What is gained by translating familiar terms into exotic abstract language?
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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New Poets Can be Wrinkly
One can start writing poetry at any age.
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Twenty Best New Poets
‘Next Gens can expect a rough ride from the postmodernist hardliners…’
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MMR Does Not Cause Autism
US National Academy of Sciences report says there is no connection.
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Ian Hacking Reviews Antonio Damasio
Is the mind an organ in the brain?
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Buffy Conference in Nashville
Physicists, philosophers, theologians spoke on Buffy’s themes of redemption, mortality, evil.
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Nietzsche in the Movies on ‘Front Row’
B&W columnist talks about eternal recurrence and A Fish Called Wanda.
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A Boffin is an Engineer
People who are fascinated by the possibility of making something happen.
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South Africa, Zimbabwe, Human Rights
Mbeki governent could do more to pressure Mugabe, critics say.
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Tolkien Studies: Pop Culture or Scholarship?
Tolkien himself was a scholar, but his fans are more like Trekkies.
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Novel Without Verbs, Review Ditto
Scott McLemee in satiric vein, boneless chickens, queasy sensation.
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How Language Can Shape Thought
Philip Stott on the metalanguage of ecology.
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Eve Garrard on Amnesty International
Are violations of human rights by liberal democracies worse than greater ones elsewhere?
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Twelve Ways to be a Philosopher
Puns, promissory notes, ethical conundrums about Nazis, personal jargon.
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Frans de Waal on Animal Cognition
Do animals have a theory of mind?
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Do Animals Think? How Much? What About?
Stan Persky reviews Clive D.L. Wynne’s Do Animals Think?
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What About Apes, Do They Think?
Nathan Emery reviews Intelligence of Apes and Other Rational Beings.
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Sontag and Kael
Trash, frivolity, seriousness, moral pleasure, respectability.
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John Gray on Richard Wolin on Postmodernism
‘just another shot fired in the unending American culture wars.’
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Liberalism is 10,000 Years Old
It’s about learning to live and to trade with strangers.