The Virtual Stoa

Jill Craigie, socialist film-maker, 1914 – 1999.

Good to see Terry Eagleton in this week’s New Statesman make a point which isn’t made often enough: there really aren’t many (so-called) family (so-called) values on display in the New Testament, and it’s bewildering that the people who think of themselves as most concerned with what the Bible actually says should tend to be the ones who seem to think that it’s all gung-ho about the delights of domesticity and being nice to your relatives.

(For the title quote, try Matthew 8:18-22 or, better, Luke 9:57-62.)

I like to think that this story is something to do with making sure that Charles doesn’t escape with anything that’s rightfully the Great British Tax-Payer’s when he heads off for his long-promised, long-delayed exile in Switzerland.

But it probably isn’t.

Letter of the (Yester)Day: Don’t miss Class Worrier Raj Patel’s letter in yesterday’s Financial Times, on just what Thabo Mbeki’s up to with regards to Zimbabwe these days.

He (Raj, not Thabo) apologises for referring to COSATU as a Confederation. It is, of course, a Congress.

Which Hellenistic School of Philosophy Would You Belong To?

Raphael Samuel (also here), people’s historian, born 1934, died 9 December 1996.

Not bad right now. Santorum‘s still comfortably at #1, British National Party is at #3, Proud of Britain is #5, and a real coup for Anthony Wells, whose Swivel-Eyed Loons appears to go straight into the chart at #1!

Not my friend Ted Vallance, who is happily still among the ranks of the living, but the similarly-named Edouard-Marie Vaillant, French socialist, b. 28 January 1940 1840, d. 8 December 1915.

My goodness: everyone’s favourite academics Josh “Boston Review” Cohen, Elizabeth “What is the Point of Equality?” Anderson and Stephen “The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’” Darwall have started their own blog over at Left2Right, promising contributions from Richard Rorty and other implausibles.

As I say, my goodness.

Alexandra Samuel, who is one of the world’s finest Canadians (and a fellow member of the Harvard Government Department’s 1995 cohort), has started her own blog over at Otherwise Engaged.

It’ll probably be full of the kind of technogeekery that’s a bit too technogeeky for me, but then that’s the kind of technogeek that Alex is, and that I’m not. But do pay her a visit, and learn about how computers can participate in the building of Canadian social democracy, or whatever it is that (i) computers and (ii) Alex are doing these days.

Nick Barlow’s got a new look — and a much better new look than his recent new look, and has kindly stuck the Virtual Stoa right at the top of his own blogroll, which is good of him.

I see that I gave the number 129 to both Victor Serge and Leo Tolstoy in the Dead Socialist Watch. Apologies for that, and I’ll renumber the relevant posts accordingly now.

Apologies for that. The end of term’s always a busy time, and the end of the Michaelmas Autumn term’s especially so.