Susan Stebbing’s little Pelican book on philosophy had a big aim: giving everybody tools to think clearly for themselves There is an urgent need today for the citizens of a democracy to think well.’ These words, which could have been written yesterday, come from Thinking to Some Purpose, a popular book by the British philosopher… Read More Pause. Reflect. Think
Kafka’s characters are almost always trapped – in a cage, a court case, an insect’s body, a false identity – and they share a feeling that the walls are closing in, and that a door, once there, is disappearing into the distance. This existential claustrophobia, at once vague and intense, resonates today, particularly under lockdown. … Read More Samuel Earle: Locking down with Kafka
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — In midsummer of 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a Black student at Smith College, recounted a distressing American tale: She was eating lunch in a dorm lounge when a janitor and a campus police officer walked over and asked her what she was doing there. The officer, who could have been carrying a “lethal… Read More Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College
One of the unfortunate temptations of the Trump era has been the rush to find radical breaks with the past where, in truth, the lines of continuity are strong. The themes of Trump’s speech were already well circulated among the Anglo-American elite, whether in the work of the political scientist Samuel Huntington or in the… Read More Book review: Pankaj Mishra’s Reckoning With Liberalism’s Bloody Past
Vladimir Nabokov – one of Stepanova’s many literary companions in In Memory of Memory – once wrote: “I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.” Years ago, Maria Stepanova visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC to do… Read More Book review – 'Love’s labours should be lost': Maria Stepanova, Russia's next great writer
The Energy Charter Treaty allows fossil fuel companies to sue governments for taking action on climate change. It must be stopped before it’s too late. On 4 February the German energy giant RWE announced it was suing the government of the Netherlands. The crime? Proposing to phase out coal from the country’s electricity mix. The company,… Read More This obscure energy treaty is the greatest threat to the planet you’ve never heard of
José Daniel Ferrer is a prominent Cuban dissident and human rights activist, who was one of 75 dissidents imprisoned during a 2003 government crackdown known as the Black Spring. After eight years in prison, he was released in 2011 and has been permanently harassed ever since, spending more than six months in jail in 2020. He… Read More José Zepeda: Prison has not discouraged Cuba’s leading dissident
There are two certain ways to lose a friend: one, have an affair with his wife; two, start a discussion on politics. The first can occasionally be a tempting prospect, for as the wise guy said: all best things in life are either illegal, immoral or married to someone else. Having an affair just got… Read More Avay Shukla: THE FINE ART OF LOSING FRIENDS
The Biden administration on Friday declassified and released a CIA assessment that Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman bears responsibility for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 3, 2018. President Biden will not, however, impose sanctions on Bin Salman. Apparently the only punishment will be that Biden won’t talk to… Read More Juan Cole – Biden’s Double Standards: Iranian Civilians under severe US Sanctions but not accused Saudi Murderer Bin Salman
A medico-legal examination submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 22 February found that Shiv Kumar, a Dalit labour-rights activist and president of the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, faced severe custodial torture at the hands of the Haryana Police. The court had directed a medical examination in a plea by Kumar’s father, Rajbir, which… Read More Jatinder Kaur Tur & Mandeep Punia: Dalit activist Shiv Kumar's medical report describes illegal detention, torture and PTSD / Chitleen K Sethi: Nodeep Kaur gets bail, medical report shows bruises caused by blunt object
