Author: Dilip

I'm a scholar, writer and teacher; and my blog is designed for intellectual exploration. It carries no advertisements and requires no cash subscription

Moscow court hands long jail terms to two men for reciting anti-war poetry

A Moscow court on Thursday sentenced two men to years in prison for taking part in the recital of verses against the Ukraine campaign during an anti-mobilisation protest last year. Artyom Kamardin, 33, received a seven-year sentence for reciting a poem, and Yegor Shtovba, 23, was sentenced to five and a half years for attending the protest.… Read More Moscow court hands long jail terms to two men for reciting anti-war poetry

Dilip

When Charles Chaplin Became the Enemy

First posted September 13, 2013 Von Clausewitz said that war is the logical extension of diplomacy; Monsieur Verdoux feels that murder is the logical extension of business. It’s all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify… “By his very existence, Verdoux renders society guilty.” Approaching eternity, the convicted killer subtly reverts… Read More When Charles Chaplin Became the Enemy

Dilip

The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms

NB: The rebellion against reason, the cults of nostalgia or particularity are not new, these ways of thought have been with us a long time; and are a consequence of the divorce of reason from goodness, virtue, beauty and justice. Romanticism is a consequence of the elevation of scientific reason to a status above the… Read More The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms

Dilip

HOW ISRAEL COMMODIFIES MASS KILLING THROUGH ITS “PALESTINE LABORATORY”

Israel is “battle-testing” its military equipment on Palestinians — and selling it abroad. FOR MORE THAN two months, the Israeli military has waged a scorched-earth campaign against Gaza, and the death toll has risen to over 18,000 Palestinians, including more than 7,000 children. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, violent Israeli government-armed and funded settlers continue… Read More HOW ISRAEL COMMODIFIES MASS KILLING THROUGH ITS “PALESTINE LABORATORY”

Dilip

A Murder at the End of the World: Emma Corrin is the ‘Gen Z Sherlock Holmes’

Extreme wealth is becoming the narrative preoccupation of our times. The obscenely rich entrepreneur, or sometimes the heir to an immoral fortune, has been all over television in 2023, from Beef to Dead Ringers, Succession to The Fall of the House of Usher to The Morning Show. In A Murder at the End of the… Read More A Murder at the End of the World: Emma Corrin is the ‘Gen Z Sherlock Holmes’

Dilip

This Is Not a War Against Hamas / Top ten US Politicians taking Israel Lobby Cash

The notion that the war would end if Hamas was overthrown or surrenders is as ahistorical as it is false…We should end the charade that this is an Israeli war against Hamas. We should call it what it is: a joint U.S.–Israeli war against the people of Gaza. Indeed against Palestinians as a people. Jeremy… Read More This Is Not a War Against Hamas / Top ten US Politicians taking Israel Lobby Cash

Dilip

Blood on the Snow: The Russian Revolution

This work of a lifetime presents high-octane, high-political drama – and attempts to rehabilitate the ‘bourgeois’ provisional government that preceded the Bolsheviks Blood on the Snow: The Russian Revolution 1914-1924 – By Robert Service Reviewed by Pratinav Anil This is, by my count, Robert Service’s 12th book that touches on the Russian Revolution, either substantively or… Read More Blood on the Snow: The Russian Revolution

Dilip

Israel murders over 100 Palestinians in a designated safe zone. Christmas Day, 2023

Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame: Revelation 16:15. More than 100 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes late on Sunday in the centre of the besieged Palestinian territory, including at least 70 in bombings that hit a residential block in the Maghazi refugee camp near… Read More Israel murders over 100 Palestinians in a designated safe zone. Christmas Day, 2023

Dilip