All entries by this author

When in Doubt, We Ditch Logic *

Jan 8th, 2006 | Filed by

Brain-imaging study finds that the higher the level of uncertainty, the more instinct, not logic, will rule.… Read the rest



How to Read Derrida and Marx *

Jan 8th, 2006 | Filed by

‘Disconnected from political engagement, reading lacks urgency.’ It does?… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on ‘The Root of all Evil?’ *

Jan 8th, 2006 | Filed by

See the Colorado preacher lose his boyish charm.… Read the rest



Bunting

Jan 7th, 2006 9:52 pm | By

And there’s always dear Madeleine Bunting. How fondly I look back on her musings about how much happier ‘African’ lives are than those in the creepy dreary alienated consumerist West. How the people in the Democratic Republic of Congo must have chuckled if any of them were in a position – what with being so busy starving and being ill and dying and all – to find a Guardian and read her essay.

Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is killing 38,000 people each month, says the Lancet medical journal. Most of the deaths are not caused by violence but by malnutrition and preventable diseases after the collapse of health services, the study said. Since the war began

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Shouting the Loudest

Jan 7th, 2006 9:00 pm | By

The Economist tells us that racism and resentment haven’t gone away, they’ve just gotten more complex. Oh good. Old-fashioned white-on-black racism is old hat; now the happening thing is Caribbean children resenting Somali children and Sikhs resenting Muslims. So much more diverse and multiculti that way.

Kirk Dawes, a black former police officer who now runs a mediation service in Birmingham, commends the way in which the police and the council have purged overt racists from their ranks. But he criticises the way both have relied on “community leaders,” especially those of a fiery type, as interlocutors with ethnic minority groups. “There is a belief that those who shout the loudest can best solve the problems within their community,” Mr

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Chatting

Jan 7th, 2006 6:16 pm | By

I love the hairdresser thing, don’t you?

In a splendid return to form, Demos has silenced rumours that it is all thunk out with a proposal that hairdressers be invited to shape local government policy…”Our research has led us to conclude that hairdressers are the most authentic voice on the high street,” says Demos’s Sam Hinton-Smith, “and that they should be given a formal role in urban policy-making.” Not only that. Hairdressers “act as counsellors and social workers”.

The most authentic voice on the high street – really? More authentic than the voice of the fishmonger? The traffic warden? The shopper for dinner and a newspaper and some lightbulbs and a DVD? The panhandler? The market surveyor? The random … Read the rest



Ex-editor of Gay and Lesbian Humanist Clarifies *

Jan 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Criticism of Islam was no harsher than criticism of all religions has been during magazine’s 25-year life.… Read the rest



Robert Hanks Reviews Nicholas Fearn *

Jan 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Well suited to the person who has some interest in philosophy but is too lazy to keep up. … Read the rest



Ian Buruma on Religion in US and Europe *

Jan 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Americans are falling increasingly into the arms of Jesus – and Europe could go the same way.… Read the rest



Hairdressers Are the Voice of the Community *

Jan 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Hairdressers act as counsellors and social workers. Do they? Uh oh.… Read the rest



Police and Councils Rely on ‘Community Leaders’ *

Jan 7th, 2006 | Filed by

‘There is a belief that those who shout the loudest can best solve the problems within their community.’… Read the rest



Vatican Meddling With Slovakia *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Women’s rights to healthcare could be curtailed.… Read the rest



Gang Killing for not Converting to Islam? *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Woman tells inquest her son was told he would be killed if he did not convert.… Read the rest



MCB Maintains Boycott of Holocaust Day *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Wants other people mentioned. Armenians for example?… Read the rest



About 4 Million Have Died in DRC Since 1998 *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

War in Democratic Republic of Congo kills 38,000 people each month, the Lancet says.… Read the rest



Kwame Anthony Appiah in Ghana *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

The right approach starts by taking individuals – not nations, tribes or ‘peoples’ – as the proper object of moral concern. … Read the rest



Teacher Decapitated by Taliban *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

The latest in a string of attacks on teachers working in schools where girls are taught.… Read the rest



Jason Rosenhouse on the Outcome of Kitzmiller *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

What happens in a forum dominated by facts and evidence, as opposed to theater and rhetoric… Read the rest



Mark Perakh on ‘Irreducible Complexity’ *

Jan 6th, 2006 | Filed by

How probable is it that the very features that make a design bad are markers of design?… Read the rest



If That Girl Picks Up a Book – Kill Her

Jan 6th, 2006 1:54 am | By

Words fail me. Human garbage. Rock bottom.

Suspected Taliban militants have beheaded a headteacher in central Afghanistan, the latest in a string of gruesome attacks on teachers working in schools where girls are taught. Armed men burst into the home of Malim Abdul Habib in Qalat, the capital of restive Zabul province, on Tuesday night. They dragged him into a courtyard and forced his family to watch as they cut off his head, said Ali Khel, a local government spokesman…Hundreds of students attended his funeral yesterday. “Only the Taliban are against our girls being educated,” Mr Khel said.

Well there – that’s why they’re human garbage. They dedicate their lives to preventing girls from getting an education – what … Read the rest