Icon Series: Arch-Enemy of God - Christopher Hitchens

Image via Wikipedia

Today, the death of this particular icon  caused me to change my mind. Although I never knew Christopher Hitchens I can't help but feel a bit like a guilty "friend" who speaks up only after the demise of a colleague. I am never comfortable with these sort of analogies, as it smacks of hero-worship, but it seems strange to suddenly now feel it is appropriate to write about my feelings towards the new atheist movement only when one their key figures (second possibly to Richard Dawkins) dies.

Scepto-nomics (a review of "Freakonomics")

Image via Wikipedia

 Steven D. Levitt stormed onto the social science scene like a rock star with his unconventional questioning and sometimes controversial conclusions on certain matters. He has come to define the term “rogue economist” and has made numbers sexy. At least that is the way his co-author Stephen J. Dubner wants us to see him. “Freakonomics” introduced Levitt to a far wider audience outside of the world of academic papers by asking unusual questions about a vast array of subjects in modern life. Each chapter is based on the academic work that cemented Levitt’s reputation for good or ill. Levitt is presented as being something of a mental enigma and I guess Dubner is his translator to us mere mortals. This debut book looks at links between such disparate subjects as cheating school teachers and rigged sumo matches. He uncovers the reason why estate agents don’t have your best interests at heart when it comes to selling property by tenuously linking this truth to what led to the growth and decline of the Ku Klux Klan. Along the way, the certain myths about the drug industry are blown apart by asking the question “Why do drug dealers live with their parents?”

My "Case" for Halloween

Image via WikipediaUnless you are a Christian fundamentalist or a neo-pagon, the celebration formally known by the ancient Celts as Samhain will have little spiritual meaning to you. Perhaps that's a rather sweeping statement, but I think for the most part if Christmas is losing the battle with commercialization (and my opinion on that is complex) then Halloween lost it a long time ago. In fact, “Halloween”, for all its association with the supernatural, is generally regarded as a secular holiday – and that suits me fine. Our middle class torch-bearers of the "old religion", bless every sky-clad and Hermetic spell-weaving one of them, look to this like a Christmas – except I guess for those also assert, with justification, that Christmas is also a hijacked European pagan festival. Whereas some of the even wackier members of the Christian Right would have us believe that this is the time Satan or the Enemy rides out. And the sight of people - worse still, children! - wondering the streets dressed as the many representations of supernatural evil must be enough to confirm their long held belief that we are all approaching the prophesised End of Times.

The Many Nightmares of Elm Street

Image via WikipediaWith Halloween approaching, what time would be better than to have a look at one of the most popular horror movie franchises of all time. I was way under the legal age when I first saw one of the worst installments of the series, "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge", and was mildly disappointed. The whole build-up had been too much. School friends had told me it was the scariest horror they had ever seen and to this day I see reviews written saying pretty much the same thing. Of course, they weren't talking about this particular part - although some had seen the sequel and had just got carried away by the impact of the original. I borrowed my VHS copy off one of those adults who let's kids borrow that sort of stuff. In fact, I saw most of my first B movies off this guy. The whole taboo and decadence of the experience was enhanced by the stink of Raffles cigarettes that always seemed to cling the cases.

Bad History: A Review

It’s quite disappointing to see how much flack this excellent little book has received. I was under no illusion that the book I was about to read was going to be a light read. The book’s title does imply that it is to be considered to be in the same category as Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” and Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy”. Despite both of these books being written for a lay audience they were not shot in details or text. Emma Marriot’s slim collection of short essays might be with Goldacre and Plait in sentiment, but the work isn’t intended to educate the reader in good historical research. However, it does provide examples of what good research achieves and how good historians view the past. Unfortunately I think many history buffs were looking forward to a heavily cited and in depth analysis of historical myths and a debunking of pseudohistory; not a book strictly for academics, but nevertheless one with a scholarly appeal. Recent years have seen some good academics, like Richard J Evans take on the postmodern anti-historical wave and others like David Aronovitch, Kathryn S. Olmsted and even sceptical scientist Michael Shermer produce sterling investigations that both debunk and seek to understand the nature of conspiracy theory.

Quasimodo meets Dr Doolittle

The Elephant Man (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)"The Elephant Man" was probably the first film that had me reaching for tissues. That was when I was an impressionable child and bought into the simple fairy tale melodrama being told me. Today only my own sense of dignity stops me from shedding another tear of indignation, but I will get to that later. Lynch's film is a perfect symphony of pathetic emotion. The film-maker's pedigree has generally been built on art house projects, which jerk unpredictably between surreal cleverness ("Lost Highway") and pretentious twaddle ("Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me"). Sometimes his work is under-rated - "Dune" may have been overblown, but did really deserve to fall like it did? - and sometimes it is over-rated - "Eraserhead" may be nightmarishly atmospheric for a short, but it's a meandering non-event for a full-length horror. Faith in Lynch's own grip on reality was thrown into serious doubt when he praised the egregiously bad 9/11 conspiracy theory documentary "Loose Change". It also seems to tip the argument away from Lynch being a bona fide intellectual director/writer to being more of a superficial sophisticate. "The Elephant Man" demonstrates another feature of the latter argument - middle class snobbery.

The Lie That Will Not Die - a review of "The Protocols of Zion" 2005 Documentary

Image via Wikipedia
"The Protocols of Zion" is director Marc Levin's documentary on the cultural impact of "The Protocols of The Elders of Zion", a debunked piece of anti-Semitic Russian literature that details the Jewish global conspiracy. Levin was inspired to create the film when an Egyptian taxi driver claimed that no Jews came to work in the Twin Towers on 9/11. The driver told Levin that this was all part of the Jewish global conspiracy as revealed in "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". The documentary follows the continued success of a forgery despite it being exposed publically in the US press almost a century ago. The documentary looks at its historic influence over such famous anti-Semites as Henry Ford and then at the legacy of institutionalized criticism towards the Jews as exhibited through such people as Mel Gibson and his even harder-line Catholic father. The documentary covers some of the controversy surrounding the release of "The Passion of the Christ" Levin visits his own Jewish roots, discusses the Jewish roots of Hollywood and goes through various Jewish reactions to anti-Semitism from those feel it is better not to draw attention to the problem to far-right supporters of Israel. Likewise, Levin's other interviewees range from moderate critics of Israel to outright believers in a Jewish conspiracy...