September 2009
4 posts
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
August 2009
14 posts
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...
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...
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.
Posted in Idiot Hall of Fame
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Depending on your point of view, it’s either an innovative approach to building community relations or proof of the Islamisation of our police force. You might’ve heard about the revelation that two sergeants and a community support officer spent a day accompanying a group of Muslim women around Sheffield city centre. All the women, including the white police officers, were dressed in Islamic...
Not sure whether I’ll find the time to write anything this week or will just subject you all to link dumps. Watch this space, I guess.
Caroline Bennett has words & pictures on the Mexico prison where children live with their incarcerated mothers.
In the BMJ, Richard Smith thinks about ‘living funerals’.
Andrew Dismore adds to the call for an inquiry into allegations of UK complicity in...
Been a while since I did one of these…
Matthew Engel calls for an end to the war on drugs.
Albor Ruiz on the constitution-trampling excesses of the Honduran military.
In Afghanistan, human rights workers call for more aid, not more troops.
Jess McCabe finds an interesting study into the differences between feminist & non-feminist women’s views of men; discovers proof that feminists don’t...
July 2009
14 posts
The other day, a friend asked me to tap a few words in support of the protests by workers at the Vestas wind turbine factory who’re trying to stop the loss of over 600 jobs and a potentially important resource for expanding renewable energy. Whilst that support is freely given and sincerely felt, the circumstances of the case have been so widely-stated and well-documented elsewhere that I...
In my school sociology class, we used to hear a lot about the ‘Golden Age ‘. We used to learn that for every age of innocence evoked by the media or our older relatives, there were still plenty of dangers, tragedies & traumas, and that we should treat with scepticism those claims that life was much safer, healthier & more civil than the times in which we live.
The ultimate lesson from...
Because the woman behind this…
Is obviously far more principled than Margaret Moran.
Posted in British Politics
On paper at least, William Hague seems like he could be a qualified & competent Foreign Secretary. Ideological differences aside, the former Tory leader is regarded as one of the smartest men in his party, is a keen debater and someone who apparently possesses a strong interest in, and grasp of, British history. These qualities (particularly the last) are all important in a top diplomat, and...
Meet Jim DeMint. Jim is a United States Senator from South Carolina, one of the most conservative members of Congress and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Silly Analogies.
Worried that Barack Obama might merrily lead his country to dictatorship, DeMint has claimed the administration is eerily redolent of Orwell’s 1984; has suggested that America now resembles Germany just before WWII; and...
There’s a special time, which only comes once a year, where music fans, bloggers & journalists all get to gather in their pubs, clubs or online communities and stage their own re-enactment of this toe-curlingly true scene from High Fidelity:
I am, of course, talking about the announcement of the nominees for this year’s Mercury Music Prize, an award which is as important to the British...
In Nigeria, Eamon Kircher Allen finds some of the folks behind those internet email scams.
Simon Jenkins objects to the panic over swine flu.
Johann Hari defends Sasha Baron Cohen’s new cinematic creation, Bruno.
In Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens savages Gordon Brown & the Labour Party.
Is North Korea helping Burma to go nuclear?
Robert Manning considers the prospect of...
I suspect I wouldn’t agree with CentreRight’s allonymous blogger Melanchthon on very much at all, but ever since ConHome gave him a platform for his unique brand of 16th century theology , he’s at least made for a consistently provocative read. Over the weekend, Melanchthon produced a right-wing critique of the Conservative Party’s ‘Broken Society’ rhetoric, arguing that the angle team Cameron...
Nothing brings Britain’s social problems into focus like seeing them on your doorstep. What might seem abstract when described in Home Office documents or reported from unfamiliar places becomes a lot more intimate when it’s set somewhere you know: full of landmarks you’ve visited, people you might’ve met, folks who speak with the same accent or walk the same streets as you.
So when I read Mark...
A few days ago, to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the NAACP , Barack Obama stood before a room packed with African American supporters and reflected on how far the civil rights movement – and the country as a whole – had come in such a short century:
From the beginning, these founders understood how change would come — just as King and all the civil rights giants did...
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June 2009
10 posts
SocialVibe →
May Wrap-Up →
Selected Reading (15/06/09) →
Condom ‘optional’? →
Reviving Malthus →
On ‘Social Evils’ →
Small Town Napoleons: Barnsley & the BNP →
Selected Reading (10/06/09) →
Selected reading (02/06/09) →
Selected reading →
May 2009
56 posts
A Duel Will Settle This!: In defence of policy... →
“Tough on crime” and other bad jokes →
Grasping the nettle of social care →
Selected reading →
My Name Is Bagel - The Atlantic Food Channel →
Corby Kummer laments bad bagels
Sotomayor and the Republicans →
Robert Reich: Put on your seatbelts. Many Republicans have been itching for this fight.
Jay Bennett (1963-2009) →
Still Crazy After All These Years: what next for... →