Three Monkeys Online has always had a problem in terms of categorising, and nowhere is this more evident than with our current affairs section. Originally, way back in 2004, it was termed ‘politics’, then it moved to ‘current affairs’ for wont of a more inclusive term – but here you’ll find articles and interviews on politics, economics, human rights, feminism, church and state relations, philosophy, and protest. There’s a healthy dose of essays and opinion pieces focused in particular on Irish, Italian, and Spanish politics – as TMO started out as a magazine based in Ireland, Italy, and Spain – but as the magazine has grown, so has our writing base. So, whether you want to call it ‘current affairs’, ‘politics’, ‘alternative culture’ or some other term, we hope you’ll find plenty to interest you here.
Sins of the Flesh: The Mislabeling of Surf and Turf
“The flesh is the surface of the unknown.” – Victor Hugo On January 15th, The Food Safety Authority of Ireland announced the discovery of horse meat tainted beef being produced, packed, and shipped from slaughterhouses in the UK and Ireland. ABP Food Group, the company deemed responsible, suspended production in its Co. Monaghan plant. As [...]
Free Ride – Robert Levine on copyright, piracy, and culture
It’s an extremely cold (but not, we insist rainy) day in Dublin and I am sitting down in Hodges Figgis Bookshop on Dawson St. I am not alone. There are a couple of other likely and some unlikely audience candidates dotting the seats which have been set up for tonight’s main event- a talk by [...]
The Port Huron Statement – Fifty Years On
As we wait for the definitive manifesto of Occupy Movement to be written – if that is possible given the diverse range of opinions and voices that are associated with it – this is arguably an opportune moment to look back 50 years at another radical grouping , which did succeed in putting together and [...]
Che Guevara & Ireland’s Quisling Capitalism
The controversy over Galway City Council’s proposal to erect a statue to Che Guevara to commemorate his family links to the city (his mother Anna Elizabeth was a Lynch and born in the city), is indicative of a wider discourse in Irish society. There is already a controversial – and popular – Che Guevara Festival in [...]
Poland’s Recipe for Wealth: Work till you Drop
“That pension systems are unable to finance the retirement of ever increasing numbers of longer-lived pensioners nobody in aging Europe doubts,” writes Joanna Solska in Poland’s biggest selling, influential current affairs magazine Polityka1. Meanwhile Prime Minister Tusk insists that, “the aim of the pensions bill is to bring pleasure.” The proposed bill raises the retirement [...]
5 Things You Can Do To Honour International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day is at once a problematic and worthy idea; Shoe-horning half the world’s population into a day on the UN’s calendar, along with other hard-pressed categories like migratory birds (14-15 May) and world intellectual property (26th of April) should make you more than a little uneasy, as should the fact that more than [...]
Women Under Siege – the use of rape as a weapon of war
The International Criminal Court made legal history in February 2002, when it ruled in what has become known as the’rape camp‘ case that the systematic rape of women in the town of Foca constituted a crime against humanity. In Slavenka Drakulić’s book They Would Never Hurt a Fly – War Criminals on Trial in the [...]
Writing the Riots – Paul Goodman and Growing up Absurd
In 1959, at a time of violent unrest among American youth, a publisher commissioned a study of juvenile delinquency from Paul Goodman. The resulting volume, Growing up Absurd, was an immediate if unlikely success. Goodman had already written more than twenty books, none of which had made any great impression. And fifty years on he is [...]
Translating Egypt’s Revolution
As is so often the way with beginnings, I was looking for someone and something else completely when I stumbled on the class Samia Mehrez is teaching. Professor of Arabic literature at the American University in Cairo, she came up with the idea of Translating the Revolution and organised its schedule within weeks of Mubarak’s [...]
EU finally to say ‘Yes’ to Turkey?
The decision by the European Commission to recommend the EU open accession negotiations with Turkey is a momentous one. It has been a long time coming. The Turkish application for membership was first lodged back in 1963. Over the past decade Turkey has watched thirteen countries negotiate with and then join the EU whilst it [...]
Sinister Nexus – Berlusconi and the culture of corruption. David Lane in interview.
David Lane's book Berlusconi's Shadow was to originally have been titled The Sinister Nexus, until a pragmatic intervention from the publishers put Silvio Berlusconi firmly in the spotlight. It was a reasonable change, as Berlusconi is most certainly the central character of the book, but the original title reveals the ambition of the book. &ldquoI [...]
The Best Democracy Money can Buy. Greg Palast in interview.
&ldquoThe more it changes the more it stays the same” says Greg Palast, this cold and wet Saturday three days before one of the most hotly contested elections in American History. Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money can Buy was the journalist who broke the story about the illegal removal of thousands of voters [...]
”Bush and Kerry: Contrasting Styles with the Same Results”
Much has been made recently of the contrasting decisional styles of American presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. According to the consensus of insider books and press interviews, Bush is a leader of the “C.E.O.” type who dwells on the “big picture,” chooses the side that conforms with that moralized picture and then [...]
Bushwomen. Angel in the house or demon on the loose – it is all in the presentation.
&ldquoW is for Women” reads one of the slogans for George W. Bush's re-election campaign. It reminds me of a badge that was very popular when I was a student: &ldquoThe earth is flat. Pigs can fly. Nuclear energy is safe.” While following the US election campaign, many European observers have commented on how much [...]
Every wave is made of tiny drops. Reflections on Stephen Hawking and the paradox of information loss.
Even a huge wave appearing suddenly in the sea is made up of tiny drops of water and it is the beautiful result of many factors. Similarly, any progress in science is built on a large number of small results obtained by a myriad of researchers, and influenced by other sociological factors. However, it seems [...]
What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School – or the Economics of Terrorism. Loretta Napoleoni in interview.
The Economic Models of Terrorism “I think there was a reluctance to accept a book like this because at that certain moment, after 9/11 what they wanted to push forward was the religious argument. That it was a bunch of religious fanatics, whereas this book is saying the opposite”. Loretta Napoleoni is talking about the [...]
Chechnya: Russia’s Second Afghanistan
Article reprinted with permission from PINR Russia’s predicament in its rebellious republic of Chechnya is fast spinning out of control and is threatening to become Russia’s second Afghanistan. After ten years of trying to control Chechnya primarily by military force, punctuated by a period of withdrawal from 1996 to 1999, Russia still has not been [...]
The Game of War. Guy Debord and the Society of the Spectacle.
It is somehow grimly appropriate that ten years after he shot himself through the heart, Guy Debord, an acute analyst of how the media can blandly neuter transgressive figures, has become a 'celebrity'. Surrounded by calumnies and myths, the one-time leader of the Situationist International (SI) has become indelibly associated with the euphoria of the [...]
Trust the Stork. Reflections on the law to regulate Assisted Reproduction in Italy.
Translated from Italian – The original article may be accessed here. I can remember a pair of girls, in secondary school, that became pregnant by 'accident', or unwittingly, maybe because they didn't know enough about the mysteries of human reproduction, or maybe because they were careless. I remember as well the solidarity, partly from compassion [...]
