Macrolog
39 Macrolog entries tagged with ‘society’
Thinking Out Loud: David Starkey, the England Riots, Etc Fri 19 Aug 2011 | 0 Comments
So this David Starkey thing, eh? “The whites have become black”? Enoch Powell? “Jamaican patois”? That old chestnut about black people who ‘sound white’? Really? Anyway, one thing that stands out for me from the Starkey furore — apart from...
Blog All Bookmarked Web Pages: Shanghai Diary Sat 30 Jul 2011
News of the high speed rail crash in China last week (which has raised questions about what some perceive as a cargo-cultish rush into modernity) prompted me to dig up some choice quotes I’d saved back in 2004 from...
Perturbed by Prodigies Sat 27 Aug 2005
The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities. Reading an excerpt from an old Wired interview with Brian Eno at Peter Lindberg’s weblog, I was...
More Thoughts on the Tube Shooting Fri 19 Aug 2005 | 2 Comments
The Observer’s Rafael Behr puts it bluntly: A man slips on his denim jacket (unimpeded by explosives of any sort) and steps outside. He gets a bus to his local metropolitan railway station. He enters the station using the conventional,...
The Atom and the Damage Done, Part II Sun 14 Aug 2005
Last week saw Japan, and the world, commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which an estimated 220,000 people lost their lives. The bombings marked the horrific conclusion to not only the war in...
A Farewell to Arms? Thu 28 Jul 2005
Today was another day to mark on the messy, scrawled-over timeline that is the history of Ireland. In a statement released to the media this morning, the Irish Republican Army has “formally ordered an end to the armed campaign” in...
Thoughts on the Tube Shooting Tue 26 Jul 2005 | 2 Comments
On Saturday afternoon, just a day after the Tube shooting incident in south London which has stunned the city even more than the detonator blasts merely 24 hours before, it emerged that the victim of the shooting — the alleged...
The Tragic Vision Fri 22 Jul 2005
In my previous post I mention that Londoners have “had to put up with a lot these past couple of weeks.” That they have, but few would challenge that fact that what London has been through recently pales in comparison...
Not Again Fri 22 Jul 2005
Two weeks after the terrorist bombings that claimed 56 lives and affected countless others, London suffered another attack yesterday afternoon when a series of minor explosions disrupted the city’s transport network. In an echo of the July 7 attack, three...
Know Thine Enemy Sun 10 Jul 2005
The news that Steven Spielberg has begun production on a movie based on the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics (which was the subject of a documentary, One Day in September, which I haven’t seen but by most accounts...
London Speaks Sun 10 Jul 2005
I’ve got nothing more to say, not that I had much worth contributing in the first place, being a safe 300 miles away. And anyway, as others have put it, this is not a time to dwell, or “indulge in...
Learning a Lesson from Live8: Podcast Wed 06 Jul 2005 | 5 Comments
For my first foray into podcasting, I’ve uploaded an mp3 version of Learning a Lesson from Live8, read by yours truly: Learning a Lesson from Live8 (3.1MB mp3; 13:24) Feel free to download at your leisure....
Learning a Lesson from Live8 Tue 05 Jul 2005
Since you’re reading this, I’m pretty certain you’d found it impossible to avoid the week-long wall-to-wall coverage of Live8 — Bob Geldof’s pet project to raise awareness for the Make Poverty History campaign (not to mention elicit mass support to...
Israel's Invisible People Sat 26 Feb 2005
Last Monday’s Guardian carried a shocking feature on the plight of migrant workers in Israel, where tens of thousands of foreigners — from China, South-East Asia and Eastern Europe — are exploited wholesale as slave labour by employers, forced to...
Remembering Carthage Sun 09 May 2004
Joi Ito comments on the late Edward Said’s introduction to the revised version of Orientalism, extracts of which were originally published by The Guardian last summer: Basically, he argues that the whole notion of the “Orient” or “Orientalism” is a...
A Personal Request Thu 01 Apr 2004
From the desk of M.: To whom this may concern: Can we please draw a line under the phrase ‘draw a line under’? Thanks in advance. Might I add: we can do away with ‘sexed-up’, too....
On Disinterest and the Modern Media Tue 17 Feb 2004 | 2 Comments
(If you’re reading this and you’ve just come from kottke.org, let me take this opportunity to say hello and welcome, and please read on, because the following might be pertinent for you.) I seem to be getting quite regular traffic...
The Elephant in our Living Room Tue 13 Jan 2004 | 1 Comments
Anil Dash has linked to a story from Saturday's Guardian on the growing menace of racism in the North, mostly perpetrated by Loyalist street gangs (though for the sake of balance I'm sure the Nationalists have their fair share of...
