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Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 121]
The Jimmy Savile Row at the Smutty Beeb
Thursday, 25 October 2012, 2:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Why the surprise, the sense of shock, the orchestrated gasps of revulsion? The late ghastly, self-indulgent radio and television presenter Jimmy Savile, who would effectively confess on live television that he would so anything to everything, is now sending ... More >>
Prelude to Election: The Third Presidential Debate
Wednesday, 24 October 2012, 11:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
There were no spectacular implosions, no remarkable points of stumbling. The third and last debate between President Barack Obama and contender Governor Mitt Romney was not the most exciting affair, though it showed Obama to be far more accomplished, ... More >>
Hate Crime Against the Elite: The Oxbridge Boat Race
Tuesday, 23 October 2012, 4:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been said before: the definition of a crime, at least in its English context, is determined by what the upper class feel the underclass should not be doing. Elite disapproval finds its way into the criminal statutes with astonishing regularity. More >>
Good Bile and Bad: Tolerating Alan Jones
Tuesday, 9 October 2012, 11:03 am | Binoy Kampmark
Oh what fun it is to be a maligned shock jock. The shoe, sitting now so well on the other foot, and the attack being waged on several fronts against the man whose voice has filled Australian airwaves for years. More >>
Paper King of the Gray Lady: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
Monday, 1 October 2012, 3:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger has left us aged 86, though the old gray lady he was a steward to still remains, casting her lingering shadow over the publishing world, wrinkles and all. The shadow of the New York Times has not always been a consistently cast ... More >>
Going Mad With Drones: The Tony Abbott Formula
Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 5:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Without imagination, predictability is bound to become a vice. Australia’s explosive, uncontainable opposition leader Tony Abbott has made his latest splash in policy waters by suggesting that his frightened country should propel itself into the twenty ... More >>
A Fatuous Exercise: Australia and the Security Council
Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 5:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Why do countries bother? In a sense, a position as a temporary member on the UN Security Council is merely an award to the best and smoothest briber – such a country can claim some ceremonial status, not more. More >>
At Arm’s Length: NATO’s Shift in Afghanistan
Wednesday, 19 September 2012, 5:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The deceptive ways a loss in war is described can be contagious. Retreats are often regarded as odious, but sometimes necessary. These can either have the genius of the British spirit of tactical withdrawal, or a more laughable concept of an honourable ... More >>
David Hicks: The Man Who Was Chemically Tortured
Monday, 17 September 2012, 5:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One sensed they were out to get him from the start. David Hicks, a misguided, foolish man, who found himself at a paramilitary camp in Afghanistan, had to be punished. Since the Australian authorities struggled to find a basis to get the former Guantánamo ... More >>
Chicago Teachers’ Strike: Targeting the Teaching Evaluation
Wednesday, 12 September 2012, 5:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“This was a strike of choice, a bad choice for our children and not necessary,” decried an irritated Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. 350,000 students and 26,000 teachers have stayed out of classes now for two days as contract negotiations take place between ... More >>
For Queen and Vegas: Prince Harry and the Press
Tuesday, 11 September 2012, 11:00 am | Binoy Kampmark
Naked in Vegas, and then taking on arms to fight for Queen (granny) and country in Afghanistan –this is the tomfoolery and entertainment that Prince Harry offers the British public. The prince, at least a piece of him, wound up via the TMZ site ... More >>
Fantasy and Speculation: The Al-Hilli Killings
Saturday, 8 September 2012, 3:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It isn’t because someone says there is a dispute between two brothers that he is necessarily the prime suspect in the murder, with bullets to the head, of an entire family. Eric Maillaud, French Public Prosecutor on the al-Hilli killings, Sep 7, ... More >>
The Abramovich Victory: The Oligarch Machine in Action
Tuesday, 4 September 2012, 5:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Neither oligarch came out spruced and cleansed, but there is little doubt that Boris Berezovksy emerged the poorer, both in terms of the time spent and effort to target Roman Abramovich. Abramovich, in contrast, won what is probably the biggest private ... More >>
Caricatures of Violence: The Poisoning of Yasser Arafat
Monday, 3 September 2012, 5:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is the language of brutal indifference – words that are chewed, gnawed, spat out with derision. But when asked whether the Israeli authorities might have had a hand in the death of Yaser Arafat, the reaction is stubbornly predictable. More >>
Purging Sports and Humbling Men: The Lance Armstrong Affair
Monday, 3 September 2012, 4:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was the superman of the sport, the untouchable product of well honed athleticism. Precisely because he seemed to hum into cycling history, to purr onto the podium with feline ease, the critics grew in number, as did the questions. Was Lance Armstrong ... More >>
Victorious Apple: The Wireless Hegemon’s Victory
Saturday, 25 August 2012, 4:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Apple monster has received a boost with its victory on Friday over Samsung Electronics Co. in the first major patent trial over smartphone technology, ensconcing it in the wireless industry as never before. The mobile industry, take heed. Competition, ... More >>
Reviving the Pacific Solution: Houston Panel Recommendations
Wednesday, 15 August 2012, 4:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This is a story of embittered stinginess that never ends. Poorer countries have done more, and have been more conspicuous in the way they have been flooded (yes, flooded) by refugees. Nation states with porous borders, located in areas of regional conflict, ... More >>
Romney’s Running Mate: Paul Ryan and the GOP
Monday, 13 August 2012, 9:24 am | Binoy Kampmark
He started with that characteristic bumble, the clumsiness that some might regard as charming. This time, it was the remark about welcoming the next President of the United States to the podium. No, it wasn’t Mitt Romney about himself, but U.S. ... More >>
Medal Madness, Sporting Myopia: Australia’s misery continues
Tuesday, 7 August 2012, 4:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A certain disease has taken hold of the sporting consciousness in Australia. Some might argue that it was jaundiced to begin with, obsessive, narcissistic, and, in spates, self-loathing. But the recent ‘silver’ performance of the Australian ... More >>
The Correctionist: Remembering Gore Vidal
Thursday, 2 August 2012, 4:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was very quick, cerebrally deft. Whatever he wrote – be it on the novel (birth, death exaggerated or otherwise), ancient Rome, Richard Nixon or sexual freedom – he was always channelling his interests in the United States. More >>
