Ireland locked up more of its citizens than anywhere else in the world – not in prisons, but in psychiatric hospitals, Magdalene laundries and industrial schools.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Pigliucci on William Lane Craig and logical fallacies
Jun 8th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThere are situations where invoking the origin of an idea or belief is actually pertinent to the discussion, and does not constitute a fallacy at all.… Read the rest
James Croft on how not to end a conversation
Jun 8th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSomebody wants to set up a new college? Bring out the bombs!… Read the rest
Nigel Warburton on how not to end a conversation
Jun 8th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEnding a conversation with a smoke bomb is very different from spontaneous heckling or angry questioning: it is a form of pre-meditated censorship.… Read the rest
Rape victim jailed for adultery
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRomanticizing the spiritual foundations
Jun 7th, 2011 4:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’m reading Sikivu Hutchinson’s wonderful new book Moral Combat. There’s an apposite passage about Jim Wallis in the first chapter:
… Read the restWallis argues that America is suffering from a crisis of values. Progressive religious belief is the antidote to this crisis because “history is most changed by social movements with a spiritual foundation.” [Wallis, God’s Politics, p 24] This view fails to consider the extent to which American social movements – from the white supremacist imperialist spiritual foundations of the Revolutionary War to the patriarchal and heterosexist spiritual foundations of the modern civil rights movement – have been hindered by their “spiritual” foundations. By romanticizing the spiritual foundations of social movements, Wallis demonstrates that he is unwilling to interrogate how
Murkan says: give Grayling’s new college a chance
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUK and US are full of people who fervently believe in the principle of universal education and just as fervently object to paying higher taxes or tuition fees.… Read the rest
Smoke bomb set off at Foyles by NCH protesters
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLots of shouting and heckling, then lots of red smoke; all very educational.… Read the rest
A simple story
Jun 7th, 2011 1:03 pm | By Ophelia BensonEntirely familiar, nothing new, but heartbreaking all the same. Multiply by X million every year.
“I wanted to get an education but my parents were determined to marry me off,” says Himanot Yehewala, an Ethiopian girl who was married five years ago at the age of 13.
“I tried to run away but my mother said she would kill herself if I did not marry him.”
That’s all – just that. She wanted to get an education, but she couldn’t; she had to stop getting an education and be a premature adult, instead. Her chance of a more interesting and useful life was over, at age 13. Multiply by X million every year.… Read the rest
Ethiopia: girls fight child marriages
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“I wanted to get an education but my parents were determined to marry me off,” says Himanot Yehewala, who was married five years ago at the age of 13.… Read the rest
Dons defend plan for £18,000-a-year college
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLeading academics have defended their plans to build a privately funded university to rival Oxford and Cambridge from accusations of elitism.… Read the rest
Academics launch £18,000 college in London
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReceive heavy criticism in comments.… Read the rest
UN Committee Against Torture reports on Magdalenes
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSays Irish govt should set up statutory investigation into allegations of torture and degrading treatment against women committed to Magdalene Laundries.… Read the rest
NY Times on Amina Araf’s abduction
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShe has been openly critical of the Syrian government’s response to the protest movement.… Read the rest
“Gay Girl in Damascus” abducted
Jun 7th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRelatives of Amina Abdallah, a Syrian-American blogger and activist, said she was bundled into a car by suspected security agents on Monday.… Read the rest
Gender aesthetics
Jun 6th, 2011 6:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonSomeone posted a shoe-fetish shoe (picture of) at Facebook, which naturally triggered a lively discussion of the semiotics of catch me-fuck me shoes. I pondered the agony to the calf muscles that would be caused by attempting to stand on the damn things – the heels look taller than the foot is long, so how is that even possible?
Anyway, some fella came along to straighten it all out with an aphoristic insight into the nature of women.
… Read the restGreat shoes, fancy clothing, cosmetic surgery, lipstick, waxings, hairdos, jewelry, makeup, and perfume are all unnecessary. However, if they were eliminated, I think the gay male population would increase rapidly and the women of the world would all look like the babushka
Justice for Saleem Shahzad? We’ve seen this before…
Jun 6th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe anger surrounding the abduction and murder of Saleem Shahzad is still raging.… Read the rest
Amir Mir asks: who killed Saleem Shahzad?
Jun 6th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe will not be the last journalist killed for uncovering the truth; there are many journalists in Pakistan who put truth ahead of so-called “national interest”.… Read the rest
Saleem Shahzad’s former employer retorts to ISI
Jun 6th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShahzad “confided to me and several others that he had received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years.”… Read the rest