A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

I've been alarmed anew by the Cambridge Analytica horror story after watching the documentary "The Great Hack" last night on Netflix. We're all rightly offended by the massive invasion of privacy that occurred in that scandalous period. But what's far more frightening for me after the film is the monumental scope of global democratic disruption. What Cambridge Analytica did with Facebook's happy help was psychological warfare funded by wealthy people. Carried out on behalf of political parties that the wealthy people resonate with, it targeted carefully selected "persuadibles" chosen for their fear-based, authoritarian-leaning personalities. Everything they needed to know was mined out of Facebook and other social media, via a "fun" little personality quiz developed by an American researcher working at Cambridge University. And the rest is history, as they say. Brexit. Trump. But so much more, because Cambridge was active all over...

Copyright: (c) Allexxe | Dreamstime.com The frightening realities of the global climate crisis have me looking for ways to reduce my personal impact. For those of you trying to do the same, this one's for you. (And for those of you still denying there's a problem, feel free to stop reading now and fire off an uninformed comment, and I will feel free to not read it.) I was stunned to learn recently that t here's a view out there that people shouldn't have to take personal responsibility for their carbon outputs, because the climate crisis is the fault of corporations and governments and must be left to them to fix. Seriously? There is absolutely no way to mitigate the effects of climate change without taking personal action. Corporations exist because we feed them. Governments exist because we elect them. This one's all about us - collectively and individually. I am right there in rage with those who are fed up with corporate greed and government paralysis,...