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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 143]
Populism and Legitimacy: The EU Elections
Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 10:34 am | Binoy Kampmark
The European political left and centre-left have suffered a bruising in the recent European elections. Conservative governments in power (France, Germany, Italy) have done well; those not in power (the UK, Spain) have managed to woo the protest vote. ... More >>
When Copyright is Specious: Salinger & The Catcher
Thursday, 4 June 2009, 12:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
J. D. Salinger is not a happy chap. His one significant work, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is a well-guarded bastion of literary worth. On Monday, he sought to block the publication of a supposed sequel by John David California, 60 Years Later: Coming ... More >>
General Motors: Fall of an Ignoble Giant
Wednesday, 3 June 2009, 8:44 am | Binoy Kampmark
General Motors, so much seen as the exemplar of American business, with its strengths and, for sometime now, glaring weaknesses, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The writing had been on the wall for sometime. Its bankruptcy petition documents ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Amnesty’s International Report
Monday, 1 June 2009, 11:48 am | Binoy Kampmark
Amnesty International, those determined scribblers and activists on human rights, have released their annual report State of the World’s Human Rights . Irene Khan, Amnesty’s Secretary General, has emphasized the link between the economic malaise ... More >>
Gore on the Croisette: The Cannes Film Festival
Wednesday, 27 May 2009, 1:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Beauty, elegance, restraint. Films that made these qualities their métier were shunned on the Croisette this year. Notably, Jane Campion’s Bright Star , celebrating John Keats love for Fanny Brawne in a manner penetrative and balanced, was ignored. Bloodthirsty ... More >>
Gore on the Croisette: The Cannes Film Festival
Wednesday, 27 May 2009, 10:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
Beauty, elegance, restraint. Films that made these qualities their métier were shunned on the Croisette this year. Notably, Jane Campion’s Bright Star, celebrating John Keats love for Fanny Brawne in a manner penetrative and balanced, was ignored. Bloodthirsty ... More >>
Twittering Novels – the Great and the New
Friday, 22 May 2009, 2:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It had been said that President George W. Bush could only have appreciated Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address through a power point presentation. Lofty, moving, and unsettling language, reducible to dots on a screen. Then came the networking ... More >>
The Decicion to Resume Military Commissions
Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 11:23 am | Binoy Kampmark
President Barack Obama might come to be seen, in time, as an ingeniously pragmatic operator. He could be like President Woodrow Wilson, who promised to avoid entering World War I, but did so in due course when he sensed the tide in favour it. Perhaps ... More >>
Eurovision – The Serious and The Ridiculous
Thursday, 14 May 2009, 2:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The institution of the Eurovision Song Contest, now over half a century old, is unlike any other, a bazaar of strange hair, nubile dancers, garish costumes and appalling music. One might catch the odd, half-decent tune at the death, though this is rare ... More >>
The Deal Un-Thought: KFC and Free Meals
Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 3:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The idea of a free meal, whatever the quality, always has force. In a society where jobs are being lost more quickly than they are being replaced; in a world where food prices are volatile and often rising, an advertisement for a free feed is worth its ... More >>
Britain’s Least Wanted: The Home Office List
Friday, 8 May 2009, 2:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has taken it upon herself to release a list of undesirables for the public, banned from entering the United Kingdom since October for ostensibly fostering extremism and posing a threat to social stability. In doing so, the government ... More >>
Burning the Fat: Obesity and Global Warming
Tuesday, 5 May 2009, 2:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A study in the latest issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology by Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts plays out a grim scene: a world of overweight populations draining the earth’s resources and forcing up global temperatures. ‘We argue ... More >>
Avoiding a Pig’s Breakfast: Swine Flu Politics
Saturday, 2 May 2009, 7:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
Governments don’t do the business of combating pandemics well. While we should be relieved when health officials leap at the opportunity to protect, quarantine and save, we should also be slightly skeptical. A cough might signal immediate detention. ... More >>
Chimps in Bow Ties: The Passing of J.G. Ballard
Thursday, 23 April 2009, 9:46 am | Binoy Kampmark
On April 19, J.G. Ballard succumbed to cancer. His writings were, in his own words, set on “picturing the psychology of the future”. And it often wasn’t pleasant, featuring humans as often little more than instinctive creatures, primordially driven, ... More >>
The Legal Treadmill: The Demjanjuk Case
Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 11:17 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk has been living in a fashioned legal purgatory. Stripped of American citizenship after his alleged role as a death camp guard emerged, the courts have been breathing down his neck. Despite persistent legal interest, ... More >>
Disestablishment and Worried Anglicans
Saturday, 11 April 2009, 12:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Several callers ringing the middle-brow Radio 4 station in England a fortnight ago were concerned about one thing: that placing disestablishment of the Church of England back on the agenda was a serious mistake. Attempts to change the Act of Settlement ... More >>
The Fujimori Verdict: Justice in Latin America
Friday, 10 April 2009, 2:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In a region of the world where state brutality has been the depressing norm, the conviction of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on grave human rights charges seems something akin to a miracle. Usually, cases of brutality have been papered ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Cambridge and Oxford Boat Race
Sunday, 29 March 2009, 6:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On Sunday, March 29, Oxford and Cambridge will do battle for the 155th time on the waters of the Thames. The occasion, one of the more known sporting events between rival universities, is the Boat Race. On March 12, 1829, Cambridge issued a challenge ... More >>
A Government without Newspapers
Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 11:16 am | Binoy Kampmark
And were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the later. Thomas Jefferson, January 1787 More >>
The end of French ‘Exceptionalism’
Friday, 20 March 2009, 12:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Last Wednesday, before the École Militaire, Nicolas Sarkozy promised what on paper seemed rather radical: the French armed forces would be re-integrated into NATO after an absence of 43 years. Then, the redoubtable Charles De Gaulle gave US President ... More >>
