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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 130]
Misdirected in ‘Berlin’: A Bar Interlude in Melbourne
Friday, 19 August 2011, 5:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The website of the Melbourne bar ‘Berlin’ is swish in the way a website is after a good bit of cyber jigging. A tinker here and there, and one gets the glossy sense that we might be seeing ‘quality’. It features the coat of arms of the German ... More >>
The Culture of Criminality: Cameron and the Family Test
Wednesday, 17 August 2011, 2:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Charlie Chaplin’s remarkable Monsieur Verdoux (1947) one of his best films in terms of social criticism and unsurprisingly one of his lesser financial successes, features the exploits of a charming confidence trickster and killer. He is something of an ... More >>
Turf Wars: Google, Motorola and Apple
Tuesday, 16 August 2011, 5:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a turf war. Oracle sued Google last year. Apple is suing HTC. Microsoft is suing Motorola over infringements of mobile technology. It is hardly news that Google and Apple are arch rivals locking horns in a hostile battle over technology rights. ... More >>
Making the Medicine Go Down: The Nutella Case
Tuesday, 16 August 2011, 3:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The litigious society has taken another step into oblivion. San Diego mum Anthena Hohenberg was ‘shocked’ to learn earlier this eyar that the achingly tasty Nutella was full of fat and sugar and not exactly up there in the nutritious league of foods. ... More >>
Martyr or Loser? Cyril Tuschi’s Khodorkovsky
Thursday, 11 August 2011, 3:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
An editorial in the Guardian (Dec 28, 2010) noted a gold nugget of wisdom from Russia’s Vladimir Putin: a thief must be in jail. This, he would qualify later, was in reference to the first conviction of the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, rather than ... More >>
Looting in London: The End of the Social Contract
Thursday, 11 August 2011, 2:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It took a killing in a north London reservoir, but these days where large cities are mere borders of angst and dissatisfaction, where unhappiness is the permanent condition, riots are perhaps not that surprising. The commentary on the death of ... More >>
Downgrade: Standard and Poor’s Economic Slap
Monday, 8 August 2011, 3:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What power. What remarkable symbolic strength. Without the firing of a single shot in anger, a country has been, at least in a sense, brought to its economic knees. The capitalist system, that pervasive monster of modern society, with variations ... More >>
Downgrade: Standard and Poor’s Economic Slap
Sunday, 7 August 2011, 2:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What power. What remarkable symbolic strength. Without the firing of a single shot in anger, a country has been, at least in a sense, brought to its economic knees. The capitalist system, that pervasive monster of modern society, with variations ... More >>
Misfiring in Babylon: The Story of West Indian Cricket
Sunday, 7 August 2011, 2:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Within a short span of time, two documentaries on cricket have emerged. The first is James Erskine’s Botham-dominated From the Ashes ; the second, Steven Riley’s Fire in Babylon , an examination of the West Indian cricket story. While the account ... More >>
The Archibald in the Yarra
Sunday, 7 August 2011, 2:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
As one moves into Yarra country in Victoria, Australia, the sight of a tamed environment is everywhere. As the wineries start making an appearance as dots of civilized behaviour to water the thirsty, the mood is an appropriately cultured one. TarraWarra Gallery ... More >>
Unfulfilled Promises: Hosni Mubarak on Trial
Sunday, 7 August 2011, 2:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Whether the trial of a once powerful leader in the Arab world signifies a good yield for the spring of revolution remains to be seen. But the appearance of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in the dock during Egyptian TV’s Ramadan special, lying on a stretcher ... More >>
Unfulfilled Promises: Hosni Mubarak on Trial
Friday, 5 August 2011, 6:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Whether the trial of a once powerful leader in the Arab world signifies a good yield for the spring of revolution remains to be seen. But the appearance of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in the dock during Egyptian TV’s Ramadan special, lying on a stretcher ... More >>
The Archibald in the Yarra
Thursday, 4 August 2011, 10:57 am | Binoy Kampmark
As one moves into Yarra country in Victoria, Australia, the sight of a tamed environment is everywhere. As the wineries start making an appearance as dots of civilized behaviour to water the thirsty, the mood is an appropriately cultured one. TarraWarra Gallery ... More >>
Hughes on Rome: History at Fault
Tuesday, 2 August 2011, 2:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What an assortment of views. Robert Hughes’s latest and lengthy effort Rome has divided critics in a way rarely seen. One can almost sense that the criticism of the work is as keen as the animosity towards the man. Much like Germaine Greer, the ... More >>
Misfiring in Babylon: The Story of West Indian Cricket
Monday, 1 August 2011, 3:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Within a short span of time, two documentaries on cricket have emerged. The first is James Erskine’s Botham-dominated From the Ashes; the second, Steven Riley’s Fire in Babylon, an examination of the West Indian cricket story. While the account ... More >>
Virtues of Being Mad: Breivik and Europe’s Exoneration
Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 4:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Societies, if we are to take the Freudian line, prefer to subordinate chaotic urges in favour of dull order. Civilization implies stability. By the nineteenth century, human society was digesting a range of theories on ‘constants’, be it in such ... More >>
Failure to Rehabilitate: The Death of Amy Winehouse
Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 11:23 am | Binoy Kampmark
The writing was on the wall even before news came of the Saturday demise of Amy Winehouse at the age of 27. Her ‘unexplained’ death (or was it a broken heart?) at such a tender age paralleled that of others who perished before reaching the age of 30. More >>
Failure to Rehabilitate: The Death of Amy Winehouse
Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 9:42 am | Binoy Kampmark
The writing was on the wall even before news came of the Saturday demise of Amy Winehouse at the age of 27. Her ‘unexplained’ death (or was it a broken heart?) at such a tender age paralleled that of others who perished before reaching the age of 30. ... More >>
Slaughter in Norway: The End of Paradise
Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 2:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It seemed so out of place. The Norwegians don’t practice violence well, and tend to be better practitioners of a dull, even peace. The attack, first by a bomb in Oslo that missed the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, then on a summer youth camp ... More >>
Slaughter in Norway: The End of Paradise
Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 10:31 am | Binoy Kampmark
It seemed so out of place. The Norwegians don’t practice violence well, and tend to be better practitioners of a dull, even peace. The attack, first by a bomb in Oslo that missed the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, then on a summer youth camp ... More >>