Invisible in Osaka Fri 19 Dec 2003
According to a report in today's Guardian, the corpse of a homeless man lay rotting on a Japanese city street for two months: == For two months, the body of an elderly man was ignored by passersby as it lay...
American Splendor Fri 19 Sep 2003
I quote from an interview with underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar in the current issue of The Onion AV Club: ==I've got this weird combination of... I like a lot of esoteric and avant-garde fiction, for example, and music,...
The Atom and the Damage Done Wed 13 Aug 2003
The Guardian reports that scientists have finally started to piece together exactly what happened when the United States detonated an atomic bomb in the skies over Hiroshima on the 6th of August, 1945; a truly horrific event in which 140,000...
On Flash Mobs Mon 11 Aug 2003
My fair city witnessed its first _flash mob_ on Saturday evening. A large crowd of people filed into Clarks shoe store on O'Connell Street and chanted _'We like cheese!'_ in unison before dispersing in a matter of moments. Queue surprise...
Tongue Tied Tue 24 Jun 2003
Might our linguistic freedom also reflect the political freedoms we enjoy? Such a question had never dawned on me until I read this enlightening article by Prof. Niloofar Haeri on the democracy of language, and how many in the Arab-speaking...
Smarty Pants Mon 05 May 2003
The (British) National IQ Test took place last night. It was actually quite difficult, for a multiple choice exam. The time alloted for each question was quite short and very strict, and doesn't accurately reflect the true test environment (or...
Take The Hawks Bowling Mon 24 Mar 2003 | 3 Comments
So the Oscars went ahead last night, with a number of unexpected occurances. Roman Polanski winning best director for The Pianist for one, showing that some people can overlook past indiscretions and evaluate art for what it is. Another shock...
Pitchfork Interviews H2O Fri 21 Mar 2003
Pitchfork: The Minutemen.Jaded Robot: Whatever. I remember thinking that Captain Beefheart were hip, too. Castro is so 1974. Whatever. Just one quote from a brilliant and wickedly funny interview with Henry H. Owings, the head honcho of Chunklet magazine,...
Elephants and Turtles Mon 20 Jan 2003
Tonight I read a short story by Donald Barthelme, entitled See The Moon?, and came upon a passage that seemed strangely familiar (from Sixty Stories, p.105): ""Upon what does the world rest?" I asked."Upon an elephant," he said."Upon what...
Everything You Know is Wrong Thu 26 Sep 2002
Everything you know is wrong: take the quiz to see how true this statement is for you....
Not All Sunshine Und Lollipops Mon 26 Aug 2002
The bittersweet tale of a town built on chocolate....
On Capitalism Sun 11 Aug 2002
I think this guy is missing the point entirely. Capitalism doesn't produce inherent ugliness, but such ugliness is undeniably a symptom of the greater capitalist disease. Wal-Mart and stores of its ilk are ugly. Regardless of the efficiency and...
Bloomsday Sun 16 Jun 2002
It just dawned on me that today is Bloomsday. What with all the kerfuffle about the big match today (that I'm not even watching), I suppose it was bound to get overshadowed....
Sometimes I Just Don't Get It Sat 11 May 2002
First Endurance, then Takeshi's Castle, and now this. Japan is great and all, but sometimes I just don't get it....
Littlejohn Vs. Self Sun 28 Apr 2002
This is a brilliant read. (c/o the yes no interlude.) I wasn't particularly au fait with Will Self until relatively recently, but I'm glad I'm in the know now. Anyone who can fit in seamlessly with Vic Reeves and...
RIP Spike Milligan Wed 27 Feb 2002
Spike Milligan has passed away. Here's hoping he's gone to a much better place....
Screech Wed 30 Jan 2002
The Onion has an interview with Screech. Yes, that Screech....
On Japan Wed 30 Jan 2002
For some reason, Japanese culture has interested me for a long time. Maybe it was Jushin Liger that did it for me.... But anyway, as a result it's no surprise that this page kept me rapt with attention (c/o...
World AIDS Day Sat 01 Dec 2001
It's World AIDS Day today. There's an antidote out there somewhere - not just to the illness but to negative attitutes that continue to stigmatise it - it just has to be found....
Buy Nothing Day Sat 24 Nov 2001
Tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day. Funny that despite the magic of the internet and all, I found out about this from graffiti I saw on the bus into town during the week. But anyway. Tomorrow I will, of course,...
Putting the Kibosh Tue 06 Nov 2001
From Sunday's Ireland On Sunday, about a 'newly-published' dictionary of Irish slang (which has actually been available since 1997): The majority of the words in Slanguage have Irish or Ulster dialect roots, but Gaelic roots are often completely lost...
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This page lists all Macrolog entries by MacDara Conroy tagged with ‘society’. You will find many more entries sorted by month and by category in the Archives.
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