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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 134]
The Patriotic Hacker and WikiLeaks
Thursday, 2 December 2010, 12:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Every story requires a counter-story; every book, another. The final story will never be told on any subject. So, with the release of over 250 thousand US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, traffickers of information have adopted various stances on the subject. More >>
Going Rotten in FIFA: The World of Football Corruption
Thursday, 2 December 2010, 12:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
We are transfixed by the obvious. If WikiLeaks divulges documents that reveal commonly known antipathies between states, the guardians of the world’s worst kept secrets have little to do but squeal and condemn. ‘Principles’ become important. Prosecution ... More >>
Elevated Gossip: WikiLeaks and the Art of Diplomacy
Tuesday, 30 November 2010, 4:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
WikiLeaks is at it again, deluging the channels of the world wide web with material for public delectation. There have been previous grand releases on sensitive material dealing with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The target now has been US diplomacy ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Dirty Martinis at the Green Mill
Thursday, 25 November 2010, 11:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Green Mill is bouncing, alive with a current so intense it electrifies. The seating seems to be moving, winged and taking flight from its hinges. The ambience is trilling like summer larks with a naughty chord. There is a shrine resembling the most holy ... More >>
God in the Machine: The San Francisco International Car Show
Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 1:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A puzzle when one turns up to a San Francisco social or business event. What to wear? Silicon valley types will don the worn jeans, shadowed by stains in the company of a jacket. The girls will glam up, overdoing the make-up like a heavy mask, walking ... More >>
A Failure of Service: Flying Domestic in the US
Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 11:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
The domestic airport scene in the United States is one of permanent lines, warnings on leaving bags unattended and jittery surveillance. Warning alerts on potential strikes by unspecified ‘terrorists’ sound like a game children might like: ‘The ... More >>
Back to London: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Wednesday, 17 November 2010, 1:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
We are back in London, a scene which Woody Allen has come to love over the years (witness Match Point , Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream ). His last film Whatever Works , buoyed by the dynamic performance of Larry David as a misanthropic physicist, took ... More >>
Asylum in Arcadia: Detaining Refugees in Australia
Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 9:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a curious scene for a country of immigrants. Woodside, one of Australia’s more provincial areas in South Australia, is abuzz with animosity. Australia’s neuroses regarding immigration is a perennial condition, occasionally afflicting ... More >>
The Rhetoric of Small Government in the US
Friday, 5 November 2010, 6:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The rhetoric of US government is the rhetoric of small institutions and Jeffersonian yeomen. As a young United States was getting ready to become a world power with imperial tendencies, Thomas Jefferson warned that big was not necessarily beautiful. He envisaged ... More >>
Giving Back the Tea: Rhetoric of Small Government
Thursday, 4 November 2010, 6:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The rhetoric of US government is the rhetoric of small institutions and Jeffersonian yeomen. As a young United States was getting ready to become a world power with imperial tendencies, Thomas Jefferson warned that big was not necessarily beautiful. He envisaged ... More >>
An Australian Fetish: The Melbourne Cup
Monday, 1 November 2010, 11:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s that time of the year again. Australia reveals its idiosyncratic streak as being the only nation on earth that will actually stop for a horse race. One of its most monumental sporting figures won his awards on four legs, not two. The still ... More >>
Katie Noonan: The World of the Overly Sweet
Thursday, 28 October 2010, 2:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The term Sumptuous was used in advertising the show. But was Sumptuous the sort of term to use for music written to commemorate a sufferer of Parkinson’s? Or distinct family tragedies? Or the ‘first page’ of a marriage? Katie Noonan, who has been ... More >>
Middle-earth in NZ: Prostituting for The Hobbit
Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 11:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Life has truly imitated art in New Zealand. J.R.R. Tolkien might have well been amused about the idea that the filmic adaptation of The Lord of the Rings would take such hold in soil 12,000 miles from England. It did, and with spectacular success. So, ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Wayne Rooney Circus
Saturday, 23 October 2010, 9:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It seemed to be a badly rehearsed act – a querulous player, disgruntled with his management, sapped of inspiration, and wanting to leave in a fit of disgust. But the antics of Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney proved to be nothing of the sort. ... More >>
How not to have a debate: Australia in Afghanistan
Saturday, 23 October 2010, 2:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was the debate that never really took place, however poignant pundits would like to think it was. Both the Australian government through Prime Minister Julia Gillard and main opposition leader Tony Abbott took familiar stances this week in parliament. ... More >>
Austerity: Osborne and Britain’s Spending Cuts
Saturday, 23 October 2010, 11:58 am | Binoy Kampmark
The British feel that the world is watching. Trimming (nay, slashing) the public sector, which will take money out of a shrunken economy rather than keep it circulating in the system, is something that the financial wizards of the Cameron government ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Merkel and Multiculturalism
Thursday, 21 October 2010, 4:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel is getting pessimistic. She has given the German people a rather dark verdict: that multiculturalism has not worked in Germany, despite assertions to the contrary. Her fears have a distinctly traditional flavour to them. ... More >>
Moving to the Right: The US Midterm Elections
Tuesday, 19 October 2010, 2:54 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The United States is proving very busy in the lead up to the mid-term elections on November 2. In addition to the battles for the House of Representatives and Senate, roughly forty states will be electing governors. The Republicans are in prime position ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Canonisation of Mary MacKillop
Sunday, 17 October 2010, 8:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In an age where threats of religious fundamentalism and the battle against archaic laws continues, we find, yet again, the Catholic Church in arrears. Feverish talk about ‘barbaric’ Islam takes place in a world parallel to rituals that still ... More >>
The Pornography of Rescue: The Miners in Chile
Friday, 15 October 2010, 9:43 am | Binoy Kampmark
There is something pornographic about it. Images of rescue that are constantly replayed on dozens of channels for consumption only to then be re-consumed. The chest thumping, the extolling of ‘man’s will to survive’. The world as a perceived audience ... More >>
