Google.org hosted Paul Farmer – founder of Partners In Health and Harvard professor – to talk about the global response to Ebola. For more on ebola from Paul Farmer see his LRB article.
Author: Dave
Breaking the Code: A Dramatisation of Alan Turing’s Life
If you’re considering going to see The Imitation Game, you might want to watch the BBC’s Breaking the Code instead. Scott Aaronson was irritated by The Imitation Game writing that “the fabrications were especially frustrating to me, because we know it’s possible to bring Alan Turing’s story to life in a way that fully honors the true science and history. We know that, because Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play Breaking the Code did it. The producers of The Imitation Game would’ve done better just to junk their script, and remake Breaking the Code into a Hollywood blockbuster.”
The following film is the 1996 BBC adaptation of Breaking the Code, with Derek Jacobi as Turing, featuring Harold Pinter as John Smith.
The 17 Contradictions of Capitalism
You thought capitalism was permanent? Think again. Leading Marxist thinker Professor David Harvey unravels the contradictions at the heart of capitalism — its drive, for example, to accumulate capital beyond the means of investing it.
Melvyn Bragg’s Radical Lives
Melvyn Bragg examines the lives, work and legacy of two men whose ideas have had tremendous consequences both in their own time and down the centuries: John Ball and Thomas Paine.
Now Is the Time: John Ball
Rights of Man: Thomas Paine
Conversations with History: Perry Anderson
On this episode, UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler talks with Perry Anderson Professor of History and Sociology at UCLA about his intellectual journey and the status of the left.
Neil Gaiman visits Syrian refugees in Jordan
Neil Gaiman visits Syrian refugees in Jordan.
The Best of Sheldon Wolin
Hedges & Wolin: Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?
Journalist Chris Hedges interviews political philosopher Sheldon Wolin, Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, who says democracy requires continuous opposition and vigilance by the citizenry.
part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8
Syria’s War: Through the eyes of the people
Social Democracy and the Creation of Modern Europe
Sheri Berman, professor of political science, Barnard College; author, The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century (2006) and The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe (1998); “Social Democracy and the Creation of Modern Europe”
Race, not a Biological, but a Social Reality
Race, not a Biological, but a Social Reality: a guest post by Abbas Naqvi.
Mike Brown was not black. Neither was Eric Garner. Nor was Trayvon Martin. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is no such thing as black, white, or yellow, from a biological standpoint. Race is a cultural/political phenomenon that has been used to manipulate, control and oppress populations, at times under the veil of science; however, in reality from a scientific perspective, it is a mere optical illusion. As we struggle to comprehend how racially motivated murder can still be ubiquitous in America, it is helpful to consider the pseudoscience that has delineated, and thus divided, us as a nation, as well as the scientific research that shows that our differences are negligible, yet inform split-second life-and-death decisions. Decisions like whether a handheld object is likely to be a bag of Skittles or a gun.
Continue reading “Race, not a Biological, but a Social Reality”
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