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“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.” (Omar Bradley) Fighting for peace is an oxymoron. Parties must stop... -
Who gives and why? Charities receive billions of dollars from donors each year. Of the tens of thousands of charities around the World, private donations to these charities provide around 2.5 times that which is provided by governments in official AID programs and such. Research shows the amount of... -
“I can’t change the world so I’ll change the world within my reach.” (Casey Curtis) She lay in the grass, very still, tail flat and breathing heavily. He sat beside her, feeling the cold and damp of the ground through his shorts and on his bare torso and legs.... -
“No one has ever become poor by giving.” (Anne Frank – The Diary of Anne Frank) We have a world demeaned and distressed by injustice, inequity, and inequality. It ranges from despotism and slavery through to poverty and homelessness, overcrowding to isolation, education for only the rich to no... -
Cultural respect and preservation is important or so I’ve long argued and many others seem to agree. However, whilst I still hold to that principle, I have found my feelings increasingly challenged. What is disturbing me is that I am continually confronted by examples of cultural practice that are... -
We are our culture and tradition; if there is no culture or tradition we are no one. (Tamerian Kuzgov) I’m not a scholar. I’m not religious. I have no senior position or status. I grew in a relatively poor working class district of the north of England – some... -
“I don’t promise that when a kid lives it will cause a GNP increase. I think life has value.” Bill Gates. World Economic Forum 2007 Our World The Earth is a beautiful planet. It is a life-giving planet that has sustained and still sustains so many species. It is... -
“God forbid that India should ever take to industrialisation after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom is today keeping the World in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world... -
It was a cold clear but cloudy night in which vision of the stars came and went as the chill wind blew the clouds across the sky. I sat on the cold concrete step, shivering a little but with what seemed a heightened awareness of the night air, the... -
“Give a man fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.” It’s an old proverb of indefinite origin but universal relevance. To many of us, it would seem a self-evident truth that it is better to provide someone... -
The problems in our world are many and range from the simple to the catastrophic. Most of us, at least in the western world, are not faced with crisis and desperation on a daily basis. For most of us, our problems are relatively trivial, even though it may not...
“A loose, plain, rude writer? I call a spade a spade.”
(1621 – Anatomy of Melcancholy, Democritis to the Reader).
The spade - a humble tool for digging, cutting through, spreading & mixing to enrich & stimulate a climate for growth. With its pointed, concave shape, it is well suited to its purpse & the wise gardener will not take the flat, blunt shovel in its place. He knows his aim & the tool best suited to achieving it.
So it is with life & learning. The tools must be appropriate to the task for which they are chosen & there is often need to disturb the smooth surface of common opinion & entrenched misconception to allow the mixing in of nutrients that will assist fertility & healthy growth. Digging through layers of obfuscation, misdirection & the detritus of learned ignorance is often necessary to promote an open-minded readiness to fairly consider exposed root causes & build a sustainable truth.
The author feels that his own struggle with an autism spectrum disorder has given him awareness of the difficulties & stigma that is the lot of the disadvantaged everywhere.
Words In The Bucket is a team of global citizens with the common goal of raising awareness and information about issues related to human rights protection, social inclusion, development and environment.
We are "Rethinking World Thinking"