The sixteen most scandalous charges

14 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

Another review from Third Way Jan./Feb. 2013. This time by Nick Spencer, who discusses Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began, which tells the story of a Renaissance bibliophile. I’m not sure that I’m that interested in the book, but the concluding lines of Spencer’s review really made me laugh. Here they are:

the book’s line on the charges read against Pope John XXIII at Council of Constance is worth its cover price alone: ‘Fearing their effect on public opinion, the council decided to suppress the sixteen most scandalous charges – never subsequently revealed – and accused the pontiff of simony, sodomy, rape, incest, torture, and murder.’

Now, what else could he have possibly done?

Random thoughts

How to think more about sex

14 May, 201314 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

little while ago, I mentioned having come across the notion that men think about sex every seven seconds but couldn’t remember where I had read it. Now I know. I must have dipped into the Third Way issue of Jan./Feb. 2013. It’s Simon Jenkins who brings this up in a review of Alain de Botton’s How to Think More About Sex. Looks like de Botton’s book is set to address this lamentable shortfall, urging us to give a bit more thought to sex. I have to get hold of that book. Quickly!

Seriously, though, I do agree with Jenkins’ comment that we tend not to ‘give enough quality reflection to this fundamental human drive’. So, yes, I really will make sure to get a copy of How to Think More About Sex.

Random thoughts

Freedom is fragile

13 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.

Germaine Greer, as quoted in Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach (eds), Fifty Shades of Feminism

Random thoughts

I should have been a writer

11 May, 201311 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

There are some truly sad anecdotes in Fifty Shades of Feminism, edited by Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach. Muneeza Shamsie, for instance, in ‘The Words of Women’, reflects on her mother’s fate in Pakistan, noting that, ‘on the last night of her life, she rang my paternal aunt Tazeen and said, “All these years I was turned into a housewife and made useless! I should have been a writer!” Such a self-revelation’, Shamsie comments, ‘at eighty-six, a few hours before dying!’

Random thoughts

Scapegoating

8 May, 201314 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

… as soon as you have high levels of fear, the risk of scapegoating becomes very real.

Once again Helena Kennedy, in Third Way Jan./Feb. 2013

Random thoughts

Feeling uncertain

7 May, 201314 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

… feeling uncertain is sometimes the most fruitful way of being.

Helena Kennedy, in Third Way Jan./Feb. 2013

(And yes, I’m a bit behind in my reading of this magazine.)

Random thoughts

Most crucial in private

6 May, 20136 May, 2013 Karl MöllerLeave a comment

Interesting thoughts on feminism in public and in private:

As a feminist, I’ve always felt that feminism is most crucial in private. In public, there are always people (men and women) to reason and defend the place of women. The discourse is clear, potent and largely active. We’re moving forwards, change is occurring. I do feel that.

The private sphere is where I most need feminism’s ideas. It’s here that we ask ourselves deep and secret questions. Interrogate our hopes, ambitions and desires, find out who we’re trying to please, hold up the current shape of ourselves against the images that formed us.

Josie Rourke, ‘The Right to Be Uncertain’, in Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach (eds), Fifty Shades of Feminism