The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . A brief history of Stephen Hawking: A legacy of paradox Stuart Clark, New Scientist, 14 March 2018 ‘I think most physicists would agree that Hawking’s greatest contribution is the prediction that black holes emit radiation,’ says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. ‘While we still don’t have experimental […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Massacre in Myanmar Wa Lone, Kyaw Soe Oo, Simon Lewis & Antoni Slodkowsk, Reuters, 8 February 2018 Bound together, the 10 Rohingya Muslim captives watched their Buddhist neighbors dig a shallow grave. Soon afterwards, on the morning of Sept. 2, all 10 lay dead. At least two were hacked to death by Buddhist […]

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The latest  (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Buy banned books Bonny Brooks, Quilette, 30 January 2018 Of course, the woke among us will shrug and say that Laura Moriarity should check her (white) privilege. Alas, such people suffer from hubris and fail to realise that, in the end, this identity puritanism will come for everyone – yes, even black […]

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The latest  (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Am I a bad feminist? Margaret Atwood, Globe & Mail, 13 January 2018 It seems that I am a “Bad Feminist.” I can add that to the other things I’ve been accused of since 1972, such as climbing to fame up a pyramid of decapitated men’s heads (a leftie journal), of being […]

Categories: Pandaemonium

As another year draws to a close, here are some of the highlights of a year of Pandaemonium in 2017. . Liberalism, populism and democracy In my first essay of the year, I wrote that ‘Democracy, on the surface at least, is in rude health. It is liberalism that is in trouble.’ I gave the keynote address at the 2017 Karlsruhe Dialogues on ‘The Pluralistic Society and its Enemies’. The subject of my talk was ‘Can Diversity Embrace Democracy? Can Democracy Acknowledge […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . God’s oppressed children Pankaj Mishra, New York Review of Books, 21 December 2017 Many Indian houses still have a simple pit toilet, which consists of a large hole in the floor. The feces are collected at night by ‘manual scavengers,’ who, Sujatha Gidla writes in Ants Among Elephants, ‘carry away human shit’ and […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . This poisonous cult of personality Pankaj Mishra, NYR Daily, 1 December 2017 Donald Trump’s election last year exposed an insidious politics of celebrity, one in which a redemptive personality is projected high above the slow toil of political parties and movements. As his latest tweets about Muslims confirm, this post-political figure seeks, […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . How Britain did Gaddafi’s dirty work Ian Cobain, Guardian, 9 November 2017 As the CIA and MI6 built relationships with Libya, the two agencies assisted Libyan spies in the kidnapping of Gaddafi’s enemies. Two leading figures in the Libyan opposition who had fled the country were kidnapped, one from Hong Kong, one from […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Catalonia and European democracy Richard Youngs, Carnegie Europe, 6 October 2017 The EU clearly prioritizes the rule of law over participative democracy. The union ostensibly aspires to transcend traditional concepts of national sovereignty, yet it is a club of national governments. This helps account for the EU’s tepid response to the brutality of […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . European priorities, Libya realities Daniel Howden, Refugees Deeply Quarterly, October 2017 The horrific abuses suffered inside Libya’s migrant prisons range from rape and torture to forced labor. The IOM and UNHCR have limited access to the detention centers and must apply in writing before visiting – they cannot conduct spot inspections. The […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Truth? It’s not just about the facts Julian Baginni, Times Literary Supplement, 21 September 2017 Truth is rarely, if ever, a simple matter of getting the facts straight. History, for example, certainly demands factual accuracy but that in itself is not enough. There is also the question of which facts are made […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. A tragedy of manners Angela Nagle, The Baffler, September 2017 Comments on the bad manners of Donald Trump have come from a wide array of sources, all along the political spectrum. British Burkean conservative Peter Hitchens called him ‘an oaf and a yahoo who has gravely damaged the standards of public life.’ The […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . The fake news fallacy Adrian Chen, New Yorker, 4 September 2017 Not so very long ago, it was thought that the tension between commercial pressure and the public interest would be one of the many things made obsolete by the Internet. In the mid-aughts, during the height of the Web 2.0 boom, […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Goodbye Pepe Angela Nagle, The Baffler, 15 August 2017 At a tragic moment like this, few will want to take a step back and ask the genuinely difficult questions. What is it about the alt-right that has captured the imagination of so many young people and at least intrigued a great many […]

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The latest (somewhat random) collection of recent essays and stories from around the web that have caught my eye and are worth plucking out to be re-read. . Why I left immigration law Jawziya F Zaman, Dissent, 12 July 2017 Our narratives about the rest of the world consist of interchangeable anecdotes of suffering, scarcity, and repression. There’s no room for complexity here, and nuance only muddles the case. We tell ourselves that what we describe on paper is just […]

Categories: Pandaemonium