Friday, Jan 27th 2012
Arguably one of the greatest surprises of the recent World Cup was the achievement of the German football team in securing third place. In the run up to the tournament, the German team had generally been regarded as one of the weakest in their history, lacking the necessary experience as well as the quality and [...]
3:AM Magazine » Interview with Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism
Interesting interview about his book Capitalist Realism, maybe more to me as I have just read it.
"3:AM: Capitalist Realism does a number of things, but one of its applications is to bring together a number of extant critiques of postmodernity succinctly and accessibly. To [...]
Prof . TERRENCE MCDONOUGH’s letter to the Irish Times
Madam, – Michael Casey, reviewing The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life(Business, July 26th), reads that evolutionary theorists believe the murder of 20 million Congolese by Belgian colonists was not down to imperialism but due to an evolutionary failure to develop sufficient trust in [...]
Book Review: Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism, Natasha Walter (Virago 2010)
When the facts changed, Natasha Walter changed her mind. Or so she says in Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism, a book that describes how raunch culture has co-opted the language of choice and liberation and how the post-feminist cultural politics of celebrating doll-like [...]
Once upon a time, superstitions and rituals were the sole preserve of reactionaries, professional athletes, the alienated, children, and those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. These days, however, it seems like everyone is aware of how little control they have over their lives and consequently feels the need to propitiate the gods of Fate and Fortune [...]
Cosmopolitan citizenship in the Middle East | openDemocracy
Superb piece by Sami Zubaida on Ottoman Cosmopolitanism and its sad decline.
'In the popular mind, international relations were conceived in communalist terms: European powers are Christian and in league with local Christians against Islam and Muslims. This communalist model, with umma nationalism at its core has been revived [...]
Fair dues to the Government. They take old news, an old set of policy projections, repackage it with a shiny new bow, and launch a fresh programme - which is presented as a stimulus and investment-driven job creation programme. And a lot of folk go along with it (though some like Miriam Lord sees the [...]
Locking them up like its going out of fashion | Prisons in crisis as number of inmates rises 14pc
The prison accommodation crisis confronting the Government is underlined by unpublished figures showing a rise of almost 14pc in the number of people sent to jail in the past year.
The statistics, which are due to be publicly [...]
What would you say if a Government Minister, discussing Budget 2011, came on to a current affairs programme and said the following:
‘To increase economic growth, we intend to cut growth. To promote employment, we’re going to cut employment. And as for emigration - we don’t care if it increases. Indeed, the Government sees some upside.’ [...]
The Irish Times on Saturday 17th July published an article about Colombian claims that Venezuela is sheltering members of the FARC guerrilla group. This is an old chestnut that Colombia and the US revive from time to time, especially if there’s need to draw attention away from other news and particularly if it’s embarrassing news. [...]
