Sutherland quotes the wisdom of Islamophobiawatch.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Dude, I Bedazzled These Jeans
Apr 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPadma Lakshmi like talks to a Times reporter.… Read the rest
Christians in Afghanistan
Apr 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPersecution has turned Afghan converts into a closely knit underground organization. … Read the rest
Football, Race and ‘Identity’
Apr 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLeipzig fans spit and hoot at Nigerian footballer. There’s solidarity for you.… Read the rest
Plaid
Apr 3rd, 2006 11:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonConsider monism. The Ethics of Identity page 143-4.
… Read the restMany theorists – among them William Galston, John Gray, Bhikhu Parekh, and Uday Singh Meta – hold the great enemy to be monism, and, in particular, the philosophical monism they associate with the classic texts of liberalism, not excluding Mill himself. The monist tradition that Parekh has painstakingly traced, in his Rethinking Multiculturalism, starts with Plato and haunts us still; it is characterized by a belief in the universality of human nature…Raz is faulted for his bigoted insistence on autonomy; Kymlicka is faulted for the requirement that national minorities must, at least in some measure, respect liberal principles of individual liberty. The trail of the monist serpent is over them
The Raven Itself is Hoarse
Apr 3rd, 2006 6:59 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell there I was thinking the restored update thing was going just swimmingly, and then I had a horrible experience yesterday evening when I sent the third one. I got emails back saying it didn’t work: people clicked on the links and got nothing. All my hair stood on end, the glass shivered in the windows, the milk turned sour in the fridge, and the barometer fell. So I howled, and flung myself back and forth in a passion, and threw things, and then I sent a new update to myself and tested it and then sent it to the list, with an apology. But it’s very annoying. I have no idea why it didn’t work, and don’t like having … Read the rest
Fumblings in the Dark
Apr 3rd, 2006 6:03 pm | By Ophelia BensonA thought for the day or two.
Sam Harris doing a spot of the ever-popular ‘religion-bashing’:
It is worth noting that no one ever needs to identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist.
Ben Goldacre getting cross with pseudoscientific burbling:
… Read the restI’m waiting to be very impressed by any kid who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage, but it’s going to involve dissection with the sharp scissors that only mummy can use…Children listen to what you tell them: that’s the point of being a child, that’s the reason why you don’t come out fully-formed, speaking English with a favourite album…I’ve just kicked the Brain Gym Teacher’s Edition around the room for two minutes and I’m feeling minty fresh.
Exercise Brain Without Pseudoscientific Nonsense
Apr 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA popular technique with a scientific explanatory framework that is barkingly out to lunch.… Read the rest
Empire of Pseudoscience Peddled in Schools
Apr 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJust kicked Brain Gym Teacher’s Edition around the room for two minutes and feeling minty fresh.… Read the rest
Study Finds Prayer Non-medicinal
Apr 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIntercessory prayer doesn’t help and, if mentioned, may hinder.… Read the rest
Peer Review and ‘Media Science’
Apr 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHow do we tell good science from bad? By looking at how it is published.… Read the rest
Ronald Aronson: the Left Needs More Socialism
Apr 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe left is doomed without a vision, a sense of direction and an effective call to arms.… Read the rest
Letter from No Man’s Land
Apr 3rd, 2006 | By Niala MaharajThe ground on which a United Nations conference takes place is No Man’s Land, outside the legal jurisdiction of the surrounding country. Here, in a barren field on the outskirts of Tunis, it is No Man’s Land par excellence.
Buses shuttle laptops -and their requisite laps- from tightly guarded hotels to a gigantic, tightly-guarded, white plastic tent here. Tunisians aren’t allowed anywhere near either the hotels or the tent. In fact, they’ve been sent on holiday. All schools and government offices are shut. The gigolos that normally press their services on female visitors must take a break or face jail. The streets are empty of traffic.
Inside the tent, the laptops can put conference information on websites, so laptops across … Read the rest
Move over ID, here comes Bhartiya Creationism
Apr 3rd, 2006 | By Ravi RavishankarEven as the intelligent design controversy rages on, California recently
witnessed a concerted push by a coalition of three Hindutva (Hindu
supremacist) groups – Hindu Education Foundation, Vedic Foundation and
the Hindu American Foundation – to doctor sixth grade social science
textbooks. Their strong ideological and organizational links with the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India makes them all the more
dangerous, for any success here would provide a much-needed fillip to
the RSS family of organizations in India [1]. Fortunately, interventions
by a group of Indologists led by Professor Michael Witzel and strong
mobilizations by the South Asian community resulted in a resounding
defeat for the Hindutva groups.
As repeatedly pointed out by groups at the forefront of the … Read the rest
Yardley Reviews a Memoir by John McGahern
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘In that one life of the mind, the writer could live many lives and all of life.’… Read the rest
An Alumni Mag Profile Gone Horribly Wrong
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScott McLemee notes a confusion between sententious comments and profound thought.… Read the rest
Stephen Greenblatt on Marlowe
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIs there any connection between his spying and his writing?… Read the rest
LRB Editor Defends Article
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSome charge anti-Semitism, others call article a shoddy piece of pseudo-academia.… Read the rest
Professors Called Liars and Bigots
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLRB article on Israel lobby set off firestorm, drawing condemnation from left and right.… Read the rest
Fouad Ajami on Sen’s ‘Identity and Violence’
Apr 2nd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Almohads’ pitiless warriors put to the sword the fabled world of Andalusian tolerance.… Read the rest