‘Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home.’… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Feminist Socialist ‘Devout’ Muslim Candidate
May 16th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The key issue is the headscarf and whether it can be accommodated in parliament.’… Read the rest
Jerry Falwell Dies
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf only he were the last of his kind.… Read the rest
Silence, Infidel
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo you may not criticize Islam; truth is no defense.… Read the rest
Wolfowitz Blames Riza and World Bank
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShe was intractable, bank made him do it; he is blameless. Bank thinks otherwise.… Read the rest
From D N Jha’s The Myth of the Holy Cow
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The evidence from the epics is quite eloquent. Most of the characters in the Mahabharata are meat eaters.’… Read the rest
A Skeptical View of the Sacredness of Bulls
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf bullocks are sacred, what was Indra doing scarfing one?… Read the rest
Esfandiari Being Investigated for ‘Security Crimes’
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Woodrow Wilson Center scholar is in Evin prison.… Read the rest
Bush Stands by His Wolfowitz
May 15th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThus consolidating reputation for cronyism, incompetence, corruption, and venality.… Read the rest
Steely resolve
May 15th, 2007 11:16 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Wolfowitz Matter is fairly enthralling. The level of narcissism and self-absorbtion that must be involved rivets the attention.
… Read the restWolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her “intractable position” in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit…The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said some board members hope a strong statement of dissatisfaction would persuade the Bush administration to withdraw support for Wolfowitz. But the White House views the stakes as larger than control of the World Bank, said a senior administration official, with U.S. resolve and power on the line — in particular the longstanding
Oh, no one, it’s just God
May 14th, 2007 3:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s some funny stuff in this piece by Anthony Gottlieb on the new atheist books.
… Read the restIn some religious research, it is not necessarily the respondents who are credulous. Harris has made much of a survey that suggests that forty-four per cent of Americans believe that Jesus will return to judge mankind within the next fifty years. But, in 1998, a fifth of non-Christians in America told a poll for Newsweek that they, too, expected Jesus to return. What does Harris make of that? Any excuse for a party, perhaps…Harris takes at face value a Gallup poll suggesting that eighty-three per cent of Americans regard it as the Word of God, and he, like Dawkins and Hitchens, uses up plenty of
Zimbabwe to Head Development Commission?
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPerhaps as shining example of how not to develop?… Read the rest
CPJ Outraged by Police Beating in Zimbabwe
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCPJ calls for investigation into police beating of Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa.… Read the rest
DRC Journalist Detained After Questioning Official
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLutette was imprisoned for three weeks in 2005 and a month in 2006 over critical articles. … Read the rest
Dennett Reviews Hitchens on God
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘At times, his impatience with the smug denial of the self-righteous gets the better of him.’… Read the rest
Mark Vernon on Philosophy Going Public
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHigh-profile academics working in analytic philosophy want their discipline to become engaged again. … Read the rest
Anthony Gottlieb on Atheists With Attitude
May 14th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonInterpreting the nature and prevalence of religious opinions is tricky, particularly if you depend on polls.… Read the rest
Oh who cares about TB, big deal
May 13th, 2007 3:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonJoan Smith considers the Shambo question.
… Read the restThe temple has been served with a notice insisting that he be put down, prompting outrage among representatives of the country’s Hindus, who consider cattle sacred and claim that slaughtering the infected animal would be an affront to their religion. “It strikes at the very core of our beliefs,” said Ramesh Kallidai, the secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain…[I]n 1935, when a voluntary testing scheme was introduced for cattle, 50,000 new cases of human TB were recorded annually in this country and 2,500 people died from a form of the disease passed on through cow’s milk. That’s why testing was made compulsory in 1950, along with a raft of other measures
Created partition and called it peace
May 13th, 2007 3:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonNick Cohen takes a critical look at sectarianism.
… Read the restThe old sectarian leaders [Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley] looked like a pair of exhausted warlords, who, after 30 years of a pointless conflict, were content to settle for a division of the spoils. There was no hint of a common political culture, no shared understanding of the principles of secular democracy, just a truce between bosses in which each left the other free to run his fiefdom and the quangos and ministries which went with it. A bus ride through Belfast should convince doubters that the Good Friday Agreement created partition and called it peace. The walls that went up to separate Catholics from Protestants in the Seventies have not
Jonathan Derbyshire Reviews Marc Hauser
May 13th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHauser argues that there are deep moral ‘intuitions’ that underlie cultural variations in norms.… Read the rest