News and Current Affairs
Global anxieties, local hope
My current job takes me out to talk to young people. I visit schools, and also they come to our university to discuss the Arts and Sciences (BASc) degree. I enjoy these occasions a lot. Occasionally I get a little carried away and can’t contain my enthusiasm, and end up confusing the message a bit, but generally these are really good occasions – particularly when the students have plenty of time to ask questions and the visit becomes a genuine exchange, a conversation rather than a lecture. But there is also, in the background,...
read moreLondon Riots 2011 – and Rousseau
I don’t think the London riots of 2011 have one simple explanation. But for one view of why these things happen and the legitimacy of some subsequent reactions, you could not write a better piece than this: “When powerful men abuse it, the law becomes an offensive weapon for them and a shield against the weak, and the pretext of public security is always the most dangerous scourge of the people. The most necessary and perhaps the most difficult task in government is to show strict integrity in rendering justice to all, and above...
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