What if India hadn’t been partitioned, Rajiv hadn’t unlocked Babri Masjid, Gandhi had lived, India had become a Hindu theocracy?… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Slightly More Favourable View of Eagleton
Aug 14th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut still ‘Sometimes Eagleton sounds like a don passing fruity high-table judgments’… Read the rest
Harsh Words for Latest Eagleton
Aug 14th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNarrow but not focused, high-table rambling, platitudinous, repetitious…… Read the rest
Aaronovitch on How Ideology Blinds
Aug 14th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAlmost indestructible ideological commitment that led communists to deny what they saw.… Read the rest
Wolfgang Mommsen 1930-2004
Aug 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGerman historian opposed revisionist accounts of Holocaust.… Read the rest
Research on Kennewick Man Still Restricted
Aug 13th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJustice Department forbidding DNA tests, limiting access.… Read the rest
Goddam Godless Slackers
Aug 12th, 2004 7:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonOkay, that was fun, picking fights with my colleague is good entertainment but it’s a luxury, a rare, truffle-like item that only occurs once every few years. Life is not all holiday, as Niall Ferguson has just been reminding us, so it’s time for me to get back to the hard graft of saying something substantive. Well no not substantive – I don’t know how to do that – but anyway not frivolously internecine.
Check out this piece of reactionary nonsense from the aforementioned Ferguson. I’d seen links to it here and there but didn’t bother reading it, because the links merely talked about Europe and holidays and laziness and how much better the US is – and I’ve seen … Read the rest
Blame Atheism!
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFor what? Oh, everything. Holidays, strikes, Europe. Why not after all?… Read the rest
Knowledge is More Than Cultural Capital
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt can make the world a better place; downgrading the struggle for knowledge is reactionary.… Read the rest
Shock News – The DaVinci Code is Fiction!
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPeople who think it’s fact should be herded into a crop circle and beaten with The Bible Code.… Read the rest
Declinism in France
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘so out of breath, so indebted, so closed in its own prejudices’ – narratives of decline are fun.… Read the rest
Another Myth Shot Down
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMarco Polo did not go to China, okay? He read some books he found in Persia. … Read the rest
The Repatriation Issue
Aug 12th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCritics angered by assertion of tribal rights over needs of science and knowledge.… Read the rest
Now Wait Just a Minute
Aug 11th, 2004 6:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell now really. I can’t just leave this sort of thing sitting there unopposed. It would be a dereliction of duty. I like jokes and provocations as well as the next person, but there is a limit. There are some things up with which I shall not put, to paraphrase Winny.
Or is the objection that he lacks self-knowledge; he should realise he isn’t very bright – if he isn’t – and, therefore, not have stood for the presidency? If so, let’s have a reality check here. Bloggers are hardly paragons of self-knowledge…And, anyway, since when does a lack of self-knowledge justify the kind of opprobrium levelled at Bush?
What have bloggers got to do with anything? Is that the … Read the rest
Leave Dubya Alone
Aug 11th, 2004 4:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonIf I don’t dislike George Bush as much as the next guy, I certainly dislike him enough to have stayed up all night on US election night, worrying about chads, and hoping for a Gore victory.
But what I don’t get is how come he gets so much flak for supposedly not being very bright? If it’s true, how exactly is it his fault? Is it okay, then, to attack the intellectually challenged simply because they are intellectually challenged (Madeleine Bunting notwithstanding)?
Or is the objection that he lacks self-knowledge; he should realise he isn’t very bright – if he isn’t – and, therefore, not have stood for the presidency? If so, let’s have a reality check here. Bloggers are … Read the rest
Evidence for Social Brain Theory
Aug 11th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDid humans evolve large brain to negotiate and manipulate complex social relationships?… Read the rest
Is Islam Religion or Political Ideology?
Aug 11th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBoth. ‘Religion is what makes Islamic political ideology so dangerous.’… Read the rest
Education for its Own Sake or for a Job?
Aug 11th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGradgrind, Clarke; golf course management or utterly purposeless history study.… Read the rest
Cloning of Human Embryos Given Go Ahead
Aug 11th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJust wait for the complaints of religious maniacs…… Read the rest
Style – Communication or Self-expression?
Aug 10th, 2004 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTruth-telling, therapy, sharing? Facts, beauty?… Read the rest