When British people say ‘we do pageantry like nobody else’, they are indirectly admitting that we depend disproportionately upon the past to give meaning to the present. Jeremy Seabrook It may have been the grey of the London sky and the tender green of new leaves on plane trees along the Mall that lent to… Read More The Underlying Sadness Beneath the Glittering Coronation of Charles and Camilla
Erik Hmiel SOMETIME IN THE MID-1950s, the American philosopher Stanley Cavell, a new professor at the University of California, Berkeley, encountered an elderly colleague given over to resignation. The senior scholar, having recently retired from teaching, recalled to Cavell the moment when he realized the seeming limitations of his philosophical prowess. The occasion was the… Read More On Jonathan Strassfeld’s “Inventing Philosophy’s Other”
It takes the expansive perspective of an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist who ponders the origins and unfolding of the universe to place today’s parochial debates over intelligent technology in the context of planetary evolution. BY NATHAN GARDELS In Noema, Sara Walker bends the modern mind to link the coming future to the primordial past. “The technologies we are… Read More From Biosphere To Technosphere
By Alexander Zinoviev, from Homo Sovieticus, a novel that was originally published in 1985 and is included in Boredom, an anthology that was published in January by M.I.T. Press and Whitechapel Gallery. Translated from the Russian by Charles Janson. Soviet people are trained to write Reports about everything. It is an indispensable element of the Communist organization… Read More Lord of the Files (Homo Sovieticus)
Laura Paddison, CNN Countries could slash plastic pollution by 80% in less than two decades, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme. Plastic pollution is a scourge that affects every part of the world, from the Arctic, to the oceans and the air we breathe. It’s even changing ecosystems. Scientists recently found rocks made from plastic on a remote… Read More The world can cut plastic pollution by 80% by 2040: UN
Joginder Singh Ugrahan, state president of Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan), has said that Dr. Navsharan, writer, democratic rights activist, a staunch supporter of people’s struggles and the daughter of renowned playwright Late Gursharan Singh, is being targeted by the Modi government for speaking out the truth. In continuation with series of attack on intellectuals… Read More Modi government should keep its hands off Dr. Navsharan – J. S. Ugrahan
Bharat Bhushan Union minister of state for law and justice, Satyapal Singh Baghel, made a statement that there were very few tolerant Muslims, and even those who appear to be tolerant use it as “a mask” to stay in public life; to become governors, vice presidents and vice-chancellors. Nobody reacted; not the Opposition parties, not… Read More Indian Union Minister’s hate speech about Muslims liable for prosecution
First posted September 10, 2012 NB: This book is one of the most moving and illuminating memoirs I have ever read, its sad it’s not available in India. I hope a far-sighted publisher will publish it. And I am proud to say that the author has been a close friend of mine for 33 years.… Read More Yudit Kiss: The Summer My Father Died
First posted August 01, 2015 I got out my tape-recorder. My mum frowned. She wasn’t expecting that. “Is it for the Marx Memorial Library?” Because that was what old communists did: donated their body for medical research and their history for class analysis. But I just wanted to record what had happened. To remember Us.… Read More Jo McMillan – Lenin, mum and me: my communist childhood
Peter Pomerantsev The powerful were meant to be afraid of the truth. Journalists were meant to “hold truth to power”. Evidence was meant to destroy wrongdoers as sunlight does a vampire. Find the evidence, the logic went, and the powerful could be shamed and brought to justice. Historically, the powerful would try to censor and… Read More What happens when leaders disregard the truth? Putin and Trump are about to find out
After the truth-shower 