Posts:
By Kyle Harper At some time or another, every historian of Rome has been asked to say where we are, today, on Rome’s cycle of decline. Historians might squirm at such attempts to use the past but, even if history does not repeat itself, nor come packaged into moral...
By John Raby When those of us of a certain age were in school, we learned that the Monroe Doctrine committed the United States to protect the independence of Latin American nations, which had just freed themselves from Spanish and Portuguese rule. While it granted...
By Carolina Mella When Guillermo Lasso stepped down as president on Thursday, he had been in office for 913 days. During this period, Ecuador gradually collapsed politically, socially and economically. The state of affairs has become so extreme and rapid that for the...
The culmination of our 3-part series focuses on our relationship with the world. Released from the bondage of the past and the future, we now focus on the meaning of life itself. The key to the meaning of life is simplicity itself. I use the term "singularity," but...
Author’s note: This is the second of a 3-part series. Following our First Face of Freedom, Freedom from the Past, our second is integrally connected to the first. Essentially an unhealed past requires a future. This is the ego at work, where denial and projection are...
By Leita Hulmes Dear Hearts of Gold Community: I hope this finds you doing well! I am writing this on behalf of the entire team and supporters of Hearts of Gold. No, it's not a request for donation this time. I am quite sad that I have to talk about this, but we very...
Author's note: This is the first part of a 3-part series. The keystones in the foundation of personal happiness are forgiveness and gratitude. For those of us over 70, the vast majority of our lives is our past. How we enjoy the last chapters of our lives depends...
By Zeke Hausfather Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas. As global temperatures shattered records and reached dangerous new highs over and over the past few months, my climate scientist colleagues and I have just about run out of...
By Megan McArdle In 2015, El Salvador was the world’s murder capital, with 107 homicides per 100,000 people — as if one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods was a country unto itself. Since then, homicide in El Salvador has fallen so far, so fast that it looks comparable...
By Tyler Colman Italy's Agriculture Ministry announced recently that some wines that receive the government's quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes. That's right, Italian wine is going green, and for some connoisseurs, the sky might as well be falling. But...
By Carol E. Leutner On my most recent trip to see my family in Washington, D.C., I finally had time to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Opened in 2016, it is the most visited of all of the Smithsonian’s 19 museums. The museum...
By Danel Kalder Of all the grim futures on offer today, climate change is unquestionably the doomsday scenario that weighs most heavily on the minds of the most people. Despite the raging hype that AI might one day turn against its creator, no protestor has yet glued...
By Arturo McFields A new wave of immigration is knocking on the doors of the U.S., despite the reduction experienced this summer after the end of Title 42 and the new Biden immigration policy. Detentions on the border with Mexico increased by 30 percent in July, from...
By the Financial Times Editorial Board Latin America’s turbulent politics often hit the headlines. Less well reported is that the region has enjoyed a long and broad democratic expansion over the past 35 years. Nowhere else in the developing world are free elections...
How does a presidential candidate go from 5% in the polls to almost 24% at the ballot box in 10 days? How does another drop from 15% to 4% in the same period? How is it that the leaders of National Assembly and of the movement to impeach President Guillermo Lasso...
By Pablo Ferri No other country handles such a high ratio of tons of cocaine per capita as Ecuador. The South American nation, a hinge between the two major coca leaf producers in world, Colombia and Peru, has become logistical platform for large transnational...
By Florantonia Singer A few weeks ago, social media users celebrated the fact that the traditional cachapa — a corn cake cooked on a budare [griddle] and stuffed with fresh cheese — had triumphed in MasterChef Australia. This comfort food was prepared by a Venezuelan...
By Carlos Maldonado At the beginning of July, the government of El Salvador activated its diplomatic machinery to stop the presentation of a work at the International Book Fair of Guatemala, the largest literary event in Central America. Populist President Nayib...
By David Morrill and Deke Castleman What do expats -- especially those from the U.S. -- think about using the U.S. dollar in Ecuador? Not much, frankly, although it's hard to deny that it makes life easier. We don’t have to worry about exchange rates or go through the...
On the spring of 1974, at the tender age of 21, I had my first encounter with "the light." This encounter came in the form of a Voice which informed me with great authority that I was to radically change the course of my young life. My willingness to follow this...
