And other strange frontiers funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Submission
Nov 20th, 2003 7:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonI have something I want to comment about, but I keep musing on a different subject, instead. On what a disgusting world it’s turning into, and what an unimaginably disgusting world it would be if the bombers got their way. We thought things were bad before! What with the US propping up repressive blood-thirsty regimes all over the planet as long as they were hostile to the Soviet Union (as Bush acknowledged in London today), and what with the two super-powers piling up ever more and more nukes. But that all looks like a nice cozy tea-party compared to what’s shaping up now, doesn’t it. There is just nothing quite like the combination of nuclear weapons and people who would … Read the rest
Bloody Hell
Nov 20th, 2003 4:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh, hell. I despair sometimes, I really do. As who doesn’t. Who in hell doesn’t. What a world, what a world, as the Wicked Witch said. Istanbul, of all places. Well of course. It’s secular. It’s near Europe, and has dealings with the nasty place, and allows women to drive cars and think of themselves as human beings. So let’s just bomb the bejesus out of it.
And kill the British Consul-General, and a lot of people in the street near the bank. A fitting follow-up to killing those pesky Jews at the synagogue the other day. And more tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow – all in the name of a world more like Taliban-world. The worst possible nightmare for … Read the rest
BHL Irritates People
Nov 20th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Showing up the unreality of conventional world views tends to infuriate.… Read the rest
Istanbul, Again
Nov 20th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Bomb attacks on bank and consulate leave at least 25 dead including the British Consul-General, and devastate Turkey.… Read the rest
Institutes of Technology Thrive in India
Nov 19th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Engineers and computer scientists more admired than lawyers and academics.… Read the rest
‘Ghost Ships’ Not All That Spooky?
Nov 19th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In fact no more dangerous than most ships. Crying wolf is not clever.… Read the rest
Two Cheers for Nerds
Nov 18th, 2003 9:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonIsn’t it nice, the way we’re always so anxious not to let each other get above ourselves? The way we’re so terrifically concerned to make sure no one gets any big ideas? The way we’re so very very careful to make sure that everyone understands that our first duty is always to be normal, to be regular, to be like everyone else – so that if we must do something as eccentric and peculiar and self-indulgent as developing some intellectual curiosity and thirst for knowledge and inclination to think about things – well, all right, maybe we can be forgiven for that, as long as we can show that we’re not nerds about it, and that we realize how boring … Read the rest
They Were Murdered for Being Jews
Nov 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hitchens on the Istanbul synagogue bombing.… Read the rest
Amartya Sen on Democracy
Nov 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s more than public balloting, it’s the ‘exercise of public reason.’… Read the rest
Gurcharan Das on Martha Nussbaum
Nov 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘The Sangh Parivar’s idea of a Hindu nation goes against this basic tenet of our Constitution.’ … Read the rest
Wetlands Cause Pollution
Nov 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If the research irritates developers, well, get new researchers!… Read the rest
Open-Access Science Publishing
Nov 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s not a plot to destroy capitalism, it’s a different way to make research available.… Read the rest
Not OK Corral
Nov 16th, 2003 11:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is an interesting item on Kenan Malik’s site. An email from Nirjay Mahindru, administrator of Tara Arts theatre, commenting on and agreeing with Malik’s tv documentary Disunited Kingdom, and talking about the way the focus on diversity and ethnicity forces minority groups to talk about certain subjects only or else shut up.
… Read the restArtistically, this type of vetting, for fundamentally that’s what it is, consistently holds the British Asian artistic community back and ensures that cutting edge challenging theatre is somehow viewed as the exclusive monopoly of whites…Thus, I am expected to write basic derivates of ‘Bollywood’, or plays that deal with ‘the family’. What I can’t write about (as no venue will produce it) are plays that could
Insiders and Outsiders
Nov 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Can minority communities be studied only by their own members?… Read the rest
‘Berlusconism’ for Short
Nov 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Money has contempt for the life of the mind, George Steiner says.… Read the rest
No, Not a Coincidence
Nov 15th, 2003 7:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonIn a way I hesitate to make this criticism, because the writer of this letter also wrote a good one on another issue. But I just feel compelled to make this one comment, because people keep saying the same thing, and it keeps being wrong and point-missing.
The author would do good to actually address the issues of trying to articulate what hasn’t been articulated before rather than simply trashing everyone who tries to write on difficult issues.
The trouble with that is that I’m emphatically not ‘trashing everyone who tries to write on difficult issues,’ and I never said I was. I’m ‘trashing’ or rather criticising bad writing, not writing on difficult issues. It’s simply not the case … Read the rest
Teaching is Another Form of Political Domination
Nov 15th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And graduate study at Yale is so over, and Buffy was never the same after the fourth season.… Read the rest
Love of Knowledge is not ‘White’
Nov 15th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Self-imposed barriers can be the hardest to overthrow.… Read the rest
Why Did the Tate Apologise?
Nov 15th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It’s not the Tate’s job to appease the sensibilities of particular religious groups, says Kenan Malik.… Read the rest