Author: Ophelia Benson

  • ‘New Perspectives on Faith and Development’

    Tony Blair Faith Foundation, Islamic Relief et al. to host ‘groundbreaking’ seminars on Faith and Development.

  • Oliver Kamm on Howard Zinn

    If your heart is in the right place, the assumption is, then it doesn’t matter if your scholarship is sloppy.

  • The Boston Globe on Howard Zinn

    His books and plays are about the power of ordinary people to affect history.

  • Rules of supermarket deportment

    A brief frivolous interlude to consider one small aspect of daily life.

    A Tesco store has asked customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot…A spokesman said Tesco did not have a strict dress code but it does not want people shopping in their nightwear in case it offends other customers.

    Or not so much offends them as makes them feel sick. That’s how it affects me. The sight of people outside in the world in their bedroom slippers, or with bed hair, or in their pyjamas, makes me feel very queasy indeed. It’s much the same if I see people flossing their teeth or cutting their toenails in public; or picking their noses, or applying unguents to a suppurating wound, or peeling a scab, or searching around in their hair in case there are any lice or ticks or fleas lurking up there. There are things people shouldn’t do in public, and those are some of them. I applaud Tesco’s attempt to maintain a vestige of dignity and seemliness in modern life.

    Elaine Carmody, 24, a full-time mother of two young boys, described the ban as “ridiculous” and “pathetic”. She said she had regularly gone shopping at the store in her pyjamas until about a week ago when she was turned away when she went to buy cigarettes. She said she had been “popping in for a pack of fags,” but if she had been doing a full shop “then we obviously would have gone in clothed. But we only wanted fags and they still refused us to go in for a pack of cigarettes,” she added.

    Ah isn’t that nice – Elaine Carmody is so frantically busy being the mother of two young boys that she can’t manage to put real clothes on before she goes to Tesco, so she regularly went shopping there in her unsightly pyjamas. Of course, she assures us, with her unerring grasp of the niceties, if she had been doing “a full shop” then obviously – obviously! – she would have put actual clothes on, but they ‘only wanted fags’ – she and her two young boys. Well of course they did, and what a cozy family group they do sound, running into Tesco in their jammies for a packet of fags and then running back home to smoke them. Yet Tesco didn’t find them appealing! It’s astonishing, isn’t it?

    Elaine Carmody says quite a lot more; the BBC pretty obviously finds her hilarious. They thoughtfully provide a picture of her in her pyjamas, too, so that we can get an idea. We get one.

  • Iran Executes 2 Mohareb or ‘Enemies of God’

    The prosecutor’s office said nine other detained protesters have been condemned to death as Mohareb.

  • Orthodoxy Enforcement at Wheaton College

    Wheaton is nondenominational, but has a detailed statement of faith that all at the college must follow.

  • Ogling Teaches Women to Self-objectify

    When a female believes her body is being sized up by a male, she’ll diminish her presence by speaking less.

  • Questioning Homophobic Pseudoscience

    ‘That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical.’

  • Roeder Convicted of First-Degree Murder

    It took jurors 37 minutes to convict Scott Roeder of first-degree murder in the death of George R. Tiller.

  • Blair is Sorry the War Was ‘Divisive’

    He acknowledged ‘things obviously look quite different’ now given the failure to find any weapons.

  • Tesco Says No Shopping in Pyjamas

    Buffoon doesn’t see why, she only wanted a packet of fags, she would have worn clothes for a full shop.

  • Johann Hari on Corruption in America

    It has reached the point that lobbyists now often write the country’s laws. Not metaphorically; literally.

  • A Common Problem in Science Journalism

    Science reporters tend to avoid looking hard at research that produces interesting conclusions.

  • Panel Finds MMR Scare Doctor ‘Acted Unethically’

    Wakefield’s Lancet study caused vaccination rates to plummet, resulting in a rise in measles.

  • Televangelist Accused of Fraud Over Haiti Relief

    Six televangelist ministries are being investigated by Senate Finance Committee for possible tax law fraud.

  • ‘Europe Must Assert its Religious Identity’

    Italian Foreign Affairs Minister laments lack of ‘common European identity’ which he takes to be Xian.

  • Russell Blackford on Complexities of Free Speech

    What if speech with real social value seems very likely to lead to violence?

  • Village life

    I have nothing to add.

    A 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh has been given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault. The girl’s father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay. According to human rights activists, the girl, who was quickly married after the attack, was divorced weeks later after medical tests revealed she was pregnant. The girl was raped by a 20-year-old villager in Brahmanbaria district in April last year…Muslim elders in the village issued a fatwa insisting that the girl be kept in isolation until her family agreed to corporal punishment.

    Her rapist was pardoned by the elders.

    No, I have nothing to add.

  • Ben Goldacre on Animal Research

    A lot of it is flawed; it’s stupid to make animals suffer to do flawed research. Do it right.

  • Christianity Explained for Pesky Militant Atheists

    Christianity is based on the Bible, as read in the light of reason under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, OK?