Human Condition Archives – THE PAGE TURNS

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026

W is for Western Sahara

Fast Facts

Named for: Part of the Sahara. The Western part.
Capital: hard to say
Long/Lat: 25 N/13 W, 6000 miles and 13 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 565,000 or 8.5 CVs
Size: 105,000 sq mi or 5800 CVs (sparsely populated)
Avg temp in April: 77 F/25 C
Median household income: GDP per capita is $2,500 but doesn’t necessarily go to the locals.
Ethnicity: Berbers
Main industries: Fishing. Phosphates. Sustainable energy if Morocco could get in there and build the wind farms.

Western Sahara thinks itself a country. Morocco doesn’t. The border is disputed, as in is there even a border? The indigenous people, the Sahrawis of Western Sahara, think so. The Moroccan don’t, which is why they’ve laid berms–land mines–along one section. We’re in “W” and the world is still cray cray.

Today, technically, Western Sahara is not a country, although it was once. When I was in the 6th grade and memorizing the countries of Africa (see my A-Z inaugural post), it was called Spanish Sahara. Very colonizer-forward. That’s the legacy, of Africa being carved up by the Europeans, after the Islamic Empire carved up Europe and North Africa, and after the Romans carved up Europe, Africa, and Asia, and after Alexander carved up… A country’s borders have always been about the weaponry and the exploitable resources within.

July 4, 2025July 5, 2025

Ascending to Ballhalla

The WNBA announced this past Monday that the professional women’s basketball league will expand to 18 teams. Nearly two years ago, when they announced a Northern California franchise, it was shrouded in mystery. It would be a year before they announced the next franchise to Portland or the team name. However, this week, four more teams were confirmed. The timing of this sudden bloom of teams is no accident.

The Valkyries can claim some credit, though that credit should be shared. It’s definitely due to the players; absolutely the coaches; partly the owners; unquestionably to the growing fan base, in the Bay Area, and in general; to the WNBA of today; to all the US Women’s Olympics teams back to 1976; and to all the women’s basketball players, across the six professional leagues that did not survive; in the industrial leagues that lasted for years before, during, and after the wars, in dimly lit, humid gymnasiums with cramped locker rooms, where the locals cheered madly for their wives and daughters and sisters and neighbors. For this success story, there are a lot of shoulders to stand on.

Perhaps you don’t give a fig about basketball. You have plenty of company. However, you don’t have to enjoy basketball to appreciate the success of the Valkyries, a bunch of no-names, who play fiercely with such joy, in front of fans who have yearned for a team that represents them. It’s good for basketball. It’s good for women. It’s good in general. Let me tell you why, with a little history, business, and sociology. This is not (really) about basketball.

September 12, 2023September 17, 2023

Barbenheimer: Pity, Terror, and the Lord of Misrule

Barbie/Heimer mash-up courtesy of joblow.com

I don’t know why more people writing about the Barbie and Oppenheimer double feature don’t mention Aristotle.

That probably sounds pretentious. However, since the New York Times just featured an op ed criticizing the new football kickoff rules by invoking the Greek sensation of ataraxia (sublime contentedness), I probably have license to Go Greek in my little blog post. (Plus I ranted about it the other day, and my people said “go for it!”) I saw Oppenheimer last week, and all I could think about was Aristotle: Pity and Terror, the essence of tragedy. Barbie is about the world turned upside-down in a different way, where the absurd takes center stage, and the Lord of Misrule becomes in charge: comedy at its core.

Double-feature=comedy+tragedy. Yin/Yang!

So let’s go back to high school, basic Aristotle, basic Shakespeare, too, and talk about these movies in terms of how they fit the definitions. Plus, this is a double-movie review. A twofer!

Quantum Storytelling from Christopher Nolen

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of this tale of pity and terror, was the physicist whose pioneering research at Berkeley led him to be chosen to spearhead the Manhattan Project that developed of the atomic bomb. After World War II, he parted ways with some of his colleagues on whether to use atomic power and diplomacy or whether to develop the hydrogen bomb. He ended up losing his security clearance during the anti-communist fervor of the 1950s, in part, because of political maneuvering by the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss. Strauss was later turned down for a cabinet post. That’s the history; that’s the story.