Hello my friends, I feel I met a good old friend. After so many years and after so many things that .

changed, I'm recussitating my blog. Eventually I'll go back to what happened since then, but now I would like to share with you my first book which is on sale on Amazon both in print and digital. Of course it is very exciting. Tomorrow I will create a page on Facebook and I give here more details. See you soon.

PORTRAIT OF A MARATHON RUNNER (as a not so young woman).

spotlight on life

My girlfriend was on vacation in France and she sent me and another dozen of her friends her impressions by mail. I told her that she should open a blog and send the file through her blog. Then I remembered that I once opened a blog forgot all about it very fast and then remembered and then forgot about it again.
Now I'm back again with so many things on my mind and nothing particular. Politics interests me always but the more I read about global politics, the more I find that nothing exciting happens or at least things that happen are open to so many interpretations and I don't know which will survive. I have a few thumb rules that I adopted through the years such as help the most needy the weakest without thinking of the outcome or if it will help eventually. Just help and move on. This moving on business is something that I found to be very helpful in life so you carry as little traces and grudges as possible.
Also writing has something therapeutic and this comforts me somewhat. The calmer I'm, the more mindful I am, the more things I achieve. Meaning I do more things that I enjoy such as running systematically, learning Arabic sporadically, dieting not unsuccessfully, traning moderately, keeping relations with family and friends at levels that minimise conflict and gives me some joy. I also started doing some meditation and visualization and together with my efforts to be aware of mindfull actions and decisions. All these, it seems to me, ameliorates my coping with everyday life in contradistinction with the ravages of getting ahead in age. I'm already 66 and I wonder how many more years or months or weeks or days I have with, as much as possible,  a well functioning mind and body...
I guess I'll stop here hoping to come back soon. If anybody, by chance, gets to read what I wrote today,please leave a comment and lets start a discussion or simply sharing of ideas. Thank you,
Miriam   

back to my blog

Hello my friends,
I vaguely remember that 7 years ago I opened a blog titled global politics now. I posted 2-3 posts. The web keeps everything in an orderly way. I lose files, documents at home, on my computer and on my iPad. Now and then I loose my smart phone.
So now I'm back in my web. My focus changed a bit, not much. I would like to examine the future of smart cities and the extent that smart cities will contribute to enhance liberal democracy worldwide. So instead of focussing on worldwide cooperation and coordination to tackle global problems (including poverty, population explosion, nuclear proliferation, climate change, sustainability, global migration etc), I will focus on smart cities to assist these problems. My perspective, as always, will be the liberal perspective meaning that I will always dwell upon how liberal democracy fares with the policies to create, maintain, navigate smart cities and the end results of the policies.
My methodology is not empirical. It will be critical in the sense of applying critical rationalism that presents different possible policies and critically examines them. Though this methodology is philosophical, the issues will be mainly social and political within the context of the advancement of information and communication technology (ICT)
Dec. 10, 2014. On a train 

Borders at the interface

I opened this blog 7 years ago and after posting 2-3 posts forgot all about it. Meanwhile the world moved on and I did as well. Now I want to move on accompanied by my blog to wherever I get. At the time I was interested in global politics and looked for ways to attract national governments, NGOs and influential decision makers to coordinate and cooperate among themselves to resolve global problems such as population explosion, pollution, nuclear proliferation, population explosion, in addition to global migration, sustainability, climate change and more. Now while problems remained or worsened, my focus regarding the policy makers changed from national governments to municipal governance.
As I was writing an article on global migration, I found out that the municipal policy makers were more successful than national policy makers. In addition to that the opportunities opened by smart cities to solve the global problems at hand gave the final touch and my focus moved away from national governments to municipalities.

Global Politics and Media and Communication

The role of the media and the different channels of communication is very important in making global politics the most important means to solve global problems like pollution, povery, nuclear proliferation, population explosion etc. Even if the media and the channels of communication make mistakes in their assessment, they still inform the citizens of the world about the global problems and the solutions offered. The citizens of the world have to be critical in assessing the information they get from the media and the channels of communication and use their filters. the end result is better than the media and the channels of communication provide only "CORRECT and TRUE" information or only information that comes from a centralized body.

Global Politics and Rewards

Globalization and Rationality

Globalization & Rationality from a Liberal Perspective
The communication revolution gave way to globalized overflow of information which informs us about many avoidable human tragedies. The containment of these tragedies makes up the global social agenda at hand. Globalization is considered mainly an economic development with impact on rational decision-making in all facets of life - political, social, psychological, educational, cultural and that of information technology.
There is no consensus as to its contribution to improve rational decision making of the individuals in the community of democratic states. The lack of consensus is confusing. As a small contribution to the efforts to reduce the confusion, I examine three answers to the following question: under what conditions does globalization improve rational decision-making of individuals?
I give two popular answers and one less popular answer. The first popular answer is the answer given by most neoclassical economists which states that globalization, under no constraint, improves rational decision making of individuals. The second popular answer, the social democrat answer is the answer given by social democrats of West European and Scandinavian countries which states that globalization, under reasonable redistribution of income in the form of almost free public services improves rational decision-making of individuals. The less popular answer is the answer given by critical rationalists which states that globalization under democratic control improves rational decision making of individuals.
Globalization points in the direction of a democratic global government in order to be regulated in some way. I propose to accelerate its creation and accredit it with the features of the methodology offered by critical rationalists. The end result may be the moderation of globalization by the enhancement of democratic procedures that control it and the improvement of rational decision making of economic agents.
I first defend democracy and present an overview of globalization’s contemporary impact on liberal philosophy, democratic procedures and governments of liberal democratic states as a forward to the examination of the three answers to the topical question. Second, it examines the three answers to the topical question. I conclude that we may improve rational decision-making of individuals with the help of democratic control of the global free market.