Monthly Archives: February 2006

Expert Advice

I was much struck by the Telegraph’s explanation, in its leader today, of why we are having problems with Muslims: After all, the question of whether it is possible to be a good British Muslim is not a new one. … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in War | Comments Off on Expert Advice

Sheep and goats

Some time in the early 1980s I was sitting in a taxi with Peter Utley, then deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph, talking about the next election and the prospect that Margaret Thatcher might lose it. “That’s all right” said … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in British politics | 1 Comment

Modern Art: a cautionary tale

There is an abstract artist living up the road who has sold one of his paintings to Cambridge University Press, which is using it as the cover for Noam Chomsky’s next book. I can’t be sure, but from the web … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Literature | Comments Off on Modern Art: a cautionary tale

Dirty realism

A wonderful, grindingly sad story in this week’s New Yorker about teenage mothers in Louisiana. It’s not online — though well worth the cost of the print magazine — but there is an interview with the author on the web … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

God hates cockroaches

and the proof, via Carl Zimmer is in some research in the Journal of Neurobiology. They want $25 to read it, so I am relying on Zimmer’s summary here. There is a species of wasp, Ampulex compressa, which lays its … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Science without worms | 7 Comments

The sacred and the local

Just a quick thought on the JyllandsPosten cartoons: if religion is related to morality, then sacred symbols have to be local at least to a particular community. The sacred, in this sense, which I found in David Sloan Wilson, is … Continue reading Continue reading

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Still not making sense

Some random thoughts from the newspapers: Bush demanding energy independence by 2025 is Jimmy Carter repeating himself as farce. Remember that Carter’s reaction to the Iranian revolution in 1979 was to set out a concrete programme to get America weaned … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 2 Comments