People are upset.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Malaysia: Only Muslims Can Say ‘Allah’
Dec 28th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonChristians not allowed to use the word.… Read the rest
‘Repressed Memory’ as Cultural Phenomenon
Dec 28th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRomanticism created fertile soil for the idea that the mind could expunge a trauma from consciousness.… Read the rest
McGinn Reviews Honderich; Sparks Fly
Dec 28th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘This book runs the full gamut from the mediocre to the ludicrous to the merely bad.’… Read the rest
Rights Here, Rights Now
Dec 28th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s no good waiting until after the revolution.… Read the rest
Human Rights Are Geographically Relative
Dec 28th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘What one western culture deems a gross violation is not so in another culture.’… Read the rest
Benazir, Daughter of destiny
Dec 28th, 2007 | By Gina KhanThirty years ago I watched my mum cry when Zulfiqar Bhutto was executed, today I cried for the daughter of Pakistan’s destiny.
Benazir Bhutto was a more than a beacon of light for mobilising Pakistanis against Islamism and instilling Pakistan’s democracy. She had the same fire, passion, commitment that her father had for his country, and for the tenets of democracy. In 1986 after years in jails and then exile, she left the safety of England to return to Pakistan and took on dictatorship, she bravely ignored death threats and achieved her ambitions to become Pakistan’s first woman Prime Minister.
In her autobiography Daughter of Destiny in 1988, she was the first to identify the ‘Islamization’ of Pakistan and the … Read the rest
Location
Dec 25th, 2007 11:55 am | By Ophelia BensonMerry Xmas. (No war on Christmas here.)
As may be obvious, I’m away for a few days. I’m on the Monterey peninsula doing my day job, and Jeremy and Cheryl are here for a visit. We went to Point Lobos yesterday, on a brilliant beautiful windy day, with pelicans flying back and forth in front of us. Jeremy took a few thousand photographs (he’s a professional you know) and he says he will post some here when he gets back. Normal broadcasting will resume on Friday.… Read the rest
Niger – Where Girlhood Ends on the Marriage Bed
Dec 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn many countries what happened to Hadjo would be called paedophilia and the male attacker would be imprisoned.… Read the rest
AC Grayling on Nick Clegg and Not-God
Dec 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonKeep religion out of politics and out of the mouths of politicians.… Read the rest
Ali Eteraz on One-eyed Ideology
Dec 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNeocons seized the human rights narrative, but that doesn’t mean the left should abandon it.… Read the rest
Andrew Anthony on Wishful Thinking and Evasion
Dec 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFar-right hate speech bad, hate speech in a mosque – er – um –… Read the rest
Moses Tells Jesus and Mo About Otherness
Dec 21st, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘We in the west have no privileged place from which to judge other cultures and traditions.’… Read the rest
Mitchell Cohen on a Left That Doesn’t Learn
Dec 20th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPeople who pivot until they can ‘understand’ almost anything in order to keep their own presuppositions intact.… Read the rest
Review of Michael Walzer’s Thinking Politically
Dec 20th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWalzer’s goal in these essays is to argue that liberal values can and should be preserved in leftist politics.… Read the rest
Walter Lippmann’s Liberty and the News
Dec 20th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPublic Opinion demonstrated how much people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.… Read the rest
Review of Ibn Warraq’s Defending the West
Dec 20th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPostcolonial studies placed a dime-store psychology of empire at the center of every discussion of ‘East meets West.’… Read the rest
Student Sues Teacher for ‘Anti-Christian’ Remarks
Dec 20th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStudent and parents filed a lawsuit alleging history teacher violated student’s constitutional rights. … Read the rest
Smuggling
Dec 20th, 2007 11:41 am | By Ophelia Benson‘If the essays in “Thinking Politically” share a single theme, or better, a common tension,’ says Adam Kirsch, ‘it is Mr. Walzer’s effort to reconcile his liberal instincts with his leftist commitments to socialism and cultural relativism.’
… Read the restThe problem for Mr. Walzer, as a left liberal, is that the left has never really shared the morality of liberalism, or even credited it…To the left, the liberal love of freedom is a self-deception, designed to obscure the fact that the material conditions of life leave most [people] unable to enjoy their freedom. The danger of this conviction is that, once the love of freedom is discredited, freedom itself usually follows, as the history of the last century shows again and
Discover’s Top 100 Science Stories
Dec 19th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPollution, consciousness, planets, arctic thaw, dark matter, drought.… Read the rest