"The logic of advertising so dominates the media that it views anything new - material, cultural or otherwise - as a product launch. And in any product launch, the key word is concept. So as discussion of décroissance (literally "degrowth", that is economic contraction or…

Back to St. Patrick's Day just for a nice bit: photographer Anthony J. Stewart made this stop-motion video on how Chicago River was dyed in green in 2009:     Stewart has some remarkable photos of Chicago buildings too. It's intriguing how modern buildings give you an alienating…

"Hungarians attach great importance to this picture of the Madonna because it comes from another country whose people have also fought and suffered for their faith. There are many other pilgrim places and shrines of the Madonna in Hungary, for ever since the tenth century the country has…

"1 I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was…