“Why are we violent, but not illiterate?”
This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: “We’re taught to read!” Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.

Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word “mir” means “earth”; it also means “peace.” We know the answers. They’re hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.

Clad in his usual attire of a colorful, striped robe, Afghan President Hamid Karazai appeared more like an emperor as he began his fourth day in Washington. Accompanying him on a somber visit to the Arlington National Cemetery were US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and top US (and NATO) commander in Afghanistan Stanley A. McChrystal - the very men responsible for the war and occupation of his own country.

The well-choreographed and clearly-rehearsed visit seemed set on giving the impression that the relationship between Karzai and these men was that of an independent, confident leader seeking the support of a benevolent superpower.

But what were Karazai’s real reasons for visiting Washington?

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Red Shirt protesters allegedly set fire to 20 buildings on Wednesday (May 19) including luxury shopping malls, banks, the Stock Exchange and offices, after losing their stronghold when soldiers used armored personnel carriers to crush their barricades, ending their six-week-long occupation.

Supporters of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), known as the Red Shirts, allegedly took revenge and became arsonists, causing smoke to billow above Bangkok's modern skyline and plunging this Southeast Asian capital into its worst security crisis in decades.

In response, the government clamped an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew on Bangkok and 23 of Thailand's 76 other provinces.

Officials broadcast pleas on nationwide TV for the public to hunt down Reds who fled the barricades before the military assault.

Government offices were ordered shut for the rest of the week, and many businesses told staff not to return to work on Thursday (May 20).

Bangkok's rail service was also suspended.

A handful of Red Shirt leaders surrendered and were arrested. Others disappeared.

The industrial revolution has been driven for the past two centuries by the burning of hydrocarbons, first by coal in the Age of Steam, and then by oil and natural gas in the Age of Petroleum; however, as the flow of these fossil fuels slows down as demand goes up, ever-more-intrusive and massive extraction efforts increasingly threaten the progress of industrialization and the civilization it has produced.

The catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest and largest of hundreds of such ocean spills, and the recent methane gas explosion in Massey’s Montcoal mine was just another example of the continuing disasters, worldwide, which snuff out the lives of workers who labor in dangerous conditions to feed our fossil-fuel addiction. All around the planet we live upon, the quest for hydrocarbons is threatening the ability of humans to survive in the degrading environment and to govern their own corporate-dominated societies.

As BP destroys our priceless planet, its lawyers gear up to save the company from paying for the damage. The same will happen---only worse---with the next atomic reactor disaster.

By law, BP may be liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon.

Ask yourself why the federal government would adopt legislation that limits the liability of an oil driller for the damage it does to us all.

Ask the same question---on another order of magnitude---about nuclear power plants.

Some lawmakers have tried to raise this cap so BP could be made to pay for the wounds they have not yet stopped inflicting.

By any calculation, BP did more than $75 million in harm during the first hour of this undersea gusher. That sum won't begin to cover even the legal fees, let alone the tangible damage to our only home.