Lisbeth Salander and Feminism

I’ve come across Nick Cohen’s Guardian piece “Stieg Larsson was an extremist, not a feminist” too late to leave a comment, so I’ll leave one here. This is what made me want to make one – Cohen’s closing paragraph:

I do not go to actors for political advice. But when Rooney Mara said that she did not think that Larsson's Salander was a feminist, she was not the empty-headed celebrity she seemed.

Salander is not Erika Berger; she wouldn’t call herself a feminist. She’s not really keen on labelling herself as anything. One of the most important things to understand about Salander is the likelihood that she has a high functioning form of autism. Blomkvist thinks she has Asperger’s. Her way of relating to herself and everyone and everything around her is affected by her psychological make-up. It’s not enough to quote Eva Gabrielsson saying that Salander’s "entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don't advance in this world and in worst-case scenarios are abused like she was" without mentioning the probablity that she also has Asperger’s. It’s key to a reader’s understanding of how Salander thinks and how Larsson drew her as a character.

Comprehensive Schools

Melissa Benn has written a lengthy piece in G2 today about the disparities between private and state school education in the UK. In it she quotes Tory MP Oliver Letwin who reportedly said that he would rather “beg on the street” than let his child go to a school like Lilian Baylis Technology School in Kennington. Aside from the fact that the atmosphere “could not present a greater contrast with schools such as Wellington”; that “75 per cent of the children are on free school meals” and that the school has “a far higher percentage of children with special educational needs”, we don’t learn why Oliver Letwin is so horrified. There’s no mention of the curriculum. We’re told that “successful learning" at the school depends on a “range of support and mentoring” but we are not told what they learning. Perhaps the needs of the students at Lilian Baylis mean that this school doesn’t reflect the range of subjects on offer at the average state school. What is the range of subjects on offer at the average state school? How many comprehensive schools, for example, teach French, German and Spanish? How many offer politics and economics at GCSE? Are there any state schools (excluding grammar schools) that teach Greek and Latin? Or is it that the kids who want to learn have to hope to come across books like Primo Latino in order to teach it to themselves.

Middle East - Objective Reporting?

Well done to the BBC for its objective reporting of the border clashes in the Middle East on Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning. John Humphrys reported that there was great anger among Palestinians in the Middle East over how Israel reacted when Palestinian demonstrators massed on Israel’s borders yesterday: twelve were shot dead and many more were injured. The demonstrations were timed to mark the 63rd anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. Some of the demonstrators crossed the border into Israel and some of the demonstrators were throwing stones. We also learned from an interview included in the BBC’s report that Lebanese forces also opened fire.

By comparison, other reports have referred only to Nakba Day with no mention Yom Ha'atzmaut.

This is the Guardian:

Demonstrators commemorating Nakba day, marking the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of people became refugees after being forced out of their homes, were met with live gunfire, rubber bullets, stun grenades and teargas.

And here is how it should have been done (from The Times):

During protests to mark the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, described by Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, unprecedented numbers turned out at the three hostile frontiers in scenes that quickly turned to carnage.

AV Referendum on May 5th

Oh dear. This is what Ed Milliband wants us to ask ourselves on May 5th:

"Are you happy with the state of British politics? If the answer is no, then seize this opportunity for change."

This is not the question that voters are being asked.

Here is a more chilling point to consider:

“(Under an AV system) Supporters of fringe parties, such as the far-right BNP, are likely to have their second, and perhaps third, preferences counted, while those backing mainstream parties may be counted only once.
In an open letter yesterday historians warned that the proposed changes would undermine ‘the principle that each person’s vote is equal, regardless of wealth, gender, race or creed... a principle upon which reform of our parliamentary democracy still stands’.
They added: ‘For the first time in centuries we face the unfair idea that one citizen’s vote might be worth six times that of another. It will be a tragic consequence if those votes belong to supporters of extremist and non-serious parties.’

Wikileaks

How funny! Columnist Melanie Phillips has not said anything about Wikileaks until today and she's come out with a swoop at the Left which, she suggests in today’s Mail, is represented by a group of luvvies.

