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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]
Babble & Bluster: The First Ashes Test at Cardiff
Wednesday, 15 July 2009, 1:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The conclusion of the first Ashes test of 2009 has come amidst a touch of English defiance, alleged perfidiousness and Australian complaints about unsportsmanlike time wasting. The ‘whingeing’ Pom has been replaced by the indignant Aussie, ... More >>
Compromising England: Big Ben's Birthday
Sunday, 12 July 2009, 6:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Big Ben turned 150 on Saturday to the music of composer Benjamin Till, but confusion still exists as to what the birthday is actually for. Tourists travel to London convinced they are seeing the tower and the fabled clock of ‘Big Ben.’ The confusion was ... More >>
The Death of the Manager: Robert McNamara
Wednesday, 8 July 2009, 1:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Robert McNamara, the managerial Übermensch of the American establishment, the ‘best and brightest’ of the brightest in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, is no longer with us. But his death on July 6 at the age of ninety-three leaves a complicated ... More >>
Michael Jackson: The Issue of Ownership
Tuesday, 7 July 2009, 11:05 am | Binoy Kampmark
The death of a celebrity tends to be a shock in a society which values it as an achievement onto itself. It produces addled reactions. The latest was Jamie Foxx’s idea that Jackson was a black man who was owned by America’s black community. More >>
‘Returning’ Iraq: The Withdrawal of US forces
Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 1:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
No one genuinely likes liberators. After the initial enthusiasm wears off, the term ‘occupation’ rapidly succeeds it. The English writer Malcolm Muggeridge noted how British soldiers were purposely precluded from a prominent role in the liberation ... More >>
Michael Jackson: The Issue of Ownership
Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 12:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The death of a celebrity tends to be a shock in a society which values it as an achievement onto itself. It produces addled reactions. The latest was Jamie Foxx’s idea that Jackson was a black man who was owned by America’s black community. The British ... More >>
Losing Marbles: The British Museum and Lord Elgin
Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 1:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s never quite gone away, and the issue burns more brightly than ever now, given Greece’s insistence that it has established a solid basis for the return of the Elgin marbles, still resident in the British Museum. A superb facility, judging from ... More >>
End of ‘Fair Play’: The Football Transfer Market
Thursday, 18 June 2009, 12:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The recent shuffling and dealing in the football transfer market has caused some consternation. Football watchers in the Spanish press have saluted Florentino Pérez’s powers of conviction in getting the mercurial Portuguese player Christiano Ronaldo ... More >>
The Iranian Elections: The Appearance of Democracy
Friday, 12 June 2009, 11:38 am | Binoy Kampmark
Iran goes to the polls on Friday, and will find an assortment of individuals to pick from who have been approved by the Islamic establishment in that country. The presidential incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces two reformist candidates in the form of former ... More >>
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 >>
