It’s official: American women can now kill strange people in strange lands, put themselves in harm’s way and die for their country. The Pentagon’s announcement that women in the US military will now be allowed to serve in combat zones finally brings to an end a discriminatory policy that had looked increasingly ludicrous as women continuedContinue reading “Young Lady, You Too Can Strap On An Ammo Belt”
Category Archives: Politics
Martin Luther King Jr.: Menace II (Racist) Society
As a callow boy, I used to confuse Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. Fortunately, that ignorant conflation didn’t last too long and I soon got the two of them sorted out. The first one complicated my understanding of Christianity, the second that of my home for twenty-five years, the United States of America,Continue reading “Martin Luther King Jr.: Menace II (Racist) Society”
David Runciman is a Little Confused About the Power of Confusion
In reviewing Ferdinand Mount‘s The New Few, or a Very British Oligarchy: Power and Inequality in Britain Now (‘Confusion is Power‘, London Review of Books, Volume 34, Number 11, 7 June 2012), David Runciman writes: James Burnham, author of the The Managerial Revolution (1941) envisaged a post-democratic order in which power was concentrated in the hands of an eliteContinue reading “David Runciman is a Little Confused About the Power of Confusion”
Sneak Preview: Lance Armstrong to Redefine Douchebaggery
I do not yet know if I have the stomach to watch the Lance Armstrong interview tonight on the Oprah Winfrey show. Not alone at least. If I do, it will be in company so that we can turn it into spectator sport. That’s the least that Lance and Oprah deserve, a chance to beContinue reading “Sneak Preview: Lance Armstrong to Redefine Douchebaggery”
Gun Control, Propaganda, and the Susceptibility of Man to ‘Unreason’
In An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), William Godwin wrote: Show me in the clearest and most unambiguous manner that a certain mode of proceeding is most reasonable in itself, or most conducive to my interest, and I shall infallibly pursue that mode, so long as the views you suggested to me, continue present toContinue reading “Gun Control, Propaganda, and the Susceptibility of Man to ‘Unreason’”
Against Their Will: Everywhere, All The Time, Drunk, In Packs
I thought I had said everything I wanted to about the horrible gang-rape case in Delhi, but I feel compelled to put down a few additional observations. They center on what made this case notable, and what perhaps needs a little more attention. In no particular order, here they are. First, the Delhi rape would not haveContinue reading “Against Their Will: Everywhere, All The Time, Drunk, In Packs”
Carmen Ortiz Did Not Act Alone in Hounding Aaron Swartz To His Death
No prosecution of war criminals, torturers and mass murderers; no prosecution of those that declare a war on false pretense; no prosecution of those that indulge in grand larceny and financial fraud, immiserating the lives of many; no prosecuting of the rich and the powerful; but over-zealous hounding of a young, idealistic, brilliant man whose onlyContinue reading “Carmen Ortiz Did Not Act Alone in Hounding Aaron Swartz To His Death”
The Deadliness of Humorlessness
In the climactic scenes of Umberto Eco‘s The Name of the Rose, Adso of Melk and William of Baskerville confront the old, blind, and malignant librarian Jorge, sworn, no matter the price to be paid in lives, to keeping Aristotle‘s Poetics a perennial secret because of its subversive doctrines that not only analyze and permit laughter,Continue reading “The Deadliness of Humorlessness”
David Shulman on Asia’s Autonomous Discovery of Modernity
In his review (‘The Revenge of the East, New York Review of Books, October 11, 2012) of Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), David Shulman provides an interesting disputation of Mishra’s claim that Asia’s–as yet incomplete and flawed–encounter with modernity began via and through a series of interactionsContinue reading “David Shulman on Asia’s Autonomous Discovery of Modernity”
2012’s Top Five Posts (Here, Not Elsewhere)
2012, the year that was (or still is, for a few more hours), turned out to be a busy one for blogging at this site. I wrote three hundred and twenty-four new posts, bringing the total for this blog to three hundred and fifty-five. The blog finally crossed fifty thousand views. (A humbling figure, ifContinue reading “2012’s Top Five Posts (Here, Not Elsewhere)”
Samir Chopra 