Here is a couple of articles I have linked to on Twitter:

The New York Times

The Guardian

National Ethical Investment Week

Can we invest ethically?

CIF Belief piece on cooperation in the world of ethical investment:

Picture this: India. Delhi. 2005. A multinational company is looking for skilled employees for five vacancies. It outsources recruitment to a local firm that asks candidates a standard set of questions. One question is "What do your parents do for a living?" The answer reveals where the candidate sits in the caste hierarchy.

Fast forward a year to 2006: A HSBC shareholder attends his bank's AGM in London. He raises the problem of caste discrimination occurring across multinational corporations in India. The chairman agrees this is an issue that needs tackling. HSBC meets with the Dalit Solidarity Network to discuss strategies. Proactive policy follows.

What has the church got to do with any of this? Well, churches in the UK have combined assets of £12bn. That is a sum that wields some power in the investment world. The Methodist church's Central Finance Board (CFB) looks after £1.1bn of those assets. The Ministers Pension Fund accounts for just over a quarter with a further £140m managed for non Methodist bodies under the Epworth name. In June 2010, CFB published its ethical policy on caste discrimination. It stated that companies "should be able to report to shareholders the progress made in enhancing the employment opportunities of scheduled castes within the context of recruitment and in career development". That's just one example. There are many more.

For the whole thing see here

Churches Call Osborne To Account For Welfare Fraud Exaggeration

CIF Belief piece on The Chancellor's Comprehensive Spending Review.

Here is the first paragraph:

It may be more than a week since the chancellor's spending review speech, but we are still wading through the fallout of what he said. Public service spending cuts will be the deepest since April 1975, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis, with councils losing around 100,000 jobs. And that's not all. George Osborne got his numbers wrong in one of the most important speeches of the new coalition government. He exaggerated the figure for benefit fraud and failed to address the HMRC figure for uncollected tax revenue. If we are "all in this together", as he concluded, then surely he has got to get this right.

Click this hyperlink to read the rest.

Tweeting God

CIF Belief piece on faith and the net.

Kafka's Legacy

I don't think there is anything missing in this story ran in The Independent and The Guardian today. It has all the parts for an epic.

Snoop Dogg

Wow. Julie Bindel has just realised she is not the only feminist who likes Snoop Dogg. I heard Julie speak earlier this year and she was still scratching her head over the idea of feminists who wear make-up and don’t have short hair. Snoop Dogg has made some great tracks, sexy videos and appeared in the L Word. Odd she doesn’t mention that.

Church and media conference 2010

Is religion sidelined by the media? Broadcasters, church folk and humanists gathered last week to thrash things out. See here: CIF Belief in The Guardian Online.

Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes

A Guardian article today on the forthcoming Ballet Russes exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum that doesn’t mention Tamara Karsavina!

Tamara Karsavina was the grace of the three graces (Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spessivtzeva) during the time of Diaghilev. Serge Lifar will tell you. He will also argue that Karsavina's name is inseparable from Diaghilev's (in his book, The Three Graces). I think I will faint if the Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929 exhibition doesn’t include a reference to her.

The Death of Methodism - Not Quite

I was asked by Guardian Comment Is Free to do a piece on Methodist self-immolation - or the idea that Methodists and Anglicans are in some kind of sado-masochistic relationship...

General Synod

We heard that the press box was empty at General Synod yesterday so I drafted a press release to tell them what they were missing. Press Association (whose religious correspondent is always on the ball) picked it up and then it went crazy:

Wesley’s path to schism
The Times Comment

Methodists declare 'we're ready to merge' with Church of England
The Times Comment

Methodism offers to die, to rise again.
The Times

Church of England General Synod extends pension rights for gay partners
The Guardian (last paragraph)

General Synod: Methodists likely to merge with Church of England
The Telegraph

Leader signals end of Methodism
The Independent

Methodist Church prepared to go out of existence
The Daily Mail

Methodist Church ‘prepared to go out of existence’ for mission
Christian Today

Methodists affirm commitment to a covenant relationship with CofE

Inspire Magazine

God's kingdom more important than denominations, says Methodist President
Ekklesia

