Monthly Archives: September 2010

World

Good Things, Bad Things, and the Ayodhya Dispute

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WHEN KARAN JOHAR’S excellent film, My Name Is Khan, was released worldwide this past January, the Hindu right-wing nationalist group Shiv Sena attempted a disgraceful and ultimately failed boycott. At the centre of this meddling was the film’s lead actor and owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Shahrukh Khan, who had recently said “Mumbai belongs to all Indians” and had supported the inclusion of Pakistani cricketers on the eight teams of the Indian Premier League. Due however to the IPL’s fears that Visas would be denied following the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks (the work of SIMI and Lashkar-e-Toiba, who today jointly operate as Indian Mujahideen), no Pakistani cricket players were chosen. Continue reading Good Things, Bad Things, and the Ayodhya Dispute →

Canada

Gun Talk, Stephen Harper, and the Usefulness of Hate

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On the list of things in which I myself am simply incapable of taking interest, but which appear to invoke a great deal of interest among a great many people — a list which includes Hollywood, professional sport, inspirational best-sellers, Twitter, and Lady Gaga — the issue of gun control is rather near the top. Perhaps I lack an otherwise commonplace enzyme, organ, or bit of DNA. In any case I could not care less about the current long-gun registry debate, and it is only the apparent fact that many could not care more which has my baffled attention. Continue reading Gun Talk, Stephen Harper, and the Usefulness of Hate →

Personal Essay

Facebook, Narcissism, And A Sociologist For Hire

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Soraya Mehdizadeh’s study, “Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking,” was cast into the cybersea earlier this month, and media bit the hook. How could they not, baited as it was with the suggestion that Facebook is “a particularly fertile ground for narcissists to self-regulate.” Google the name “York University,” and even before you go to the site, you’ll see a reference to the study, in the search engine’s results listing. You may well have Googled this topic already, Google being the most popular website on the Internet — and the only site, according to many sources, more popular than Facebook. There is however more to be said about the study than Facebook = Narcissism, which in any case is a mis-description. Let’s look a bit deeper into it, shall we. Continue reading Facebook, Narcissism, And A Sociologist For Hire →

Writers and Writing

Pablo Neruda

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There was a moment in an interview I conducted in the 1990s with American social documentary photographer, Milton Rogovin, at which it occurred to me that I had arrived at a single degree of separation from the great Chilean poet born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, later to become Pablo Neruda. Or perhaps I ought to say I would have been at one degree of remove, had Neruda lived beyond my seventh birthday. As it is he died in 1973, a result of cancer, shortly after the Kissinger-backed military coup against Salvador Allende. Continue reading Pablo Neruda →