Seven million Afghan children are out of school while five million children attend school.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Oxfam Says Most Afghan Children Not in School
Nov 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGirls are particularly losing out: 1 in 5 girls in primary, 1 in 20 in secondary school.… Read the rest
Misery of Women in Afghanistan
Nov 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘We were very happy. Rawa came and talked about how they could help us. But that has stopped now.’… Read the rest
Taliban Tear Teacher to Pieces; He Taught Girls
Nov 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes.… Read the rest
Sharia Law Spreading in the UK
Nov 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Some lawyers welcomed the advance of what has become known as “legal pluralism”.’… Read the rest
Where this ends and that begins
Nov 29th, 2006 2:04 am | By Ophelia BensonFrom Geoffrey Nunberg’s new book Talking Right page 134.
In the 1920s, the [Wall Street] Journal warned against the threats to freedom that were implicit in minimum wage laws [and] the child-labor amendment to the Constitution (“an assault upon the economic independence of the family…”)
I’ll get to my point, but first I’ll clear up a detail. I frowned in puzzlement when I read that, thinking ‘The – ? I didn’t know there was a child-labor amendment to the Constitution. Ignorant me.’ So I looked it up, and there isn’t; Nunberg apparently meant attempts to pass a child-labor amendment, which (no doubt with the help of the WSJ) failed.
But my point is that that is another example … Read the rest
Both sides
Nov 28th, 2006 11:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonAlan Boyle posted Allen Esterson’s reply to Troemel-Ploetz on ‘Cosmic Log’ today. I meant to say something else about the November 20 post (the one with Troemel-Ploetz’s reply) yesterday but I forgot. (I know, I know. But I can only hold one thought in my head at a time. Be patient with me.) But it’s interesting, and it’s always coming up. It’s something Boyle said this time:
We’ve gone back and forth over the role that Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, may have played in the development of the special theory of relativity…and now I’ve gotten the other side of the story from Senta Troemel-Ploetz…
The other side. Of the story. But it isn’t a story, and there isn’t … Read the rest
Chemistry Teacher Urges Teaching of ID
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘There’s little enough time with the school curriculum to deal with real science,’ says Phil Willis.… Read the rest
Christina Odone is Cross at Dawkins
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Creationism and ID have long been part of our heritage and have failed to infect it.’ Oh?… Read the rest
Please Teach Holistic Science
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReductionist scientific model keeps broader, more holistic science out. Tragic.… Read the rest
Oliver Kamm on Lawsuits Against Bloggers
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Blogging would be a less free medium than it is, and than I hope it will continue to be, if I had acceded to Mr Clark’s demands.’… Read the rest
Solicitors for Gillian McKeith Threaten to Sue
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOrder blogger to remove post on nutritionists.… Read the rest
The Health Risks of Prayer
Nov 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPraying-induced oromandibular dystonia is nothing to fool around with.… Read the rest
Sad but true
Nov 27th, 2006 7:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonDemocracy isn’t always and necessarily aligned with justice, progress, equality, women’s rights, freedom – it’s not always and necessarily aligned with anything except majority will. Majority will can be even more tyrannical than a military dictator.
… Read the restPervez Hoodbhoy’s critique of General Pervez Musharraf as a leader and as an author, in last month’s Prospect, is depressingly familiar. Of course we wish that Pakistan was a more liberal and democratic society…But simply repeating the same liberal pieties about instituting democracy and strengthening civil society won’t change the situation…There are certainly massive problems for women in Pakistan. Human rights activists suggest that a woman is raped in Pakistan every two hours. As Hoodbhoy points out, Musharraf’s government recently failed to enact
Yes but do you have any actual evidence?
Nov 27th, 2006 6:45 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo maybe women really do think logic is ‘a pestiferous male invention’ (The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense). It would seem so by this, anyway – Senta Troemel-Ploetz replying on Alan Boyle’s blog to Allen Esterson’s article on Troemel-Ploetz’s paper claiming that Mileva Marić ‘did Einstein’s mathematics.’ It’s a cringe-making performance, frankly. She offers no real evidence, she simply cites ‘a tradition that always attributes achievement to men even if the men themselves claim their wives were the authors’ and then gives three quotations from Einstein to Mileva Marić:
… Read the rest“How happy I am to have found an equal in you (eine ebenbuertige Kreatur) who is as strong and independent as I am.” “Until you are my dear little wife,
Allen Esterson Replies to Senta Troemel-Ploetz
Nov 27th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn historical investigations one must be guided by the hard evidence, not by ‘for all we know’.… Read the rest
Senta Troemel-Ploetz Replies to Allen Esterson
Nov 27th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘For all we know, she may have’ – or not.… Read the rest
Democracy Could be Worse Than Musharraf
Nov 27th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt was democracy that prevented the reform of Pakistan’s rape laws, not the dictator.… Read the rest
Clifford Geertz and the ‘Move Toward Meaning’
Nov 27th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGeertz’s models were drawn from literary theory and philosophy; he was read by scholars in the humanities. … Read the rest
John Ware on the MCB
Nov 27th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe government is finally starting to notice that the Muslim Council of Britain is in denial. … Read the rest