Martin Amis Overkill

Could the press stop falling over backwards for Martin Amis just because he has a new novel out? I don’t see why he merits being plastered all over the front pages of the national press day in and day out. The Telegraph is so enamoured that it has printed a picture of him smouldering into the camera as a young man next to one of his recent quotes: “Have looks ever been more important? There’s a great tyranny of looks now.”

http://tinyurl.com/ykcpahs

Yesterday we had to suffer him in The Guardian saying that Gloria Steinem turned him into a feminist during one single day in New York: “It’s the rhetorical device she uses throughout, and it’s very effective.” He is never going to say Andrea Dworkin turned him into a feminist is he.

(Gloria Steinem: http://tinyurl.com/ycngjmk)
(Andrea Dworkin: http://tinyurl.com/2zq3gt)

Corporate Commitments to Carbon Cuts

Yesterday I was William Donaldson (http://tinyurl.com/n5bpy6) and I managed to get The Guardian to publish one of my Henry Root letters, which appears in the paper today :)

Seriously though, here is a letter in The Guardian today by Revd Dr Martyn Atkins:

http://tinyurl.com/kpnzop (It is the third letter you come across scrolling down the page.)

While I remember The Henry Root Letters, one of the features I recall about Diplo Magazine (which went bust because the bright young things never did anything about advertising) was its commitment to republishing them.

http://tinyurl.com/dke8kg

10:10

Despite the cynicism:

http://tinyurl.com/kl3oqt

...people still turned out at The Tate yesterday:

http://tinyurl.com/nahklw

:)

Graffiti Art

Art critic Brian Sewell has made my blood boil, which he might think is a compliment, but it really isn’t meant to be.

Here he is in The Guardian today proclaiming his superiority over everyone else’s idiocy: “The two words ‘graffiti’ and ‘art’ should never be put together,” he scoffs. “The public doesn’t know good from bad. For this city (Bristol) to be guided by the opinion of people who don’t know anything about art is lunacy. It doesn’t matter if they (the public) like it. It will result in the proliferation of entirely random decoration, for want of a better word... Any fool who can put paint on sculpture or turn a cardboard box into a sculpture is lauded. Banksy should have been put down at birth. It’s no good as art, drawing or painting. His work has no virtue. It’s merely the sheer scale of his impudence that has given him so much publicity.”

First of all, not all modern art is lauded. Secondly, spray can art is entirely different to conceptual “art”. Real graffiti art, as opposed to gangs who go round plastering their tags all over estates, is highly skilled. It involves vision, perspective, proportion and a good hand. There is bad graffiti art and good graffiti art. Sewell doesn’t like it because of its cultural associations.

http://tinyurl.com/lctsp8

Banksy is good art that Sewell doesn’t like. End of story.

Salford

If you are trawling through today’s papers looking for something to warm the soul, check out The Daily Telegraph’s special feature on page 18.

Telegraph photographer Paul Grover has taken a shot of children playing on a street in Salford, Manchester. It helps that the shot has been blown up to fill a double page spread of the last remaining broadsheet, drowning The Guardian’s centre page photo by comparison. But if you look at the picture online (you can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/lnfeco) you won’t get the same vivid effect that reaches out beyond the medium. For the discerning eye, this is another reason why we shouldn’t see all our media swallowed up by the web.

Paul writes: “That warren of solid, drab Victoriana is slowly disappearing, as in many other cities, thanks to architectural remodelling and modernisation projects.”

Except the way he has captured Salford in this picture, it looks anything but drab.

Older Women

An article by Hilary Mantel in The Guardian's G2 today demands to know why people aren't noticing older women. "Why have women over 50 become invisible?" storms the headline, "When I was a child they ran the world".

(Here is the article: http://tinyurl.com/kqweuj)

Since when did women over 50 become invisible?! That's news to me.