BleedingHeartShow

As demotions go, it could’ve been worse. Whilst Alan Duncan won’t be a member of the cabinet if a Prime Minister Cameron names him Minister for Prisons, the role is still massively important if the Tories are serious about mending their ‘broken society’. With a population of over 80,000, prisons groaning under the weight of over-crowding, and a pathetic rehabilitation rate which means we waste much of the $4bn spent annually, Duncan would oversee an aspect of the criminal…

Should anyone wonder why Heresy Corner is held in such high regard, this response to my recent post on Islam & western feminism should prove instructive. When something is this well written & persuasively argued , you wonder whether it’s even possible to make a critique, even if you do have disagreements.

Expanding on what I thought were misguided generalisations about feminism’s ‘betrayal’ of Muslim women, The Heresiarch accepts that there are plenty of feminist writers & organisations…

• Total Politics has published its top 100 centre-left bloggers, which features many great, interesting writers. And Tom Harris.
• Apparently, teachers can’t be trusted to conduct themselves well in public.
• Anton Vowl on how our glorious press treats rape victims.
• Joe Romm asks us to consider a world without fish.
• Andrew Exum on being the only person in Washington willing to defend the Afghanistan mission on TV.
• Speaking of which, Arnaud de Borchgrave has a pretty stark…

For some reason, these past few weeks have seen a great deal of attention paid to the relationship between Islam and western feminism. The latest issue of Standpoint features lengthy essays by Clive James & Nick Cohen who both argue that feminists have let down their Muslim sisters by failing to protest with sufficient vigour at the atrocities carried-out in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, The Guardian’s CiF ran a series which asked “can western feminism save Muslim women?” To this,

• In their wisdom, the editors of Standpoint have decided to make feminists this month’s object of opprobrium. Nick Cohen & Clive James have both contributed very similar articles accusing feminism of turning a blind eye to Islamic misogyny. I’ll try to type my own tuppenceworth about this issue tomorrow.
• In Red Pepper, Joanna Cabello writes about environmentalism in Peru.
• Joshua Foust responds to General Stanley McChrystal’s assessment of the failing war in…

To be honest, just the fact that I’m writing this is something of an achievement. Before this clearing house for over-caffeinated ramblings came into being, the longest I’d kept any sort of record was a 1997 “Top of the Pops” diary, which was kept for just two months & documented the details of my juvenalia: the popstars I fancied, the episodes of Star Trek I’d watched, the computer games I was playing & the trips my brother & I had made to Meadowhall. Looking back, it wasn’t the…

To borrow from one of the Senator’s most memorable speeches, Edward Kennedy need not not be idealised or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. There will not – and should not – be a single obituary which avoids mention of the murky & tragic death in Martha’s Vineyard, and every attempt to pay tribute to his life & work must recognise how starkly this act of private cowardice contrasts with the determination & bravery which marked his public life.

Kennedy was as flawed…

It’s a little troubling to discover that the people we elect to decide on matters of war & peace can lack the most basic comprehension skills.

• The image above is borrowed from Global Health Magazine, and I don’t suppose any further comment is required. (Via)
• Rahila Gupta on Britain’s immigration laws.
• Larry Elliott calls Tory economic policy an ‘incoherent mishmash of ideas designed by focus group’
• Stephen Walt critiques the assertion that Aghanistan is a ‘war of necessity‘.
• E.J. Dionne has an excellent column on the far-right hysteria surrounding Barack Obama.
• Meanwhile, Joe Klein argues that…

This might be my last missive ’til Monday; tomorrow I’m off to Liverpool to meet my brother and after that I’ll have some friends coming round for a few days. So here’s some stuff:

• Tim Montgomerie has seven defences of political blogging.
• In the Washington Post, Peter Moskos & Stanford Franklin make another case for legalising drugs. Matthew Yglesias offers a partial critique.
• If you’ve got an hour to spare, this diavlog between Joshua Foust & Michael Cohen on the future of…

I suppose I was never really cut out for scouting. A preposterously timid, unfit little boy, I had little in common with the boistrous, energetic lads who liked climbing, fighting & setting various things on fire.

It didn’t help that I wasn’t particularly outdoorsy. I resented being forced to sleep somewhere which wasn’t my own warm, cumfy bed, I never ate the campfire ‘cuisine’ and couldn’t read a map to save my life.

We once went on a late night hike around the rural parts of Barnsley…

When Israel launched its military offensive against Hamas last year, critics of the operation made a number of important points. First, we argued that it was a fantasy to believe these raids would do anything more than briefly reduce its ability to toss rockets into Israel, and that there would be no prospect of either destroying the group, or fatally weakening its grip over the Gaza Strip. But more importantly than that, we also insisted that it was a mistake to think Hamas’ defeat would…

You’re not exactly spoilt for choice, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more interesting member of the U.S. Congress than Jim Webb. A decorated Vietnam veteran who still defends the decision to go to war; an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq; a journalist & author; a former Secretary of the Navy; a former Republican and now the Senior Democratic Senator from the traditionally conservative state of Virginia.

But it’s not just Webb’s rich life story which makes him…

On 16th February 2002, Valentina Rosendo Cantú was washing her clothes in a stream near her home in Caxitepec, Mexico, when six soldiers approached. Seemingly too busy for pleasantries, the men started barking questions at her: Who was she? Where was she from? Had she seen the people they were looking for? Did she recognise the names on the list they thrust in front of her?

Her answers weren’t good enough, so one soldier pulled a gun and threatened to shoot. Another punched her so…

Is she as you imagined her? The slackened jaw; the furrowed brow; the baffled, vacant expression. Does she fit the image you had of the callous, ‘sex-obsessed slob‘ who puffed smoke, glugged booze and watched porn whilst her boyfriend & lodger tortured her son to death?

Ultimately, of course, it doesn’t matter. It won’t bring Peter Connelly back, won’t prevent further abuses from happening, won’t stop other helpless little boys & girls from being murdered by the people in…