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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 131]
The Shell of Life: Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip
Tuesday, 5 July 2011, 10:18 am | Binoy Kampmark
He is an abandoned soul, a study of modern loneliness, who finds himself with a writing assignment for The Observer in Michael Winterbottom’s latest effort The Trip . Then, Steve Coogan finds himself in the lurch – his lover goes to the US in search ... More >>
The Shell of Life: Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip
Monday, 27 June 2011, 4:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He is an abandoned soul, a study of modern loneliness, who finds himself with a writing assignment for The Observer in Michael Winterbottom’s latest effort The Trip . Then, Steve Coogan finds himself in the lurch – his lover goes to the US in search ... More >>
The Rumpled Detective: Peter Falk and Columbo
Monday, 27 June 2011, 4:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The obituaries centre on the same descriptions: eyes notably squinty; appearance distinctly ‘disheveled’; otherwise a touch rumpled, a sense of a man who slept in his clothes losing track of time. We all knew that Peter Falk played Lieutenant ... More >>
The Terminal Patient: Greece’s Second Bailout
Wednesday, 22 June 2011, 10:08 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has some of the world’s most keen protesters, and its worst credit rating, if one is to believe those often misguided gurus in Standard and Poor’s. Greece is teetering, if not dancing near the cliff face of default. More >>
Getting Green Between the Sheets: The Ecosex movement
Monday, 20 June 2011, 2:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Annie Sprinkle, PhD has been in the sex advocacy business for years. She was colorfully present on Friday, along with her partner in crime Elizabeth M. Stephens, at the Femina Potens Gallery on Mission Street in San Francisco. A good crowd had turned ... More >>
Lifting Debt Ceilings: The Bulimic Colossus
Thursday, 16 June 2011, 11:57 am | Binoy Kampmark
An insolvent giant? A colossus weighed down by debt? This is the situation the United States finds itself in over the raising of the debt ceiling after the last one was hit on May 16. Bills designed to do so have been voted down in the House. The Obama ... More >>
The Scam of Virtue: Philanthropy in the United States
Monday, 13 June 2011, 10:26 am | Binoy Kampmark
Philanthropist, n. A rich [and usually bald] old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Passing of Dr. Death
Thursday, 9 June 2011, 4:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The writer and Gaullist Minister André Malraux observed that, during his life, children were no longer taken to graves and taught the brevity of human life. Death, to put it simply, was being banished by citizens of western society. The longer one lived, ... More >>
Food Wars: Denmark’s War on Marmite
Thursday, 9 June 2011, 3:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Wars have always been fought over food, that persistent necessity in life. François Rabelais, in Chapter 25 of his 16th century classic The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel ( La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel ) attributes the outbreak of one ... More >>
The Romantic Sentiment: Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris
Wednesday, 8 June 2011, 11:04 am | Binoy Kampmark
Paris allows you various freedoms other cities do not, though these can come at a price. For the sensual Henry Miller, the city had a whorish quality to it that suggested ravishing beauty at a distance and a feeling of disgust on embracing it. ... More >>
The Capture of Ratko Mladic
Monday, 30 May 2011, 12:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
As you walk through the Nikola Tesla airport in Belgrade, a sign can be found featuring a figure one might think was merely a missing man. In a sense, he has proven to be, sheltered and defended by friends and loyalists. But Ratko Mladic, the thinner Bosnian ... More >>
Eurovision in Düsseldorf: From Magic Men to Haba Haba
Monday, 16 May 2011, 11:06 am | Binoy Kampmark
Eurovision is the lovable farce. Magdalena Tul of Poland was ravishing in her song delivery, a combination of stage murder and acoustic inadequacy; Georgia’s Eldrine came across with an American resonance, synthesised (alliance building in the face ... More >>
On Law and Gloating: The Bin Laden Execution
Thursday, 12 May 2011, 12:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Gloating is never a virtue. It betrays a sense of deep-seated insecurity. The discussions surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death show yet again that the sentiments of civil society are rapidly forgotten in the heat of fitful, raw vengeance. Laws evaporate, ... More >>
Fearing AV: Changing Voting in Britain
Friday, 6 May 2011, 1:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Is Britain ready for a new, scrubbed up voting system? The Tories, modern in rhetoric and fogey by disposition, don’t think so, and they have made this clear as Britons go to the poll for the first referendum the country has seen in 36 years. The brittle ... More >>
The Medium is the Body: The Death of Osama Bin Laden
Tuesday, 3 May 2011, 1:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is far easier, says the insightful Polish scribe Stanisław Lec, to resurrect the dead than it is the living. In the case of the late (is the term redundant?) Osama bin Laden, the observation is perfectly apt. Resurrections of his being and ... More >>
Osama Bin Laden, Dead and Alive
Tuesday, 3 May 2011, 8:50 am | Binoy Kampmark
The corrupt, vanishing body has fascinated and puzzled societies for millennia. Evita Peron’s power was more significant to Argentineans after her death than during her life. Saints tend to be more useful in a state of persisting decomposition than ... More >>
Double-Speak: The Libyan Operation
Monday, 18 April 2011, 12:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Louis Guilloux suggested the idea: one writes not in order to say something, but to avoid saying anything at all. The letter signed last week by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, the United Kingdom’s David Cameron and US President Barack Obama, has ... More >>
The Travails of Space: The Gagarin Adventure
Tuesday, 12 April 2011, 2:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It stunned the world and heralded a high point in Soviet science. It sent the scientific establishment of the United States into paroxysms of panic: had they, those cheeky reds, truly done it? On April 12, 1961, the announcement was made that Yuri Gagarin ... More >>
Big Society Blues: The Stuttering of David Cameron’s Vision
Wednesday, 6 April 2011, 10:46 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Big Society remains a pivotal aspect of the conservative platform in Britain. Transfer power to small communities, or so say the current stable of Tory hacks. Take the controls away from the bureaucratic centre in London. But such ambitions ... More >>
Rickshaw Driver: Wes Dog and Chicago Ambience
Monday, 4 April 2011, 3:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He calls himself with a certain gritty pride Wes Dog. What a sprightly musical creature he is. From an aesthetic cul de sac in Chicago he dips into the fine waters of the Chicago music tradition. He has been involved in various musical efforts before, ... More >>
