It wasn’t as if domination was their manifest purpose. They claimed they were there to help. And some of them believed it. The objects of their assistance were underprivileged and backwards, nobly trying to grasp the concepts of a new era but disastrously unable to do so. What they needed was the golden touch - the magnanimous muscle of giants born into privilege.

I speak, of course, of foreign aid. Or maybe old world colonialism. The similarity between the two is a theme woven throughout a groundbreaking narrative by experienced aid worker Michael Maren entitled, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity.

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On the fifth day he realized his only hope of escape was to amputate his own arm

The human body is a marvel of perfectly synchronized chemical reactions choreographed to perform optimally in a relatively narrow range of external conditions. While it is possible for the human organism to adapt to environmental stresses, it doesn’t take much for its symphony of physiology to collapse into chaotic discord. When deprived of water, food, or oxygen these processes begin to break down. If internal body temperature varies by more than four degrees, malfunction is imminent. Despite this fragility, when put to the test the body can prove to be extraordinarily resilient. […]

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A frequent criticism of the popular television series Star Trek: The Next Generation centered around the unremarkable physical appearance of its various alien species. In nearly every episode, the crew of the starship Enterprise would encounter a “new” civilization– a society of life-forms that had supposedly developed in complete isolation from other worlds. Amazingly, the overwhelming majority of these aliens barely differed in appearance from humans, typically distinguished by a small wrinkle on their forehead or nose. This absurdity prompted a critic on Trek’s own website to dub them “Forehead Aliens of the Week.” Even more preposterous than their physical similarity to humans, however, was the utter lack of divergent philosophies and sociopolitical ideals exhibited by these “aliens.”

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When Thomas Jefferson determined the “pursuit of happiness” to be one of humankind’s unalienable rights, he could not have foreseen the consequences of dangling this elusive proverbial carrot under the noses of subsequent generations. For the average proponent of free market economics, and by extension the average consumer, this phrase is synonymous with the accumulation of capital. If this notion were rooted in truth, one would expect the beneficiaries of the most successful marketplace in history - the American middle-class - to be living in a veritable state of pure ecstasy.

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With 71 percent of its surface area covered in water and its atmosphere wrapped in clouds of water vapor, the Earth is a unique oceanic realm. Besides containing the proper balance of chemicals and compounds necessary for the development of life, the oceans serve many functions essential for the survival of land-dwelling creatures. They absorb harmful radiation from the sun and distribute heat around the world via a system of underwater currents, working to maintain a stable climate. Scientists today still don’t fully understand the workings of the deep. We know more about the lifecycle of stars and the surface of Mars than we do about our own ocean floor. Until the 1990s the general populace assumed that our rampant destruction of nature couldn’t possibly affect the immensity of these vast interconnected ecosystems. In reality they aren’t faring any better than the land. […]

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