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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 59]
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 >>
Why Thinking Makes It So: Donald Trump’s Obamagate Fixation
Tuesday, 19 May 2020, 4:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The “gate” suffix has been wearing thin since the break-in scandal that gave it its birth. Since Watergate, virtually anything dubious and suggestive, and much more besides, is suffixed. Which brings us to the issue of President Donald Trump’s ... More >>
Inglorious Bastardry: Hacking For Vaccines
Monday, 18 May 2020, 3:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If you cannot discover or create something, best steal it. It has been the operating principle for everything from wealth to technology. With the efforts to discover a vaccine to the novel coronavirus being all but bound by solidarity, the race on ... More >>
The Mouse Roars: Australia, China And A Coronavirus Independent Inquiry
Sunday, 17 May 2020, 6:59 am | Binoy Kampmark
Australia matters little when it comes to international muscle. It is the retainer and pretender of power, a middle-distance runner who runs out of puff on the final stride. The big boys and girls look, agog. Why did you even bother? In the recent ... More >>
The Liabilities Of History: The Dangers Of Pandemic Compensation
Thursday, 14 May 2020, 4:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Smug assertions of liability in history are often incautious things. They constitute a fruit salad mix: assertions of the wishful thinkers; hopes of the crazed; the quest of genuinely aggrieved generations who feel that wrongs need to be rectified (the ... More >>
Greasing The Revolving Door: Palantir Recruits Down Under
Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 1:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When he announced at the end of April that he would be retiring, thereby vacating the federal seat of Eden-Monaro, the Australian Labor Party’s Mike Kelly welled up. He noted persistent “health issues” from his time in the service of the Australian ... More >>
Patriotic Vaccines: The Divided Coronavirus Cause
Monday, 11 May 2020, 4:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When it comes to the politics of medicine and disease, the United States has always attempted to steal the limelight, while adding the now faded colouring of universal human welfare. In 1965, Washington pledged financial and technical support to the ... More >>
About Face: The Great Coronavirus Mask Debate
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 5:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the novel coronavirus started to get stroppy and make its now global impression, one theme seemed to be common. Facemasks were, at least initially, a conceit, a sort of fashion or extra-medical accessory. To use it was a mark of vanity. Rushing out ... More >>
