The moment my feet touched the ground in Tsuyoshi Sekihara’s village of Nakanomata, I was struck by the proportionality of the place. Very quickly, I understood his passion for right-sized communities. You can walk the circumference of the village within an hour. Wooden farmhouses, hundreds of years old, cluster beneath the canopy of trees along the river that runs from the mountains to the Sea of Japan.
The science of public health has evolved since the 18th century, when it focused on isolating the ill and quarantining those exposed to diseases to prevent transmission of infection. In the 19th century, the focus was on sanitation, especially separating fecal contamination from food and water. Living conditions improved tremendously as a result. With the understanding of infectious disease transmission in the early part of the 20th century, the focus shifted to immunizations and infection control.
One of my oldest friends, divorced and living alone, explained to me that one reason I don’t see my friends as much is because I’m married, which satisfies my social obligations. In this friend’s case, he says it’s easy for him to stay home by himself and become morose and perhaps even morbid to the extent that he feels compelled, even against his own conflicting desire, that he’d rather not be bothered to leave the house, even if it doesn’t involve being with somebody else.
Indigenous communities, communities of color, and low-income communities already suffer disproportionate environmental pollution and degradation—too often imposed by the intentional acts of government officials, or as the result of the knowing design and/or implementation of our system of laws and government. So at the same time that mounting environmental degradation and a spiraling climate crisis are expanding the scope of environmental harm, this damage also perpetuates, and grows, the footprint of environmental racism.
Year after year, China’s real-estate sector has been considered the best place for Chinese people to invest. As a result, housing prices have continually risen, until they reached price levels only attainable by combining intergenerational wealth. In a country with a one-child policy, it has become necessary for four grandparents and two parents to pool their money, to purchase a home for their only descendant.
On September 26th, the British pound lost nearly 5% of its value overnight, hitting a 37-year low. After months of continual devaluation, the pound is now worth 21% less than it was at the beginning of the year. The pound’s sharp decline has been blamed on the release of Britain’s new mini-budget, which included major tax cuts, energy price caps, and direct payments to citizens to help them cope with record levels of inflation.
Despite internet restrictions, protesters have adopted new tactics to get their message across."We are not afraid anymore. We will fight," said a large banner placed on an overpass of Tehran's Modares highway, according to online images verified by AFP. In other footage, a man is seen altering the wording of a large government billboard on the same highway from "The police are the servants of the people" to "The police are the murderers of the people.”
“Understandably, there is a lot of anxiety regarding Meloni’s stance on Europe. She can either continue to align with Orban or take a more institutional path once in power,” said Arturo Varvelli of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “EU leaders view Meloni with great suspicion because her rhetorical insistence on Italy’s national interest is at odds with the notion of European integration,” he said.
At present, some 800 entities – from fishmongers to well-known products such as Heinz ketchup – have the right to mark their products with the Royal Arms and “By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen” (now His Majesty the King, of course), which implies a product is fit for a monarch. Other organizations are granted the use of the royal prefix such as the Royal Opera House in London.
Even though a person locally owns and has a piece of software downloaded and installed to their hard drive, that storage space is useless without an internet connection to verify it is legitimate. This greatly restricts the use of the media you allegedly “own.” Playing games or using software that use this sort of DRM protection is no longer possible on laptops in places without connection, such as airplanes.
Professional baseball faced a similar postwar influx. More than 500 major leaguers and 4,000 minor leaguers had swapped jerseys for military fatigues during the previous four years. Two former big leaguers, Harry O’Neill and Elmer Gedeon, plus more than 100 minor-league players, lost their lives.
In curating this lineup, I selected four films that all share one specific point of commonality: flawed people trying to make it through their day despite the odds being stacked against them. Some stories are more successful than others, yet these four films demonstrate a unique perspective in their search to make sense of our current American lifestyles.
