Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 138]
Getting at Google: Crime, Maps & Street View
Friday, 11 June 2010, 7:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Google is being cheeky. In fact, according to the London-based pressure group Privacy International, it may well have behaved in a criminal way. The bone of contention here is that the search company has been accumulating Wi-Fi data for its Street View ... More >>
The Drugs Trap: Addicted in Afghanistan
Friday, 4 June 2010, 4:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan is doing what it has done well for so long – seducing invading forces by the lure of drugs and lingering addiction. In November last year, there were reports from the New Freedom of Information showing how hundreds of soldiers, sailors and ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Remembering Dennis Hopper
Monday, 31 May 2010, 9:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Dennis Hopper, who died on Saturday at the age of 74, was an unusual breed of actor and director. It is extraordinary to think what he did cover, featuring with James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant , to the classic numbers of Apocalypse Now ... More >>
The Poisoned Well: BP, Safety and Pollution
Monday, 31 May 2010, 11:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
Louisiana is bracing itself for the largest oil spill in American history, a month after the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. Crude has already covered 80 miles of the state’s coastline, and promises are being made that the crisis ... More >>
Review: Richard III from the Melbourne Theatre Co.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 3:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The latest adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III from the Melbourne Theatre Company, featuring Ewen Leslie, demonstrates the dangers of misreading epic theatre as eternally adaptable to ‘current affairs’. Audiences are meant to swoon or feel repulsion ... More >>
The Triumph of Irrelevance: The Kagan Appointment
Friday, 21 May 2010, 2:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Obama administration is making every concerted effort to keep its domestic agenda interesting and perplexing. The decision to make Elena Kagan a Supreme Court appointee has been baffling. Lacking judicial experience, and a legal record itself so thin ... More >>
The ‘Unfortunate’ Act: The Sinking of the Cheonan
Friday, 21 May 2010, 12:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
North Korea, the last hereditary communist dictatorship on earth, is keeping itself in the news. The recent act of torpedoing a South Korean vessel that left 46 sailors dead has struck the country, and regional powers, deeply. The sinking of the Cheonan ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Carlos Saura’s Io, Don Giovanni
Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 4:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Don Giovanni is both a figure and theme. He is the figure who seems to bed every skirt he can find, but he is the man who loves all women but can possess none. It is not women he desires so much as Woman. More >>
Besieged in Bangkok: The Red Shirt Revolt
Monday, 17 May 2010, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The situation in Bangkok is escalating after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva withdrew an earlier offer to hold elections later this year. The set date – November 14 – has now been abandoned. The plot thickens as the Red Shirt protesters are gathering ... More >>
Nicholas Kristof and the Pepsi Humanitarian
Friday, 14 May 2010, 4:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Nicholas Kristof is a busy man with much to be busy about. Evil has few sabbaticals, and cruelty is constantly in the employ of power. Having related his persuasive style of reporting to readers of the New York Times , it is hard to, at least initially, ... More >>
The Mismatched Bat: Die Fledermaus in Melbourne
Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 5:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The plotline of Die Fledermaus (1874) by Johann Strauss II is familiar to followers of opera. Gabriel von Eisenstein has been condemned to an eight day sentence for insulting an official. Adele, Eisenstein’s maid, receives a letter from her enthusiastic ... More >>
Imelda Marcos on the Campaign Trail
Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 7:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When does the pornography of violence sweeten and remould political messages for public consumption? In a feature on the BBC, which provided a platform to air an example of astonishing guff, we have an apologia in motion, enriched by missives ... More >>
VE Day: ‘Noble’ Stalinism and Western partners
Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 6:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There is always a time for firsts, and the Russian VE parade on Sunday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany 65 years ago was no different. On this occasion, there was something rather unusual: forces from Nato countries, including the United States, ... More >>
Making Room for Mr Cock-up: UK General Election
Sunday, 9 May 2010, 3:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Cranky returning officers, with names such as Longbottom. Solemn punters awaiting the results of their candidate’s performance with funereal dignity. Then, calls of ‘Yes we Khan’ (in favour of Labour member Sadiq Khan) stopped when they became ... More >>
Slash and Burn: Greece’s Austerity Measures
Friday, 7 May 2010, 7:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Greek government, and its citizens, are feeling the economic pinch. A brutal reaction to protestors who fear the winding back of the country’s social system has stunned visitors and the public alike. A general strike has been in progress ... More >>
Vague, Passionate and Erratic: The Last Station
Friday, 7 May 2010, 6:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station , a portrayal over the last days of Leo Tolstoy’s life and a battle over the disposition of his estate and copyright to his works, politics and personalities clash. The wily aide and pejoratively labelled ... More >>
Banning the Burqa: The Battle over Dress & Freedom
Tuesday, 4 May 2010, 12:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
At the end of last week, it became clear that Belgium had become Europe’s first country to vote for a ban of the Islamic dress, the burqa, in its lower house. On Thursday, all legislators of the Lower House who were present in the chamber voted ... More >>
A Russian Freeze: Halting Adoptions to the US
Saturday, 1 May 2010, 1:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Russian government is having an apoplectic fit. Not over those usual things – deadly weapons of nuclear import and American foot dragging on the subject, energy disputes that involve strangling neighbours into submission, and that distinctly ... More >>
The Clegg Factor: The Coming British Elections
Wednesday, 28 April 2010, 3:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What are we to make of Nick Clegg who now holds the banner of the Liberal Democrats in Britain? The historian Max Hastings in The Daily Mail (Apr 28) is dismissive. ‘It would be foolish to expect honesty from Nick Clegg and his party,’ he suggests, ... More >>
Rotten in Victoria: The Carl Williams Case
Monday, 26 April 2010, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The murder of Carl Williams in a Victorian maximum security prison is troubling on various levels. It suggests that something is not merely rotten in the state of Victoria, but positively putrid. On the watch of the prison authorities and the state, Williams ... More >>
