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Blog, Editorial - Saturday, August 7, 2010 22:17 - 1 Comment
R.I.P. Tony Judt (1948-2010)
This is, without a doubt, a loss of monumental scale for both the world of ideas and the fight for global social justice.Tony Judt was one of the most emnient historians of his generation. His status as master chronicler of post-war europe (Notably with his book, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, published in 2005) was well deserved and will surely continue to be appreciated for generations to come.
Blog, News - Friday, April 2, 2010 2:30 - 1 Comment
In praise of (some) Israeli journalism
Today’s edition of the perennially essential, always excellent Electronic Intifada website carries a great interview with a brave voice of Israeli journalism, Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy. The interview conveys Levy’s trademark stoic timbre and his matter-of-factly excavations and denunciations of human tragedies and horrors.
A must-read from start to finish, a couple of samples:
On the role of the [...]
Blog, News - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 15:38 - 0 Comments
Chomsky: “First we rob and then destroy them, and then when they ask for a little bit of help, we kick them in the face.”
Chomsky on Haiti, Cuba, the G7 and democracy.
Blog, News - Monday, March 8, 2010 8:03 - 0 Comments
Carroll’s still in Wonderland
A year and a half ago, Red Pepper published a piece criticising the reporting of The Guardian’s Rory Carroll on Venezuela. They noted that:
In less than two years of reporting on Venezuela, Carroll has written an astonishing 79 articles with Chavez’s name in the headline alone. It is predictable then that the allegations [...]
Blog, News - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 4:33 - 1 Comment
Shenanigans at Prospect Magazine…
This month’s Prospect Magazine contains a curious diary item (subscription only) entiteld “Shenanigans at the Islam Channel” (the title on the print edition is the rather less definitive “What’s going on at the Islam Channel?”). The piece enumerates what it considers “controversial” happenings at the station. On closer inspection (on cursory inspection too, for that [...]
Blog, News - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 2:14 - 1 Comment
What the Dubai assassins did next…
So, you and a dozen “teamates” have just accomplished the olympian task of killing a lone man in his Dubai hotel room with a pillow and have escaped the country just in time to avoid capture. Where would you go next? more crucially, which country would you try to enter knowing your passports were on [...]
Blog, News - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 5:12 - 0 Comments
Media Punditry: where dishonesty lies…
An excellent investigative piece in the US magazine the Nation reports on the endemic phenomenon of TV pundits roaming the News Shows circuit disguised as neutral analysts when in fact many are out-and-out corporate lobbyists. The examples are compelling: people on the payroll of AIG praise its proposed bailout and defend its practices without their [...]
Blog, News - Monday, February 15, 2010 9:59 - 0 Comments
Targeting Iran (an inch closer)
This morning, the US Secretary of State and hawk-in-residence Hilary Clinton has taken another step in the rhetorical circling around Iran, the argument now is: Iran has turned into a military dictatorship in all but name; the Revolutionary Guards are the de facto power brokers regardless of who’s in charge politically. All of which, for those of [...]
Blog, News - Friday, February 12, 2010 11:20 - 1 Comment
Fukuyama does it (wrong) again
Francis Fukuyama, him of “End of History” fame/infamy has a new essay published in, of all places, this week’s Spectator magazine. After suffering from two decades of sneering at/mocking of his grandiose early 90s predictions, Fukuyama jumps into the midst of it all with a new “paradigm”: democracy is not just about passion and ideas [...]
Blog, News - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 23:46 - 0 Comments
On the importance of stating the obvious
The Appeals court has confirmed today that it rejected the UK government’s attempts to keep secret, information relating to the torture (or “alleged torture” as the BBC has it) of Binyam Mohamed whilst in US/Pakistani/British custody.
What is really interesting is that this is hardly a debate over the facts, pretty much everyone agrees that Mohamed [...]