All entries by this author

Running Around

Aug 24th, 2004 9:47 pm | By

Just thought I’d say – there’s an interesting post on JerryS’ Running Madness at Hugo Schwyzer’s blog. It gets a tad religious at one point for my taste, but it’s interesting all the same. Bears out what JS says. Runners will damage themselves rather than stop, and there is a moralistic aspect to that. ‘Coming from a runner, that’s terribly refreshing,’ Hugo says of my colleague’s observation: ‘there isn’t a moral requirement that we should fulfill our potentials; if people are happy with mediocrity, as I am, then let them be.’

I’ve often finished races or long training runs while feeling ill. I’ve only once dropped out of a marathon, down in Long Beach in 2001. I walked off the

Read the rest


Chip Chip Chipping Away *

Aug 24th, 2004 | Filed by

Dahlia Lithwick looks at holes in the wall between church and state.… Read the rest



Reported Execution of 16-year-old Girl in Iran *

Aug 24th, 2004 | Filed by

Ateqeh Rajabi reportedly publicly hanged for ‘acts incompatible with chastity.’… Read the rest



Adam and Eve and Steve and Bill and Sal and *

Aug 24th, 2004 | Filed by

What do nature and tradition really say about the meaning of marriage?… Read the rest



Interview with Habermas *

Aug 24th, 2004 | Filed by

What separates him from Derrida is the later Heidegger.… Read the rest



Requiem for Ateqeh Rajabi

Aug 24th, 2004 | By Maryam Namazie

16 year old Ateqeh Rajabi was publicly hanged in the city centre in Neka in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran on 15 August for ‘acts incompatible with chastity’ after having been arrested a few months earlier for having sexual relations. She had no attorney at any stage of the farce.

During the ‘trial’, she expressed her outrage at the misogyny and injustice in society and ‘judicial’ system and even removed some of her clothing. The lower court ‘judge’ was so incensed by her protestations that he personally put the noose around her neck after his decision had been upheld by the ‘Supreme Court’.

In some reports on her execution, Ateqah has been labelled ‘mentally incompetent’.

I suppose it could … Read the rest



Running Madness

Aug 23rd, 2004 3:45 pm | By

It’s funny all this fuss over Paula Radcliffe.

The first thing to say is that if you haven’t tried to run a marathon quickly, in the heat, then you should keep quiet about whether she could have continued, etc. When the wheels come off marathon running, then it feels pretty much unlike anything else you’ll experience in life. I experienced it in a London marathon. I got to twenty miles in just over two hours. It took an hour and ten minutes to run the next six miles, so you get the picture.

But the interesting thing from a philosophical, sociological point of view is that somehow moral judgements seem to infect how we view sporting feats. It isn’t … Read the rest



Natural Doesn’t Mean Safe *

Aug 23rd, 2004 | Filed by

Huitlacoche is a fungus that tastes good but has side effects.… Read the rest



Julian Baggini and Nick Cohen Debate *

Aug 23rd, 2004 | Filed by

Is Blunkett’s proposed religious hatred law a good idea?… Read the rest



James Buchan Reviews Ziauddin Sardar *

Aug 23rd, 2004 | Filed by

No journey can begin if the traveller thinks he has already arrived.… Read the rest



Lear and Paulina

Aug 22nd, 2004 10:12 pm | By

Another literary post, this is going to be. That’s two in a row. Well – I have a literary side, so you’ll have to bear with me. I usually cover it up here, I pretend to be interested exclusively in other things – and in fact I am interested in other things; I’ve been getting less and less exclusively literary for years. All my adult life really. Which I guess is just a roundabout way of saying I used to be a rather narrow, boring, incurious person when I was young, and then I outgrew it. (Yes I did. I’m not boring. Stop it at once.)

It’s a Shakespeare poll. And not just any poll, but a poll that … Read the rest



Another Shakespeare Poll *

Aug 22nd, 2004 | Filed by

Scofield’s Lear is Topp. Hamlet also well-liked; Paulina is most inspiring.… Read the rest



Too Few UK Students Taking Science Courses *

Aug 22nd, 2004 | Filed by

Many chemistry and physics departments have closed.… Read the rest



A ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Finnish Linguistic Prehistory

Aug 22nd, 2004 | By Merlijn de Smit

Introduction

Any field dealing with “origins” – archaeology, historical linguistics, general history – has seen its share of nonsense, usually painting a glorious past for whatever ethnicity or social group is involved. Thus a hypothesis popular with (certain) feminists and neo-pagans has an egalitarian, matriarchal, peaceful paradise all throughout the neolithic – until patriarchal, warlike, horse-riding nomads destroyed it all (with the exception of what survives underground in today’s Wiccan movement, of course). Another example may be “Afrocentric” pseudohistory, which ascribes incredible technological advancement to ancient Egyptian society, which happened also to be the cradle of ancient Greek philosophy and culture. In these two examples, pseudohistory serves a clear political goal, which could be regarded as progressive – the emancipation … Read the rest



Blair Slashed Homelessness – and Nobody Noticed *

Aug 21st, 2004 | Filed by

A dense web of progressive policies that has been badly under-reported.… Read the rest



Conviction in Faked Hate-crime *

Aug 21st, 2004 | Filed by

Former professor painted racist slogans on her own car, it seems.… Read the rest



Noonan/Tressell Not an Elitist! *

Aug 21st, 2004 | Filed by

It’s not elitist to believe all should have access to the best culture, not just the easy version.… Read the rest



Walden and Points East

Aug 21st, 2004 1:49 am | By

There is an interesting essay on Thoreau in that wicked newspaper that people around here say such hard things about. I’m very keen on Thoreau, especially Walden, myself. Thoreau was such a damn phrase-maker, for one thing. I once memorized this paragraph, just because I liked it so much:

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should

Read the rest


A Good Word for Thoreau *

Aug 20th, 2004 | Filed by

You can read Tressell too though.… Read the rest



Author Admits Fabrications in Honour-Killing Book *

Aug 20th, 2004 | Filed by

Not helpful.… Read the rest