Alternative Media – Episode 14 – The Oxford Comment
Are we living in the “anti-60s”? This episode compares the counterculture movement to the blogosphere and pop music today….Bieber vs. Beatles! Hippies vs. Hipsters! Let the showdown begin.
The Westboro Church and Justice Alito: the other side of the story
By Edward Zelinsky
It is noteworthy when eight ideologically diverse justices of the U.S. Supreme Court all decide a First Amendment case the same way. Thus, Snyder v. Phelps is a noteworthy decision. The Westboro Baptist Church is well-known for its demonstrations at military funerals. Indeed, the Westboro Church, led by (and, some say, principally consisting of) the Phelps family, has the rare distinction of having been denounced by both Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee.
Linked Up: April Foolery, Escaped Cobra, Peanuts
DISCLAIMER: None of these links are in the spirit of April Fools, so worry not. You’re not going to click anything that will cause a startling pop-up or download something you don’t want on your computer. We wouldn’t do that to you. (Or would we?) (No, we would not.) -Lauren & Kirsty
Hey everybody! Meet Kirsty!
Kirsty Doole has been part of the OUPblog team since…possibly forever, and yet I don’t know that we’ve ever properly introduced her to all of you. Formerly known as the ‘UK Early Bird,’ she is our UK Contributing Editor and keeps me on my toes at every turn. To my great delight, she’s also joined me on the @OUPblog twitter account! Without further adieu, I present this (fantastic) Q&A.
Omar is no Ozzie
By Michael Humphreys
Baseball fans love to compare the players of today to the players who came before, but one must wonder how great the margin of error in these comparisons is. Is there any way of knowing who the real baseball greats are, and whose legend should stand the test of time?
Let’s take Omar Vizquel as an example. So says Wikipedia, “Vizquel is considered one of baseball’s
On Being
By Peter Atkins
Deep questions of existence have entertained both sharp and dull minds throughout the history of humanity. Where did it all come from? What is the point of it? What happens after you die? Great mounds of implausible speculation have been tipped on these pressing questions by theologians and philosophers; whole churches have been founded as a result of the institutionalization of the answers. But all those answers were guided by speculation and sentiment and typically expressed in compelling language that captured minds but concealed emptiness. They were emperor’s new clothes with no emperor within.
The letters of W.B. and George Yeats
By Ann Saddlemyer
It doesn’t seem that long since a friend chastised me for writing a long, newsy, e-mail. ‘It’s not meant to be a letter, you know – it’s just an instant message.’ Yet another friend insists on a genuine hand-written letter; texting or e-mailing simply won’t do. In an earlier age, I can recall when one apologized for typing rather than writing by hand. Condolences could not be sent any other way.
A drinking bout in several parts (Part 3.5: Mead, concluded)
By Anatoly Liberman
We may assume that people, wherever they lived, learned to use honey and even practiced apiculture before dairy products became part of their diet, for honey can be found and consumed in its natural state, while milk, cheese, butter, and the rest presuppose the existence of domesticated animals, be it horses, cows, sheep, or goats, and of a developed industry. However, humans are mammals, so that the word for “milk” is probably contemporaneous with language, even though no Common Indo-European term for it existed (for example, the word
Why some people hate god
By Bernard Schweizer
There’s a lost tribe of religious believers who have suffered a lasting identity crisis. I am referring to the category-defying species of believers who accept the existence of the creator God and yet refuse to worship him. In fact they may go so far as to say that they hate God.
No, I’m not talking about atheists. Non-believers may say contemptuous things about God, but when they do so, they are
The ‘Cinderella’ Brontë: An audio guide
Josephine McDonagh, who has written the introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, discusses the novel and its reception in a series of podcasts recorded by Podularity.
Linked Up: on Japan
Those of us with family and friends in Japan feel quite helpless right now. Yesterday, the Guardian reported:
The Japanese government revised the estimated disaster death toll up from 10,000 to 15,000. It confirmed that 5,178 people had died and 2,285 were injured. The number of missing was increased to 8,913 from 7,844. Almost 200,000 households regained electricity, but this left more than 450,000 without power. Approximately 2.5m households still do not have access to water.
Is God woman’s greatest nemesis? (Part 2)
In the second part of my conversation with David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom, we discuss the influence of the moral establishment today – on women as well as the gay community. Read on to find out why evangelical Christian families like to keep “sexy” in the family (i.e. the Sarah Palin effect)! For the back-story, go to Part 1.
Is God woman’s greatest nemesis? (Part 1)
God vs. Woman. One of the world’s longest rivalries and something I wanted to learn a little bit more about this Women’s History Month. So I spoke with author David Sehat, who discusses the influence of the moral establishment on the women’s rights movement in his new book The Myth of American Religious Freedom. See g-chat conversation below!
Who’s next? Digital media and the inevitable surprise of political unrest
By Philip Howard
Political discontent has cascaded across North Africa and the Middle East. Entrenched dictators with decades of experience controlling political life have fallen or had to make major concessions. In the West, some observers discount the role of digital media in political change, others give it too much emphasis.
Digitally enabled protesters in Tunisia and Egypt tossed out their dictator. The protests in Libya have posed the first
A drinking bout in several parts (Part 3: Mead)
By Anatoly Liberman
Tales that explain the origin of things are called etiological. All etymologies are etiological tales by definition. It seems that one of the main features of Homo sapiens has always been his unquenchable desire to get drunk. Sapiens indeed! The most ancient intoxicating drink of the Indo-Europeans was mead. Moreover, it seems that several neighboring tribes borrowed the name of this drink from them (and undoubtedly the drink itself: otherwise, what would have been the point of taking over the word?), for we have Finnish mesi, Proto-Chinese
Revolution in the Metro
By Helen Constantine
Travelling on Line 3 out to the Pont de Levallois in the North West of the Paris metro you pass through a station called Louise Michel. It is named after a feisty, brave woman, sometimes known as the Red Virgin, born in the revolutionary year of 1830, the July Revolution, less bloody than the one with which she herself was to be associated, the uprising of the Commune at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.