000. Image Tom Cowap Wikimedia Commons … and China is ahead in the AI war by Phil Hall Western AI’s overreliance on massive clustering and scaling represents a dangerous delusion and wish fulfillment at a time when AI is being weaponised, mainly by US tech companies. These companies are making a high stakes…

Karaganov in 2017. Photograph Dmitry Rozhkov If the way you followed leads you to advocating for nuclear war, Karaganov, of what use is your way?* ‘These officials are in essence — our rabble; the rabble of yesterday’s and today’s day: not the gentry and not the common people; not beasts, not clods of earth,…

Production Cels Courtesy of Geoff Dunbar Interview with an animation great Geoff Dunbar has been a major figure in the world of British animation since the early 1970s, winning several awards for his films, and creating a truly impressive volume of work. Animator/producer/director Dunbar is best known for Lautrec (1975), Ubu (1980) and Rupert…

A coral reef does not merely adapt to the ocean, it co-constitutes the living reef-ocean system. Photograph Francesco Ungaro Reimagining Evolution as a Creative Partnership of Wholes and Parts by Phil Hall Traditional adaptivity—traits that enhance an organism’s survival and reproduction within a fixed environment—falls short when seeking to understand holonic evolution. The dominant…

Inspired by a photograph by Eve Hall Snr. We must embrace complexity, and evolve to meet the challenges of our time A person who understands that all people are members of his body is a sound person to guide them. Paraphrased from the Tao Te Ching by Phil Hall The self emerges from stories.…