In Milan Kundera’s 1965 novel The Joke, the central figure is Ludvig Jahn who was consigned to a Czech work brigade for sending a postcard to a class mate containing the line “Optimism is the opium of the people,” and concluding with “Long live Trotsky!” Manchester band The Fall referenced the book on their 1995 album […]
A leading disabilities group in Britain has revealed a shocking rise in GPs and hospital staff issuing ‘do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ (DNACPR) forms for people with disabilities during the Covid-19 crisis – without consulting patients or their families. Their investigation shows that patients who had disabilities had ‘do not resuscitate’ forms issued for ‘blindness’ and even […]
What is it that makes a seat at the United Nations Security Council something countries spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of their taxpayer’s monies to secure? Is there not something deeply immoral about any process which involves staging shows with Rock Stars for the diplomats to try to convince them to vote for […]
Given the woke left and Black Life Matters movement’s obsession with the architectural vestiges of the vile slave trade that was abolished in the 1800s in the west, you would imagine that they might be exercised by the existence of modern slavery. It would appear not. Much easier to draw up lists of statues and […]
I have written elsewhere about how the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in dangerous and unethical responses like ventilator rationing, unilateral DNRs, and some states ordering nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to accept coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals. But the Covid-19 crisis has also spawned new ideas such as the American Clinicians Academy On Medical Aid in Dying’s policy […]
Like many others, I’ve been thinking about the recent race-related protests and riots. I definitely don’t have all the answers. Nevertheless, here are a few of my philosophical reflections, which I hope will be helpful. 1. I think a distinction should be made between (1) black lives matter (the claim) and (2) Black Lives Matter (the […]
The past two weeks have been been one astonishing exhibit of post-modernist tropes after another Somebody ought to frame the last two weeks of American life and exhibit them on a wall in the Museum of Post-Modern Landmarks. Ever since the appalling death of George Floyd on May 25, it has been one astonishing post-modernist […]
On Tuesday last week hundreds of thousands of people witnessed an elderly black gentleman bleed to death on a St. Louis sidewalk. David Dorn, who was buried yesterday, was a 77 year old retired police captain who was shot in the chest by a looter whom he interrupted stealing a television from a pawn shop. Dorn, […]
The acclaimed author JK Rowling has defended her views on sex and gender identity after a manufactured backlash was hyped by media reporting and a social media attack campaign. Writing on her blog, Rowling says that for expressing her views “activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into […]
Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, is a “complete scum” and a “transphobic f**k”. according to trans activists and the mob that follows them. She’s been told to “die in a hole” and that she’s a “c**t”literally thousands of times in the past two days. The abuse is personal, vindictive and pretty horrendous – and it’s […]
‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’. The man or woman may be statesmanlike,out of their depth or just opportunistic. The Covid crisis has tested leadership around the world and the jury is still more or less out on who best rose to the challenge because the entity we were dealing with is still far from […]
There’s more than enough police brutality in Kenya ‘Sizeable’, according to the Concise Oxford dictionary, means ‘of large size’ — several hundred people perhaps. Not according to the photo or the news story on the back page of the Kenyan Daily Nation the following day — even allowing for social distancing — which just mentioned […]