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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 123]
Twittering First Ladies: The Trierweiler Case
Friday, 15 June 2012, 5:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The ‘First Girlfriend’ of French politics, though many would prefer such benign, uncommitted terms as ‘partner’, has become somewhat anomalous to students of French politics. Political roles for the companions of any high office tend to be ... More >>
Palin’s America: Jay Roach’s The Game Change
Thursday, 14 June 2012, 4:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Oh, the torments that can be inflicted on language, notably by American political strategists. But in HBO’s recent ‘The Game Change’, an effort by Jay Roach to chart the political emergence of Sarah Palin as a force of the Republican Party ... More >>
Platini and the Race Card
Monday, 11 June 2012, 4:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Michel Platini, the UEFA President ever lurking in the shadows of global football, was seeking to pull his weight just prior to the opening fixture of Euro 2012, which is now underway in Poland and the Ukraine. The way he is doing so, notably on race, ... More >>
Border Security and Fantasies of Control
Monday, 11 June 2012, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The program Border Security on Australia’s Channel 7 network begins with the over-egged tones of valour – Every year, thousands of men and women protect Australia’s borders. Symbols are flashed across the screen – a target sign, suggesting a shooting ... More >>
Eyes Stuffed with Wonder: Ray Bradbury’s World
Thursday, 7 June 2012, 5:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The legacy wagon is encircling the subject of Ray Bradbury on his passing. Liberals will be gazing back at his achievements such as Fahrenheit 451 , a work Bradbury himself regards as his only science fiction book, and chew over the MaCarthyist credentials ... More >>
Staged Delusion: Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 5:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Incoherent Australians taking to the Thames in body tight suits waiting to row in the procession, disgruntled West Indians in their social club in London wanting compensation for past wrongs, banked up traffic in the city, and the obsession with catching a ... More >>
Mabo Twenty Years On
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 5:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The destruction of ideas, suggested the British aphorist Geoffrey Madan, is much like the setting of a beautiful sunset. With the stoning of the terra nullius doctrine in the Mabo case and the pronouncement in the Mabo Case in 1992 that native title ... More >>
Off to Sweden? Assange and his Anti-Politics
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 5:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Confused, perhaps a tad neurotic, unhinged and overall an unstable mix, Julian Assange now faces a ratcheted assault on his badge as ‘freedom fighter’. His loss in the British Supreme Court has imperilled him, though he does, unusually, have a fortnight ... More >>
John Wolfe Jr. and the Democratic Party
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 4:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The assumption that a candidate has won it all before the final cast of the ballot is always a dangerous precedent to follow. Politically speaking, it is foolish. Not much will be known outside the United States of John Wolfe Jr., a Democratic presidential ... More >>
Violence in Miami: Bath Salts and Causeway Cannibalism
Thursday, 31 May 2012, 4:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One of the striking, brilliant paradoxes of American life is how it reconciles the legal with the brutal, the concept of a healthy rounded life with that of fast food and supersizing. At times, its legalism is sclerotic and mundane. Its violence, in ... More >>
The Failed Effort: Tony Blair before Leveson
Wednesday, 30 May 2012, 8:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Leveson inquiry on media ethics chaired by Lord Justice Leveson and spearheaded by the Arctic cool Robert Jay QC keeps humming along, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is the latest star in its procession to be questioned. There was anticipation ... More >>
Star Gazing and Politics: Battling for the Square Km Array
Monday, 28 May 2012, 5:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Every intellectual discipline of the human race, even those supposedly keen on propagating pure knowledge, is political. Better candidates can be shunted off from positions they are qualified for in favour of less suitable appointments; appalling choices ... More >>
Space Frontiers: NASA and Private enterprise
Friday, 25 May 2012, 6:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Space has become an extension of the capitalist project. Not that it should surprise anybody. The market, when allowed, has a tendency to be all-consuming, and allowing the Russians the sole means of supplying the international space station was not ... More >>
Virtual Floats and Virtual Privacy: Facebook and 100 Billion
Monday, 21 May 2012, 5:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With cult-like projections, Mark Zuckerberg’s face was beamed across a screen at Hacker Square. Facebook was, after all, having its heralded float as a public company, though the occasion could not cease but be a social event of some magnitude. More >>
Bungling over Mladic: The Tribunal’s ‘unpleasant surprise’
Friday, 18 May 2012, 3:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The trials in the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia have had a habit of misfiring in its most high profile cases. Former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic cheated the prosecutors with his well timed death after a four year period ... More >>
Hollande and Merkel: The Prospects for Disunion
Friday, 18 May 2012, 12:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Europe is, economically speaking, in dire straits, and the two most powerful economies on the continent are, at least on paper, led by individuals with considerable differences. More >>
Getting on the Bus: Obama and Same Sex Marriage
Monday, 14 May 2012, 6:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The gay marriage debate in New Jersey has gone national, with President Obama throwing his own hat in the ring with resounding approval for same-sex unions. Evangelicals are shuddering, and various pro-Obama supporters are shaking their heads. More >>
The Gibson Cauldron: Mobster Fantasies and Get the Gringo
Monday, 14 May 2012, 6:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was supposedly a trumpet blast signalling Mel Gibson’s return, but Get the Gringo was released straight to view-on-demand in the US having failed to make a decent theatrical run. (Indeed, it might even be said it made no run at all.) More >>
The Language of Occupation: The Greek Collapse
Friday, 11 May 2012, 11:54 am | Binoy Kampmark
I take to the streets and go to rallies but maybe I should go to parliament to blow my brains out. Dimitris Christoulas to a friend, Business Insider , Apr 5, 2012 More >>
BoJo’s Return: The London Mayoral Election
Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 5:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When he first won the London Mayoral elections, writers threatened to leave in droves, have sex changes or become French. But Boris Johnson, known to many as BoJo, has been re-elected in a bitter and closely fought contest with his sparring partner ... More >>
