The Herald on Dawkins on religion on channel 4.

This new two-part documentary, which begins on Channel 4 tomorrow, asserts that there is no safe or defensible middle ground between science and religion, its thesis being that even the moderate followers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are deluded, defective and potentially dangerous…It is in this capacity that Dawkins travels to various theological flashpoints…challenging a full range of beliefs and their advocates. And for an ambassador, he is not particularly diplomatic. The programme takes its cue from a statement Dawkins made immediately after September 11, 2001: “[Religion is] lethally dangerous nonsense. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!”

Well, we’ve tried diplomacy, and what has it gotten us? Only more … Read the rest

There are some oddities in this piece on books about how to read Derrida and Marx.

The assumption of Granta’s How to Read series is that readers will go on to read at least some of the works discussed. Including this author in a series of this sort, aimed at a “general reader”, invites an interesting question: should one read Derrida? Is his work important, something with which any intelligent person should be familiar? In the grand scheme of things, perhaps not, but the question is complicated. What might it mean to say that an author is important, not just in a particular field, but for society as a whole?

What, indeed? Surely it’s fairly obvious that one has … Read the rest

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

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

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