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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 57]
Corrupt Propositions: AstraZeneca, Public Institutions And The Coronavirus Vaccine Drive
Monday, 15 June 2020, 11:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
Putting your destiny into the hands of a drug company is much like seeking reassurances from an opportunistic pimp. The returns are bound to mixed, dressed up in deceptive language. The promises, however, are always remarkable. The back-breaking pace in ... More >>
Woked In Fright: The Brief Banning Of Fawlty Towers
Sunday, 14 June 2020, 10:02 am | Binoy Kampmark
It’s all getting nasty. The urge to remove statues in hurried indignation; the lust to censor programmes now deemed offensive; the erasure of history, which, any sensible sort should know, is often a panoramic account of crimes and slaughter worth ... More >>
Battles Over Education: Australia, China And Unsafe Universities
Friday, 12 June 2020, 2:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Entering a university should be, to some degree, unsafe. Away from the gazing eyes of parents, institutional structures for the child, the entrant faces, or at least should face, the prospect of something truly daunting: To think, to entertain discomfort, ... More >>
Open Wounds: Sweden Drops The Olof Palme Case
Thursday, 11 June 2020, 5:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s the sort of thing that ruffled the image of a composed and tranquil existence. In some countries, doing away with political leaders is a periodic affair, deemed necessary to clean the stables. But in Sweden, change is barely discernible, stability ... More >>
Altars Of Hypocrisy: George Floyd, Protest And Black Face
Wednesday, 10 June 2020, 2:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Be wary what you protest about. The modern moral constabulary are out, and they are assisted by their Silicon Valley friends in the Social Media club. Should you dare take a stand on anything, especially in a dramatic way, you will be found out ... More >>
Radical Reforms: Disbanding Police Forces In The US
Tuesday, 9 June 2020, 3:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If you can envisage the commencement of a police force as a band of auxiliaries to keep slaves in check, capture escapees and sow much terror, it becomes that much clearer. Such men were not stewards to keep the people safe; they were there to protect ... More >>
Eternal Fixation: The Madeleine McCann Disappearance Show
Monday, 8 June 2020, 4:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The “lost child” endures as motif and theme, the stalking shadow of much literature, the background to a society’s anxiety. The child, often deemed innocent, becomes the ink blot of loss in such disappearance. In Australia, it was captured by Peter ... More >>
Skin Deep Protest: Selective Outrage, Bollywood And George Floyd
Sunday, 7 June 2020, 7:59 am | Binoy Kampmark
George Floyd’s suffocating death at the end of a policeman’s knee in Minneapolis on May 25 has become an international protest movement. What endures beyond this is still to be written, and, in a more vital sense, acted upon. Black Lives Matter ... More >>
Fatuous Grounds And Barren Thoughts: Misconduct, The University Of Queensland And Drew Pavlou
Friday, 5 June 2020, 1:54 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The global student populace have become so passive it is a surprise to hear any stir of protest that issues forth from a campus. Generation Z tends to seek passes and certificates rather than knowledge and the examined life. So it came as something ... More >>
None Of Your Business: China, Hong Kong And A Question Of Sovereignty
Thursday, 4 June 2020, 3:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam seemed to relish it before the cameras this week. The United States was enduring extensive shudders of internal instability in the wake of the George Floyd protests . Dubious proposals to deploy the military ... More >>
Avoiding The Obvious: Skim Reading, Exams And The Internet
Wednesday, 3 June 2020, 1:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is the anxiety-inducing nightmare for the studious: A dream where you find yourself in an exam hall, which might, on ordinary days, be a gym or some other facility. It is repurposed for that most cruel of blood sports: sorting out the learned from ... More >>
To The Commercial Heavens We Go! SpaceX, NASA And Space Privatisation
Wednesday, 3 June 2020, 7:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
It would be too simple to regard the latest space venture, funded by Elon Musk, as entirely a matter of vast ego and deeply-pocked adventurism. But it would be close. The successful delivery of astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken of NASA as ... More >>
Let’s Burn The Whole Thing Down: Death, Protest And George Floyd
Tuesday, 2 June 2020, 9:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
Mobs are unruly, headless things. The message is the action. The platform is often violence. But what is happening across the United States cannot simply be labelled as a looting-leads-to-shooting episode. It ranks as another chapter of enraged despair ... More >>
Welcome Deaths: Coronavirus And The Open Plan Office
Thursday, 28 May 2020, 4:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
For anybody familiar with that gruesome manifestation of the modern work place, namely the open plan office, the advent of coronavirus might be something of a relief. The prospects for infection in such spaces is simply too great. You are at risk from ... More >>
Ego Trip: US Space Flags And Super-Duper Missiles
Wednesday, 27 May 2020, 2:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
US President Donald Trump is much taken with the bombastic and the exaggerated. In an interview with the Associated Press in April 2017, he spoke of his infamous if somewhat less than successful wall project on the US-Mexican border. Ever happy ... More >>
One Rule For Me And Another For Everyone Else: The Cummings Coronavirus Factor
Tuesday, 26 May 2020, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Leaving crises to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s management skills will never disappoint those who favour chaos and the attractions of vague direction. The double standard is to be preferred to the equal one. With the United Kingdom sundered by ... More >>
Budget Cockups In The Time Of Coronavirus: Reporting Errors And Australia’s JobKeeper Scheme
Sunday, 24 May 2020, 5:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Hell has, in its raging fires, ringside seats for those who like their spreadsheets. The seating, already peopled by those from human resources, white collar criminals and accountants, becomes toastier for those who make errors with those spreadsheets. ... More >>
Patterns Of Compromise: The EasyJet Data Breach
Saturday, 23 May 2020, 4:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been a withering time for the airlines, whose unused planes moulder in a gruelling waiting game of survival. The receivers are smacking their lips; administration has become a reality for many. Governments across the globe dispute what measures ... More >>
Pandemic Inquiry Wars: Australia, The United States And The Coronavirus Investigation
Thursday, 21 May 2020, 4:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Australian press and a chorus of the country’s politicians painted a misguided, blotched picture: the Scott Morrison government had achieved its goal of convincing members of the World Health Assembly that an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 ... More >>
Battles Over Barley: Australia, China And The Tariff Wars
Wednesday, 20 May 2020, 3:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It promised to be bruising to both dignity and wallet. However brazen Australian politicians have been drumming up support for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, the first ones to be slapped in anger would have to be ... More >>
