All entries by this author

How to Make a Pseudo-point *

Feb 25th, 2006 | Filed by

Triumphantly compare Pamuk to Irving as if the two were parallel instead of opposite.… Read the rest



Andrew Brown Reviews Daniel Dennett *

Feb 25th, 2006 | Filed by

Not very coherently.… Read the rest



Florida County Selects Diluted Biology Textbook *

Feb 25th, 2006 | Filed by

Publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston edited several sections at the request of the Discovery Institute.… Read the rest



Letter to the New York Times

Feb 25th, 2006 | By Daniel Dennett

The New York Times has opted not to publish this letter from Daniel Dennett, so B&W is pleased to make it available. Judith Shulevitz’s review is here.

Thanks to Judith Shulevitz [“When Cosmologies Collide,” NYTBR January 22] for unwittingly exposing the serious flaw in Michael Ruse’s attempt to distinguish the science of evolution (of which he approves) from the more far-reaching implications of “evolutionism,” which he characterizes as “a metaphysical world picture.” Since she grants that those who expound “evolutionism” “may well be right” in the cosmological implications they see flowing from contemporary biology, she recommends teaching “evolutionism in religion class, along with creationism, deism and all the other cosmologies that float unexamined through our lives.” By the same … Read the rest



Inverted Colonialism

Feb 24th, 2006 7:43 pm | By

Consider Azam Kamguian in Ibn Warraq’s Leaving Islam, for instance. Page 216.

The very fact that people are forced to abide by laws based on something some god or prophet is reported to have said somewhere is a form of mental violence.

Page 219.

When I came to the West in the early 1990s, I was faced with the fact that the majority of intellectuals, mainstream media, academics, and feminists, in the name of respecting ‘other cultures,’ were trying to justify Islam by dividing it into fundamentalist and moderate, progressive and reactionary…For people like me, the victims of Islam in power, it was suffocating to listen to and have to refute endless tales to justify the terror and bloodshed

Read the rest


The Community Community

Feb 24th, 2006 7:13 pm | By

Sometimes my head swims. The room goes dark, spots dance before my eyes, there is a howling sound in my ear, bats seem to dart back and forth overhead, my hair tangles, the milk curdles in the fridge, frogs and ravens knock on the door. In short, I can’t make sense of it all. It doesn’t add up, or compute, as the sophisticates say.

Look, I’ll show you.

Here, for instance, is the BBC on Livingstone.

In a statement, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said it regretted the guilty result, but said Mr Livingstone had been “the architect of his own misfortune” by failing to recognise the upset caused. It added it had never sought anything more

Read the rest


Smooth, Summers Was Not *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

It was the spicy chicken wing that did him in.… Read the rest



Livingstone Suspended for Being Insensitive *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

His words were inappropriate for the ‘elected representative of Londoners of all faiths and beliefs.’… Read the rest



Nine Life Sentences in Gujarat Case *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

Twelve Muslims, two others burned to death when Best Bakery was attacked by a Hindu mob in 2002. … Read the rest



Press Freedom at Risk *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

Should we be sensitive to religious feelings or to readers’ need to get uncensored news?… Read the rest



Cartoon Controversies at Student Newspapers *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

Papers at Harvard and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign publish; UI editors suspended.… Read the rest



Scott McLemee Questions David Horowitz *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

Reading Horowitz’s latest bit of pulp fiction with all the seriousness he can muster.… Read the rest



Scott Jaschik on the Aftermath of Summers *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

Summers spoke out for many causes that are central to quality in higher education.… Read the rest



Thomas Nagel Reviews Kwame Anthony Appiah *

Feb 24th, 2006 | Filed by

The right of exit is not enough to cancel the constraining power of strong communal identities.… Read the rest



In the State of Denmark

Feb 23rd, 2006 8:49 pm | By

Hitchens murmurs a gentle reproach or two.

The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark…is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability!…And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary – that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let’s be sure we haven’t hurt the vandals’ feelings.

Let’s be sure we surrender … Read the rest



Hitchens Urges: Stand Up for Denmark *

Feb 23rd, 2006 | Filed by

All compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail.… Read the rest



More on Summers *

Feb 23rd, 2006 | Filed by

Chronicle oversimplifies his women and science comments.… Read the rest



South Dakota Moves to Ban Abortion *

Feb 23rd, 2006 | Filed by

Which is already nearly unavailable there.… Read the rest



Churches Have no Divine Right to be Heard *

Feb 23rd, 2006 | Filed by

A motormouth with a mitre brings neither gaiety nor wisdom to the nations. … Read the rest



Irving Says Austria is Trying to Silence Him *

Feb 23rd, 2006 | Filed by

As he tried to silence a certain historian via a libel trial, perhaps?… Read the rest