I do like to see a good roundhouse attack like this one in The New Republic, on that contemporary American plague, the Sport Utility Vehicle. I only wish there were more of them (and that they did any good). There was an auto industry reporter on Fresh Air a few days ago, and it was a pathetic series of missed opportunities as Terri Gross let the guy rhapsodize about the wonders of the SUV without bothering to point out the obvious drawbacks. For instance he sang a little aria to the joy of being so high up off the road and able to look over the other traffic. Well yes, and SUV drivers are so high up that they … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Where Are the Young People With Nose Studs?
Jan 12th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShould the National Theatre be required to attract yoof?… Read the rest
‘Scientific dishonesty’?
Jan 11th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA Danish political scientist is rebuked for optimistic book on environmental issues.… Read the rest
Apples and Oranges
Jan 10th, 2003 7:45 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is an interesting and uncomfortable story. The American Association of University Professors is about to publish a study which shows that Affirmative Action policies at US colleges and universities have failed to close the gap between whites on the one hand and blacks and Hispanics on the other.
The article will highlight admissions policies that give special consideration to the children of alumni and donors to colleges; prepaid-tuition plans, which benefit only those parents who can afford to save money for college; and the current movement among many public colleges to tighten admissions standards and end remedial programs, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Surely that sentence skates rapidly over the difficult issues inherent in the subject. Surely there … Read the rest
‘Cultural Difference’ and its Discontents
Jan 10th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBrian Barry’s Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism was short-listed for the British Academy prize, which rewards academic excellence combined with accessibility to the general reader.… Read the rest
Study on Affirmative Action in US Higher Education
Jan 10th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStudy blames admissions policies that favor children of alumni, and the movement to tighten admissions standards, for failure to narrow racial gap.… Read the rest
Is ‘science for citizens’ real science?
Jan 10th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe jury is out on radical plans to restructure high school science curricula in the UK. … Read the rest
Who Needs Evidence When You Have Publicity?
Jan 9th, 2003 6:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh good, another piece of Imaginative History, or The Case of the Peekaboo Evidence. Not unlike the Clonaid festivities last week, when the ‘Raelians’ announced the birth of the first cloned baby, but when invited to provide DNA evidence to support such a surprising claim, came over all bashful. There is a good deal of sly wit in Natalie Danford’s Salon piece about retired Admiral Gavin Menzies’ claim that the Chinese sailed to America seventy years before Columbus. It was a shrewd move, for example, to rent the lecture hall of the Royal Geographical Society as the place to announce his ‘discovery’. And publicity does do the trick: there has been so much attention that Menzies’ American publishers have advanced … Read the rest
The Attention of People Who Care
Jan 9th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDavid Bromwich disagrees with Louis Menand that dispassion is the proper state for a critic.… Read the rest
Did the Chinese Discover America?
Jan 9th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRenting the Royal Geographical Society lecture hall and inviting an audience is one way to get attention.… Read the rest
Richard Sennett on the Cello and Respect
Jan 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe sociologist is more ambivalent than he was in his ‘ferocious Marxist phase’.… Read the rest
Language Has to be Taught
Jan 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd the television doesn’t do the job.… Read the rest
Less Optimistic But More Impatient
Jan 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEdmund Gordon studies the achievment gap between black and white students.… Read the rest
Exam Still Bowdlerizes Texts
Jan 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNew York Regents’ exam continues to re-write and abridge literary excerpts, despite promises not to. Quis custodiet?… Read the rest
It’s a Gun Rap
Jan 7th, 2003 10:58 pm | By Ophelia BensonIs it a possibility that music can impact on culture in such a way so as to affect people’s behaviour? Apparently not, at least not if the music is rap, the behaviour violent, and you agree with Viv Craske, editor of Mixmag and would be sociologist. To suggest such a thing is “racist, out of touch and bigoted”. But Mr Craske is a little confused. On the one hand, he claims that “if gun crime is up 55%, it can’t be down to music in any part” (he didn’t elaborate on whether it might be down to music in some part if gun crime is up say 54%). But, on the other hand, he doesn’t accept that guns are … Read the rest
More on the Edge Question
Jan 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe New York Times editorial on Edge’s science question, with extracts from several answers.… Read the rest
Edge Science Questionaire
Jan 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEdge asks scientists what they would tell the President, if he asked them, are the most pressing science issues he should be attending to. Alas, he hasn’t asked.… Read the rest
Fresh Meat? Old Meat? Scraps?
Jan 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDid hunting shape human evolution, or was it foraging and scavenging? Or both?… Read the rest
Is Pointing Out the Obvious ‘Racist’?
Jan 6th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCulture minister worries aloud about glamorization of guns by rappers, finds self ‘at the centre of a race row’.… Read the rest
You Know You Want It
Jan 5th, 2003 8:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell, those silly Victorians, you know, of course they thought about sex every instant of their lives just as we do, but they wouldn’t admit it, the nasty hypocritical creatures, but we’ll fix them, we’ll just make a lot of movies and tv shows based on 19th century novels and if the sex isn’t there we’ll just damn well insert it! So to speak. There is an excellent article on this subject in the Boston Globe today. In it Abby Wolf reports, among other things, that child sexual abuse was featured in a tv drama based on Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, a feature that is entirely absent from the novel. This is one reason not to see … Read the rest