Archive for October, 2005

Prospect magazine and ” Top Intellectuals”

Monday, October 31st, 2005

so - the votes were for Noam Chomsky as "The World's Top Public Intellectual". that's great - { Umberto Eco came in at no. 2 by the way - see the list of full results of the Prospect global intellectuals poll} - and Chomsky is definitely a ...

‘Portrait of a Lady Far Away’ on the London film festival

Monday, October 31st, 2005

'Portrait of a Lady Far Away' was on this afternoon at 2.00 p.m. and sounded most interesting, if only i hadn't been at work! ah well - referred to as ' a dreamy, hallucinatory ride through Tehran by twilight' - it sounds worth holding on to for future ...

BBC and the Have Your Say forums

Friday, October 28th, 2005

aha! in case you hadn't been reading this blog when i posted a comment about the Have Your Say forums on the BBC website - it was about the comment moderation and how one couldn't tell what was really happening re: the editorship involved there, and the need for some ...

the Getty villa opens..

Friday, October 28th, 2005

on a lighter note.. i hear the Getty Villa in Malibu is opening next January. tickets are going to be available from november. ( the best thing is admission is FREE) the museum at the villa will be focusing on the study of the arts and cultures of ancient ...

has the war with iran already begun?

Friday, October 28th, 2005

war with iran: frank gaffney of the Center for Security Policy last night was informing Paxman and the world on Newsnight that it was 'pretty obvious that the Iranian threat is getting worse by the minute' and that there's no time to be pussyfooting around. 'Military action is certainly an ...

so stella why dont you have your parties somewhere else

Wednesday, October 26th, 2005

00:03 being a nocturnal creature myself i dont often try to go to bed early. but sods law being sods law of course if you do try then of course something will get in your way. There's a lovely old listed building across the street from me, and its been ...

where does the money go? and what do we do with it..

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

Accountability and transparency: the two things you need which are rarely - if ever - present. what am i talking about? Well i guess its whats happening to the tsunami funds? lots of money was raised - a lot more than people imagined - and who controls the funds - ...

learning to think sociologically..

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

" Sociology is motivated by two powerful human impulses. One is simple curiosity: "the sociologist...is a person intensively, endlessly, shamelessly interested in people's doings." (Berger 1966) from : From: Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. [1966] The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: ...

halloween

Monday, October 24th, 2005

the history of halloween is interesting. not least as its ancient roots - derived from ancient celtic traditions - are lost in the mist somewhere. the pre-christian europeans had four major pagan festivals: candlemas, beltane, lammas and samhain. Samhain which was celebrated on the 31st of october ( or around at ...

UN day today

Monday, October 24th, 2005

Happy Birthday UN! p.s. i thought this was an interesting thing to flag: 60 ways the UN makes a difference given the level of UN-bashing out there - ( not that i haven't engaged in that myself on occasion. ..he he) its quite useful to go through this list.