Journalist, Commentator and Blogger
I don’t know if you can put a primal scream to music but Josette Bushell-Mingo’s show, Nina – A Story about Me and Nina Simone has all the power of a holler against racism, whether it is in her native London or in Simone’s North Carolina or anywhere else in the world. Bushell-Mingo comes from …
Continue reading “Re-kindling the fire and fury in the Civil Rights-era music of Nina Simone”
I recently wrote an article in the Irish language online newspaper tuairisc.ie about a false logic called Reductio ad Hitlerum. The term was first coined by the German-born Jewish political philosopher and classicist Leo Strauss in the 1950s – although versions of the phrase go back centuries depending on who the bête noire of the …
Continue reading “Hitler, Sinn Féin and the association fallacy…”
A lot of people have been talking about the Nolan shows, both on radio and on television, with many asking if the programmes are a force for good or for bad. Is his adversarial style appropriate in a post-conflict society which is in search of a modus vivendi where all citizens can feel cherished? In …
To say the situation in Syria is complex is like saying the Pope is a Catholic. An illustration of this is the talk eminent journalist Robert Fisk gave in Belfast last Thursday when invited by the British Council to take part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. Fisk told us he’d just spent the past …
The unionist hissy fit over Alex Maskey saying he would protect his home by throwing stones at attackers and their response to the flag protests speak volumes about the hypocrisy at the core of their world view. Let’s take Nigel Dodds firstly, speaking on BBC’s The View. After saying that the Union was safe, the …
It is unsurprising that the right-wing English newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, should call Ireland’s ambassadorial female boxer, Katie Taylor, British. They have a habit of doing that. Like the words they have made their own from possibly every known langauge in the world to make up the English language, the English take the success of …
I was very interested to read an article about how google have left the name of the Persian Gulf unnamed on google maps. Why would they do that? It’s politics, stoopid. Oh, and Arab money. Given the rapidly warming Cold War between “the West” and its Arab alllies and Iran, propaganda is becomingly increasingly important. …
The First and Deputy First Ministers have congratulated the European Ryder Cup team and quite rightly so. However, the Irish border was much in evidence in the one press release. Little-Ulsterman Peter Robinson said the win was even more enjoyable “given the pivotal role played by local golfers, especially Graeme McDowell, whose heroic victory brought …
“Is Gregory Campbell (whose young family the Derry IRA once tried to kill on their way to church) getting a bum rap on BBC Spotlight?” asked Mick Fealty of Sluggerotoole.com after the DUP MLA’s excruciating reaction to the report of the Saville Inquiry on Bloody Sunday. Answer: No. Although I would have sympathy for him …
So the Nobel Peace Laureate, Lord Trimble, has been nominated by the Israelis to be an observer into the killings on the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the humanitarian effort to help break the blockade on Gaza. An excellent choice if you ask me. It’s probably coincidental that the findings of the Saville Enquiry …
