Month: September 2014
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Calculating Risks
Dropping in at the Edinburgh North and Leith Yes campaign offices a friendly woman who reminds me a bit of my mother invites me in warmly and offers me tea (because some stereotypes are true). The weather has turned drizzly and I accept gratefully, glad to be out of the wet. Inside people are busy…
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Foggy mornings and imagined communities
So I still haven’t adjusted to the time zone shift and by 4am this morning I’d given up on sleep and decided to get an early start on the day and explore Edinburgh on foot. Climbing up Calton hill with the city laid out below me was a revelation – seeing the lights laid out…
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Scotland in Europe
One of the most interesting things about independence movements in modern Europe is the impact of the EU. I wrote a paper for a graduate class in college that argued that because the EU allows even the smallest of its member states to have equal access to markets across Europe as well as free movement…
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The story so far
Many Americans seem baffled that Scotland isn’t already independent – after all didn’t they win their freeeeeeddddoooooommmmmm at the end of Braveheart? Many more seem confused as to how they’re being allowed to vote on independence at all since in most places and times Nation-States don’t let their provinces walk away. If Tibet or Chechnya…
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Scotland, Be Brave
I’m writing this from the international terminal at San Francisco Airport as I wait to board a flight to London, followed by a short regional connecting flight to Edinburgh. The fact that Edinburgh – the capital of Scotland, which would be the 14th wealthiest nation in the world if it was independent and wealthier per…
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Updates!
Howdy folks, A few random news points and general updates. The first thing is I want to shout out my new article that went live this week on Revzilla – it’s the first of a 4-part series I wrote on the State of the Electric Motorcycle that includes interviews with Zero Motorcycles, Mission Motorcycles, and…
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Sometimes a girl has to buy her own flowers
The flower was huge, pink, and spiny – like something from the surface of an alien world. Jenna was enthralled. Around her, the farmers market buzzed with people and activity, but she was long gone. She pictured herself as the exiled queen of an ancient empire, cast adrift in space, her last loyal retainers…