And labels get confused: left, right, realist, internationalist, moral idealist, neoconservative…… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Ignatieff in Dubious Company Over Torture
Dec 19th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
With U.S. lawmakers banning abuse, where does Liberal stand, asks Haroon Siddiqui.… Read the rest
Arguing Over Torture
Dec 19th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
David Luban on loading the dice, Jeremy Waldron on drawing the line, Michael Walzer on dirty hands.… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Voltaire Almighty
Dec 19th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The great man lived into his 80s largely thanks to knowing just when to grab his luggage.… Read the rest
Gotta Have ‘Protected Space’ for Religion
Dec 19th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s only feeble ideas that need all this protection.… Read the rest
Secularists too Powerful? Where Would That Be?
Dec 19th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What with ‘faith’ schools, vicars patrolling supermarkets, secularists banned from Thought for Day.… Read the rest
Another Blow Struck Against Learning
Dec 18th, 2005 6:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd there is this horrible item. Part of the heart-warming series ‘how can we make women’s lives more helpless and deprived and nasty than they already are?’
Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan have executed a school teacher in front of his pupils for refusing to comply with warnings to stop educating girls.
Well of course they have, because that kind of behavior interferes with the whole project. Sets it right back. What good is is for the Taliban to keep valiantly struggling to take away every single right and capacity and freedom and pleasure and opportunity and chance that women have, if evil thugs like this teacher are going to come along and educate them? Is he crazy? The … Read the rest
Not This Again
Dec 18th, 2005 6:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhat a lot of nonsense the hooray for theocracy crowd does talk. Distortions, omissions, fantasies, strawmen, non sequiturs, aimless babbling – no trick is too cheap, apparently.
… Read the restResistance to politically correct attempts to expunge Christianity from our culture – the conversion of Christmas into “winterval” is symptomatic – should be encouraged, but one can push the defence of Christianity farther by imagining what Western society would be like without it…It was and is a highly cosmopolitan and egalitarian religion, recognising neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free. That, in addition to such novel ideals as charity, compassion and peace, and the status attached to women, differentiated Christians from a surrounding society based on cruelty, hedonism and organised slavery. Imagine
Bush Wants Secularism in Iraq but not in US
Dec 18th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why should theocrats abroad listen when theocrats in US appear to be running the place?… Read the rest
Without God, People Will Worship Jamie
Dec 18th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Scruffy Irish pop stars and smart chefs are the new moral arbitors.’… Read the rest
Trust in God or Jamie
Dec 18th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
God heads a creaking pantheon of authority figures, from political magi to celebrity hairdressers.… Read the rest
Nigerian Women Riot Over Bike-taxi Ban
Dec 18th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Fight back.… Read the rest
Taliban Murder Teacher for Teaching Girls
Dec 18th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘He had received many warning letters from the Taliban to stop teaching, but he continued.’… Read the rest
School Ignores Equality Commission Ruling
Dec 17th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Islamic College Amsterdam will continue to require woman teachers to cover heads.… Read the rest
Menaces to Free Speech
Dec 17th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The gods of the state also continue to exact their sacrifices.… Read the rest
Good, Rational Orientalism May Have Last Laugh
Dec 17th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
When post-modernist fashions, with fuzzy terminologies and neo-colonial potentialities, have gone. … Read the rest
Turkey Complains of Pressure From EU
Dec 17th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘You can’t put one of the world’s best living novelists on trial and say this is just growing pains.’… Read the rest
Updates
Dec 16th, 2005 7:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonA couple of brief update items. Azam Kamguian emailed me to tell me what an informant in Norway told her – that there apparently is no reason to think that Samira Munir was murdered. Which is a relief. No less sad for her, of course, but the fewer murders of this kind there are, the better. So that is, in a limited way, good news.
And I was inaccurate in what I said about Michael Bérubé and Meera Nanda and B&W. I thought he’d first read Meera here, but no, he read her 1997 article in Dissent – and, as he put it, realized he was going to have to worry about it sooner or later. Seeing her work on … Read the rest
Give it a Hanky and a Slap
Dec 16th, 2005 4:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonA spectre is haunting the place. No doubt you’ve already read or heard about the Fulham cops.
… Read the rest…the author Lynette Burrows went on a BBC Five Live show to talk about the government’s new “civil partnerships” and expressed her opinion – politely, no intemperate words – that the adoption of children by homosexuals was “a risk”. The following day, Fulham police contacted her to discuss the “homophobic incident”. A Scotland Yard spokesperson told the Telegraph’s Sally Pook that it’s “standard policy” for “community safety units” to investigate “homophobic, racist and domestic incidents”…”It is all about reassuring the community,” said the very p.c. Plod to the Telegraph. “All parties have been spoken to by the police. No allegation of crime
HRW Page on ‘Ministers of Murder’
Dec 16th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Human Rights Watch reports.… Read the rest