The Monkey's Digest - Links posted in January
Three Monkeys is committed to producing interesting and eclectic material online, but also to the finding and highlighting of great online content. The Monkey's Digest is our own small contribution to rewarding the thousands of sites that are committed to producing intelligent, interesting, and unique material online, that too-often gets hidden behind the rubbish heap of dancing-chipmunk videos or latest Paris Hilton headline.
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Beppe Grillo's Inferno
The New Yorker takes a look at Italy's political collapse through the eyes of its most popular comedian and activist - Beppe Grillo
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Second Life faces the Sub-Prime crisis
Linden Labs have taken steps to prevent a Sub-Prime crisis affecting the virtual markets in second life
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How does Rupert define where news is news?
A story about the FBI, freedom of information, and the sale of nuclear materials to Pakistan is news for Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times, but not for his American outlets...
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India's Bollywood Power
Shashi Tharoor examines India's claim to be a world power, and dismisses many of the normal indicators - purchasing power, military strength etc. India's real power, he suggests is the 'soft' power of Bollywood. A soft power which spreads from Kabul
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Shading in the Jena 6 case
It's a clear case of racism or criminality, depending upon your recieved wisdom, but the Jena 6 case in America, where six black youths accused of second-degree attempted murder have become icons of the 21st century civil-rights movement. Atlantic mo
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Saeed Mirza
Saeed Mirza, staunch Leftist who admits to being spiritually influenced by Sufism, tells Jabberwock why he felt compelled to write a letter to a woman who has been dead for over eighteen years.
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Polish anti-semitism after the holocaust
A new book by Polish born Princeton historian, Jan Tomasz Gross, is causing controversy in Poland as it suggests post-holocaust anti-semitism was largely caused by economic factors. Pogroms in 1945 and 46, he argues, were intended to remove inconveni
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Kicked out of 'blackness' - on Clarence Thomas and critical thinking
Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy writes about the politics of racial betrayal in his new book 'Sellout' - reviewed intelligently by Salon's James Hanaham
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Publish and be damned?
Vladimir Nabokov's last manuscript, 'Laura', is apparently held in a bank vault in Switzerland. The author wanted it destroyed, but his son Dimitri isn't sure that to do so would be ethical
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Putting a green face on business as usual
BP have announced a massive $50million-a-year investment in a new academic-industry alliance that partners the petrol giant with the Universities of California and Illinois. The new alliance will research bio-fuel development, but critics suggest tha
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Will the real hooded man please stand up
Errol Morris, who is working on a film about Abu Ghraib, examines the case of mistaken identity concerning the hooded man in that iconic photograph, and the victim of torture who claimed to be the self-same hooded man.
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He's stopped listening to the Smiths
Alexander Billet finds it painful to listen to the Smiths after a recent NME interview with Morrissey.
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On Bullshit
Harry Frankfurt's 2005 treatise on Bullshit, which proposes to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, through tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis is now thankfully on-line
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Has global warming really stopped?
Climate change activist Mark Lynas responds to the controversial New Statesman article of December which suggested that global warming had in fact stopped.
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Publish and be damned?
Vladimir Nabokov's last manuscript, 'Laura', is apparently held in a bank vault in Switzerland. The author wanted it destroyed, but his son Dimitri isn't sure that to do so would be ethical
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Has global warming really stopped?
Climate change activist Mark Lynas responds to the controversial New Statesman article of December which suggested that global warming had in fact stopped.
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Putting a green face on business as usual
BP have announced a massive $50million-a-year investment in a new academic-industry alliance that partners the petrol giant with the Universities of California and Illinois. The new alliance will research bio-fuel development, but critics suggest tha
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Will the real hooded man please stand up
Errol Morris, who is working on a film about Abu Ghraib, examines the case of mistaken identity concerning the hooded man in that iconic photograph, and the victim of torture who claimed to be the self-same hooded man.
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He's stopped listening to the Smiths
Alexander Billet finds it painful to listen to the Smiths after a recent NME interview with Morrissey.
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On Bullshit
Harry Frankfurt's 2005 treatise on Bullshit, which proposes to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, through tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis is now thankfully on-line
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Hannah Arendt
Newly published material written by Hannah Arendt prior to her 1951 'Origins of Totalitarianism' give a new insight into the development of her ideas on zionism and anti-semitism
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Niagra - Manafacturing a Honeymoon Heaven.
Marilyn Monroe, who played sultry temptress Rose Loomis in the 1952 film Niagra, epitomised the 'manafactured' natural beauty that has seduced America. Niagra falls too has worked hard for its appearance, letting newly weds know that the world can en
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Perfect or Perverted
In the nineteenth century physicians took upon themselves the onerous task of assigning sex in cases where physical ambiguities existed, leading to the paradox of the perfect hermaphrodite - at once perfect and yet deformed. Elizabeth Reis examines a
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The ideology of Facebook
Tom Hodgkinson examines the neoconservative libertarianism of Facebook, where you can be free to be who you want to be as long as you don't mind being bombarded by the world's biggest brands
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Boycott Lettuce - The Revolutionary art of Emory Douglas
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles holds a retrospective on Black Panther artist Emory Douglas.
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Does Economic Development Reduce Terrorism?
A recent survey in Pakistan showed support of up to a third of the population for Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. Professor Gary Becker debates the role economic development may have in bolstering support for terrorism.
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Kosovo: the hour of Europe?
As the new Kosovan government of Hashim Thaci prepares to break away from Serbia, Prof. John O'Brennan argues that the Serbia/Kosova endgame is the most important geopolitical issue facing the enlarged EU
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BMW, Daimler and Porsche recognised for their lobbying efforts
Car manafacturers BMW, Daimler and Porsche, have been nominated for the dubious honour of 'worst lobbying' in the EU 2007 award. The car manafacturers have been recognised for their consistently effective lobbying to water down new EU regulations on
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Franz Kafka meets Lenny Bruce in Mandalay
After the recent pro-democracy protests in Myanmar, two of the countries leading comedians are locked up, as the military ask 'who told you to tell these jokes?'
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Turkey's Dreyfus Affair
The trial of a young Kurdish soldier serving in the Turkish military brings to mind another famous case, that of Alfred Dreyfus in France in the 1890s.
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What can you write about after apartheid?
One of South Africa's most famous authors, Nadime Gordimer, speaks to the Guardian about her post-Apartheid work
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As Suharto lays dying
Suharto continues to hold the entire country hostage. With fear and opportunism, business and political leaders are goose-stepping in front of his bed. And talk of prosecuting Indonesia's former dictator for human rights abuses fade away.
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Degrees of compassion - Aaronovitch selling Blair
Medialens holds journalist David Aaronovitch up to scrutiny for his unbridled support of Tony Blair and his 'interventions' in Kosovo and Iraq
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Do Monkeys have the 'oldest profession'?
Studies have been revealed that suggest that humans aren't the only species to pay for sex.
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Smurfian Communism
The Smurfs are 50 years old this year, but do they remain relevant after the cold war given that, according to some, they represent a communist allegory
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Does the Senator believe in evolution?
Ronald Bailey examines the Presidential nomination candidates' positions on evolution, and explains why it should matter.
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Space Invaders voting democrat
States like Arizona are urgently 'tightening' voter id requirements to prevent illegal aliens voting - but where's the proof, and how does it affect legitimate voters?
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Caving in to Nuclear
Polly Toynbee argues that British MPs endorsement of the Nuclear industry is like buying a new roof from the cowboy who conned you first time round.
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Rewarding failure - a banking system in crisis
A visitor from the 1950s would not recognise today's banking system, a system changed utterly by policies that encourage increasingly severe financial crises
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Developing decimation - a required skill in the internet age
A 1995 conversation between Umberto Eco and Patrick Coppock focussing on the net. What is the difference between the Newspaper that publishes too much news, and Pravda that publishes none?
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My novels are democracies - Amos Oz interviewed
An illuminating interview with the Israeli novelist that took place upon the publication of his novel 'The Same Sea' a number of years ago.
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Devaluing tears - Germaine Greer on Hilary's tears
Germaine Greeer remains resolutely unimpressed with Hilary's tears. If voters were impressed, she says, it's because they wished a tear into Clinton's stony reptilian eye
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Playing the Class Card against Hilary
Truth Dig's Robert Scheer trumps Hilary Clinton's gender card with one scarcely heard of during the Presidential primaries - the class card.
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Where's Africa? The internet density map
Chris Harrison creates some impressive visualisations based on internet connectivity data. The digital divide at a glance.
